| Argy's Arts Blog

February 25th, 2007 · 20 Comments
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2-25-07

This past week we had an initial conversation about a Visual and Performing Arts conference. The conference will be held at the Samoset in Rockport on October 28th and 29th. The planning committee will have their first meeting on March 21st. The committee will be made up of teachers from each of the four professional arts teachers organizations. In this first blog entry, please give suggestions on what you would like to see for workshops at the conference and let me know if you are interested in attending.

Argy

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20 responses so far ↓

1 Don Kleiner // Feb 25, 2007 at 8:20 pm

Nice blog!
2 Margret Baldwin // Feb 26, 2007 at 1:34 pm

I would love to see workshops in SKILLS.

Many handworks skills could be incorporated and used in interesting ways in art work. e.g. weaving, sewing, felting , joinery. Children today are sorely lacking in people around them skilled in these “handworks”. Handson, useful manual skills.
I am happy to have a place to put my thoughts!
3 Lisa Gilman // Feb 26, 2007 at 1:36 pm

Great blog!! The conference should address many issues that art educators are having, such as assessment. Another idea would be having teachers show successful lessons, perhaps addressing the learning results in terms of criticism and aesthetics. Also intergration of arts and academics.
Lisa Gilman
Winthrop Middle School
4 Judi Morrison // Feb 26, 2007 at 2:27 pm

I’m so excited to see this blog up and running. I am also thrilled to read that arts conference is in development. I would love to see a session at the conference address using technology in the arts education. Lesson, websites etc.
5 Heidi O'Donnell // Feb 26, 2007 at 3:09 pm

I agree with Lisa. I’d like to see successful lessons by other teachers that address Maine State Learning results. Criticism and aesthetics are where I’d love more support. I’d love to attend the conference.
Heidi O’Donnell
Brunswick Junior High School
6 Kristen Andersen // Feb 27, 2007 at 11:12 am

DITTO! I would love to be inspired by other art teachers by sharing lesson plans, websites, assessment etc. Thank you for planning this!
Kristen Andersen
Camden Rockport Middle School
7 Charlie Johnson // Feb 27, 2007 at 12:19 pm

This blog is awesome, Argy, thank you! Sharing of lesson plans, scoring rubrics, approaches to assessments (MLR/VPA)and all of the above would be great aspects of a conference! The visual AND performing arts spending time might also open some doors to co-operating and strengthening overall programs in schools. I would really like to see some mixture of hands-on and methods workshops (leading critiques, inspiring content in work, and maybe student-based assessment) with perhaps some sort of theme -”emotion, American values, aspects of society”. Thanks again!
8 Kristin McKinlay // Feb 27, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Thanks for all your work, Argy. Between the newsletter and this site, we’ll all be bettter informed and, hopefully, inspired!
I love the idea of a VPA conference and would plan on attending. I agree with the others on a balance of methods/lesson or unit sharing/assessment/integration/hands-on work time.
9 Jenni Null // Feb 27, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Argy, this is wonderful…many thanks for setting up a conference for us. I would love a forum for arts educators to discuss some of the issues we are contending with (shrinking budgets, competing with other content areas for student contact time, having to deliver our curriculum before and after school). There is strength in numbers so perhaps together we can find some solutions.

I would also be interested in arts resources that people have used for school cultural events. With shrinking funds, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to bring in professional artists and musicians.

Thanks for getting us “connected” once again, Argy!

Jenni Null, SAD#61 Fine Arts Coordinator
10 Joe Makley // Feb 28, 2007 at 4:23 pm

Hi Argy,
I’ve just added your blog to my RSS feeds. What if we set up a wiki as a curriculum framework based on the new learning results for VPA? That way, all the arts educators could share in creating it. And they could have fun adding visual elements, video, etc.
Anyway, what I’d like to see in the conference is a prototype scope and sequence that would “fulfill” the arts requirement. Thanks for doing this!
Joe

Joe Makley
Curriculum Director
Jay School Department
5 Tiger Drive
Jay, Maine 04239
207-897-3936 FAX: 897-5431
http://www.jay.k12.me.us
11 Joe Makley // Mar 1, 2007 at 2:29 pm

Is anybody using the puppet generator at:
http://roxik.com/pictaps/?

Joe
12 Erin Brainerd // Mar 1, 2007 at 2:45 pm

This blog is great! I saw the conference coming up…just to throw it out there; maybe there could be some sort of collaboration with the Farnsworth Art Museum. We would love to help out,share info, and hear what teachers need. Let me know what you think.
13 Cathy Grigsby // Mar 13, 2007 at 7:06 am

In response to the quesion of what we do to celebrate Youth Art Month. Two of the art teachers in our district happen to be on the program committee for the Bridgton Arts Guild, which runs Gallery 302. We just put together our third annual student show. Over half of our artists give up their space for the month of March for the students. Besides showcasing the studetnt work of three area high schools, we have also shown work the work of students from USM’s art education department. This year we have four students. It is an awsome display!
14 Allison Lakin // Mar 13, 2007 at 8:25 am

Perhaps a session reporting on what arts organizations can offer to their local schools and how teachers can access those programs (contacts, free programs, outside fundung, etc…). This might also be a good introduction to the teacher resource page the Arts Education Connection group is creating.
15 Beth Ann Walker // Mar 13, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Great suggestions(successful lesson plans, rubrics, assessment)
How about the above and beyond techniques that we can use with our Visual Arts GT programs?
Will there be any art vendors there?(Dick Blick, SAX, United Art, etc) The vendors are always chock full of new product, lesson ideas and freebies to take back to the classroom.
I love getting the e mails, Argy, and look forward to seeing what’s down the pike…or up the pike as I’m in the great lost north.
16 Cathy Adelman // Apr 2, 2007 at 9:58 am

Argy, I like the sugestions for conference topics related to assessment, (particularly portfolio assessment), skills and lesson sharing. It is important that we speak with each other. However, the harder question for me is: How can we bring administrators into the conversation? These are the people who color our days and define the margins of our practice. How can we share a view that the arts are at the center of learning? Arts education, at its best, utilizes the Principles of Best Practice, the Guiding Principles of the MLR and high order thinking skills. The process of creating original work involves a constant feedback loop of synthesis and evaluation. When our arts piece is integrated with other content learning, powerful and engaging scenarios are created for all learners.
As I write this, I am thinking that the Integration work that we do may be the hook for other educators and administrators……..
17 Cathy Adelman // Apr 2, 2007 at 10:08 am

Argy, some folks were interested in lessons which address the third standard: Aesthetic Criticism. I think the VTS program addresses this standard and the follow up writing adds the integration ingredient to make it even more powerful. The students are utilizing most of the strategies used in reading and critical thinking. You may have seen these posted in many of the classrooms in our district. I’ll forward you the complete list. Perhaps a workshop around literacy and art integration can take shape with some of the collaborating teachers participating.
18 William Buzza // Apr 4, 2007 at 7:22 pm

I think a great presentation at the fall conference would be on advocacy. With more and more educational decisions being based on math and reading scores and the NWEA, it would be helpful to know the kinds of information, data and strategies that can be used to advocate for our arts programs.
19 Paul LeBrun // Apr 10, 2007 at 6:14 pm

I would love to see some new media demonstrations and ways for art teachers to network with other schools for collaborative projects.
20 Michelle Zelkowitz // May 30, 2007 at 5:56 am

Argy,
Thank you. We have a wonderful opportunity to work collaboratively with teaching artists, arts educators, schools, arts organizations and our communities which foster and support arts learning and teaching.

As an educator of visual art teachers, I would like the conference to reach out, welcome, and support our newest teachers. To achieve this I would volunteer to facilitate a networking session between veteran teachers and new teachers, and/or individuals who are studying to be arts educators. I think the topics of discussion and sharing would include many of the topics already suggested: lesson plans aligned to standards; assessments; arts advocacy; the use of technology; hands-on workshops. However, I also think it is important to hear about how veteran teachers make and create art in and outside of their classrooms and how they integrate their work in their teaching. I suggest we ALL showcase OUR art through exhibits, demonstrations and performances and talk about how we use our skills and talents to further the arts. If everyone could bring a small piece of art/music/theatre/dance we could celebrate what we already have and build on it collaboratively. Thanks, again. This conference is very exciting and i look forward to participating.