Professional Development: The Arts Are Left Out
One of the reasons we feel so passionate about the resources we offer at The Institute is they help stop the gap happening for teacher professional development. When it comes to PD, arts-focused educators get the short end of the stick. While there are hundreds of thousands of arts educators, professional development meaningful to arts-focused work is nearly impossible to find. This is where online learning plays a huge role, and why we choose to offer so many of our resources virtually. This includes our classes, resource guides, live events, and the ONLY online conference dedicated to arts integration and STEAM.
Given this is national distance learning week, we wanted to share with you facts you may not know about arts-focused professional learning:
”K-12 teachers indicate that teachers believe the arts are important in education, but use them rarely. They are hindered by a lack of professional development and intense pressure to teach the mandated curriculum.” (Oreck, 2004)
“Arts-integrated professional development provides an important sense of community and respect among arts teachers, classroom educators and administration in schools.” (Burnaford, 2009)
“Online teacher professional development has the same effect on student learning and teacher behavior as more traditional face-to-face models.” (Fishman, Konstantopoulos, Kubitskey, Vath, Park, Johnson, and Edelson, 2013)
The following national professional arts organizations ALL offer some sort of online professional learning:
National Art Educators Association.
National Association for Music Educators.
National Dance Education Organization.
And the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.
Online Conferences are catching on in the arts! Here are some organizations that offer virtual conferences specific to arts educators:
Virtual Music Education Conference
Whole Child Virtual Conference
And of course, we offer the semi-annual Connectivity STEAM Conference which is completely virtual as well.
Online learning is definitely something we can leverage for all areas, especially the arts, as we look for more personalized, meaningful growth and networking opportunities. How do you leverage online learning to meet your needs? I’d love to hear about what virtual opportunities you are utilizing!
Learn more
