Year Two: LTTA Professional Learning Artist Mentorship

Inspiration for a project that falls within the scope of the Teacher's arts disposition

YEAR TWO: Through a year-long connection with an artist-educator, on-going collaboration and co-learning with colleagues invested in the same arts disposition, teachers will inspire each other and their students to explore, create and celebrate the arts. Their work will be dynamic hands on learning that is planning and learning with a purpose. Final projects in year two will reach a standard of excellence in terms of showcasing teacher art skills, student engagement, classroom transformation, and community connection.

A year long media arts experience with master artists deconstructed:
Year Two ensures that an arts aesthetic is explored with other teachers and students in a meaningful way, therefore also ensuring that the arts becomes embedded in teacher culture. Below are the phases of the year two prototype.

The Bridge from the teacher's arts disposition to an Arts Expression Project. 

Phase One: Development of a Creative Arts Learning Expression Project Plan. Four to Six weeks.

•       Build on the curation/informed sharing of arts expression-related resources/learning.

•       Solidify collaboration among teachers, artist educator, and students.

Artist-Educator connection: 

• The artist educator and the teacher continue to share curated images/examples of artistic expression that fit within the discipline. 
• Guidance in the development of project ideas that will connect the arts expression skills of the teacher to the classroom students, the school and the wider community. 
• The artist educator will meet with the students/teachers during this time to inspire, generate enthusiasm for the upcoming project, facilitate a planning session, share some of the technology tools that may be used later in the project. 

Collaboration among teachers:
Teacher partnerships will discuss/share/evolve/support the project. Ideally, several teachers/teacher partnerships will develop similar projects so that a larger community sharing of the projects results in a greater sense of shared learning.

The teacher will be encouraged to share an increased awareness about how he/she applies her artistic expression in the classroom outside of the project work and in living a creative life.

The development phase will include defining project details:

• the scope of the project
• defining audience and purpose with an eye to community connection/involvement
• the key elements of the project 
• student involvement, teacher involvement, artist educator involvement
• artistic expression objectives of the project
• other connecting themes
• core curriculum connection to the project 

Filling up the well: Project Conception to Project Execution

Phase Two: Application of skills and knowing to the Arts Expression Project. 

• Art activities are explored and refined, leading to the finalization of pieces that will be included in the final project

Artist Educator connection: 
The artist acts as an on-going coach to teacher during the creation work. 

• Through virtual means or in person, the artist educator consults (deconstructs, supports and evaluates after the lesson is completed) on the efficacy of teacher plans that will see a classroom of students engaged and producing, with success, the building blocks of the project. 
• The artist educator will meet with the students/teachers during this time to facilitate one of the project elements of artistic expression.

Collaboration among teachers:
Teacher partnerships will discuss/share/evolve/support the execution of their projects within the context of professional learning. 

The project elements during this application phase will/may include:

• the use of technology apps to facilitate learning and production of project elements, 
• lesson plans that complete project elements
• field trips, 
• community experts as guests (through teleconference or physically in the classroom), 
• video tutorials 
• found digital resources
• found literature resources

Show your work. Share the voices. Shine a light forward.

Phase 3: The Community Interaction* of the Arts Expression Project. 

Artist-Educator connection: 

• The artist educator and the teacher will model for students and alongside students: what it means to interject your voice into the community, to show others what you do and the things you care about. 
• Guidance in the culmination of project ideas that will connect the arts expression skills of the teacher to the classroom students, the school and the wider community. 
• The artist educator may meet with the students/teachers during this time to assist with/facilitate pieces of the production of the artistic expression project. 

Collaboration among teachers: 
Teacher partnerships will continue in this phase and hopefully will see teachers attending or collaborating (virtually or in person) other teacher's Arts Expression Project. 

OPTIONAL: Germinate creative endeavours. We anticipate this is a week-long exploration in a multi-disciplinary setting where open exploration with a master artist as mentor. The teacher will be encouraged to challenge their increased awareness of the art form, examine the systems and processes and then look towards a Year Three project that involves/integrates more staff, more students and a greater connection to the community. Widening the circle. 

* Note: Community Interaction to suggest an active experience for the audience. To "share like an artist" means communication with the audience happen alongside the art or even within it- the transformation of the individual through the artistic expression is seen and felt vibrantly and dynamically. 

We're listening.

What do you think about any of these phases and the overall objectives of Year Two? 

• Have you had similar experiences in the past? 
• What made the difference between success and failure?
• Why or why were you not engaged at every phase of the process?
• In what ways was your readiness for the work a factor? 
• How important are relationships to this process? What relationships are key to success? 

Thanks for reading. We're so excited about the potential ways that our work might assist us in fulfilling our mandate to develop human potential. We're convinced once again, after all this work, that the finest instrument is the mind.