Building Academic Communities Through the Arts Workshop

In a fun, active, participatory week, teachers practice ideas for integrating storytelling, drawing and other visual art-making, casual singing, movement, storytelling, and poetry into the learning day. The workshop provides tools to engage and empower children towards high achievement by providing them multiple, attractive doorways into learning. BACTA is designed for teachers who may feel that they have no particular strength in any art form, but wish to add the appeal of the arts to their instruction. It’s easier and more effective than you may think!

Prerequisite: Responsive Classroom 1 or Developmental Designs for Middle School 1 workshop

Workshop tuition

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No art expertise necessary

Teachers do not need any special skills in any arts area to succeed in the workshop. The emphasis is on becoming comfortable enough with the arts to regularly add them to subject-area teaching. Teachers who practice arts-infused instruction tell us that once they get over the initial nervousness, they enjoy practicing along with their students. Even more, they welcome the increase in motivation and pleasure in learning across the curriculum that their students experience.

What the week will be like

For experienced and new teachers alike, this will be a week of professional and personal growth. Throughout the week, you’ll find:

Affirmation—of the good practices you’re already using

Self-expression—the chance to capture your thoughts and feelings in forms that will enliven and gratify you

Real solutions—for turning past classroom problems into future successes with the arts

Camaraderie—with fellow educators as you share ideas and work, get support for your challenges, and feel the power of community membership.

You’ll benefit from an immersion experience. Your presenters won’t just talk about strategies for integrating the arts. They’ll model them and you’ll have chance to practice the strategies yourself. A favorite aspect of spending a week in BACTA is the pleasure and growth teachers experience when they do this practicing. It provides a sometimes newly-discovered means of personal expression and makes patently clear what the research tells us—the arts give us learning at a deep and lasting level.

What you’ll learn

The theory behind arts-centered learning and the power of the imagination to promote both cognitive and emotional/social growth

Some competence in basic drawing, and knowing how to introduce basic drawing techniques to students

How to use visual images to make learning more accessible to students

Poetic forms and an approach to help students write good poetry as part of their social studies, science, and language arts curriculum

Simple rhythms and songs to make learning curriculum content and skills more accessible to students

The basic elements of movement and how to use them to teach in any subject area

How to use storytelling, simulations, and role plays to spark student interest and deepen understanding

A format for presenting and facilitating lessons that engages students through the arts, teaches them independence and responsibility in their work habits, and provides the structure for high standards of performance

A variety of question formats and types so that you can lead in-depth inquiries into subject area studies.

Workshop Facilitators

BACTA combines the skills and experience of practicing artists and certified Responsive Classroom and Developmental Designs facilitators who use the arts in their teaching. They are experienced practitioners who know the classroom and are skillful in integrating social, academic, and arts learning.

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