LEARNING WITH CREATIVITY
what i have learned
I have experience in the education field, and primarily identify as an educator. I have always been a very creative and artistic person and I became more interested in what the intersection of these two passions might look like. I had the opportunity to take two teaching artist and arts integration classes during my time at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the course of these classes my teaching philosophy and identity has and still continues to evolve. In this section I will share my biggest takeaways from my fieldwork and interactions with the TA practice and art-based learning.
Synthesizing my experience
Artist
Teacher
?
Arts-Based Lessons
One big takeaway I had was how to plan an arts based lesson. Generally, these lessons follow a three segment format. The initial segment, engage focuses on hooking your participants and getting them ready to engage with the content. The next stage, explore is where the participants dive deeper into the topic and make discoveries. The last stage, reflect, allows the participants to synthesize and think back on the activity to draw meaning.
Below I invite you to explore word clouds for each segment. These word clouds were created using definitions of these three segments from various teaching artists. The size of the words indicate their frequency.
Engage Word Cloud
attention
immerse
focus
participants
feeling
cooperate
fully
physical
enjoy
focus
hook
activity
level
can
act
children
space
bodies
exciting
Explore Word Cloud
creative
activity
investigate
understanding
participants
unknown
comfort-zone
brave
active
body
discussion
meaning-making
mind
risks
analyze
reflect word cloud
meaning-making
absorb
reflect
synthesize
facilitated
learned
observe
activity
moment
participants
meaning
describe
something
digest
Arts-Based Strategies
The key to a successful arts-based lesson plan is using strategies which give your participants an active role in their learning experience. When a student is able to meaning-make for themselves, the experience is far richer.
Below, I share some of my favorite strategies with a short explanation. Click on activities to learn more.