SUMMER INSTITUTE

Teachers and Teaching Artists across the country are invited to attend the annual Summer Institute which is two and a half days of professional development equipping educators with practical skills for incorporating national arts standards, providing meaningful arts education to students.

A representative subset of REACH’s 150 teacher leaders (~15%) will come together with teaching artists, subject matter experts, and influential principals and superintendents during the national convening Summer Institute each year to explore how to leverage this work further into the nation’s education system. As a result of intense, deep PD investment in 150 teacher leaders, the ripple effect from sharing via School Collaborative Teams and cross school/LEA peer sharing, 4,000 teachers across REACH’s twelve districts will gain knowledge and learn best practices developed through this initiative. These leaders will also be acquiring skills in: team building facilitation techniques; mentoring; and learning principles.

Teachers will develop foundational content knowledge in each of the arts disciplines of music, theatre, dance, visual and media arts, storytelling and folk arts, in collaboration with the teaching artists so that students can develop skills in creating, performing, responding, and connecting to the arts consistent with national standards. They will also learn integration strategies to support their embedding creativity and arts learning into other subject areas.

Milestones: Launch Convening in first year leads to annual summer convening in which influential educators explore strategies to build greater support structures for schools and districts that embrace arts learning and arts integration as a pedagogical strategy; teams work year-round to explore content and design program for annual convening.