St. Louis Teaching Artist Institute
The St. Louis Teaching Artist Institute (TAI) is a project of the Regional Arts Commission made possible by a major grant from Wells Fargo Advisors. Springboard to Learning and NCCJ St. Louis oversee the curriculum development taking inspiration from the Lincoln Center Education approach.
TAI trains teaching artists focused on K–12 education using a curriculum inspired by the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education that focuses on hands-on opportunities to explore and understand the arts through “imaginative learning.” The approach begins with each student’s innate ability to respond to works of art — visual and performing — and invites them to challenge preconceived notions of what they see and understand.
Participants benefit from ongoing education throughout TAI with peer learning and individualized coaching from master teaching artists. TAI is open to up to 30 teaching artists, working in all artistic disciplines and all regions of St. Louis.
Applications are currently closed for the next Teaching Artist Institute. We will share more information as soon as we are able to set a new schedule.
Teaching Artist Institute Goals and Objectives
- Develop an understanding of the fundamentals of teaching artistry that applies across various settings and purpose. Learning, understanding, and applying the basic tenets of the Lincoln Center teaching artist’s model listed below:
- Activating artistry – the capacity to activate the artistry of others, supporting the discovery of individual artistic voice, articulating ideas in and through an art form, and developing a personal relationship to the arts.
- Adeptness with creative processes – the ability to engage, guide, and open up creative processes and to balance their potency with artistic products.
- Creating safe-and-charged environments for engagement – the ability to foster a particular learning environment that is inviting, challenging, and energizing. This dual quality is conducive to artistic quality and rigor, with a wide range of participants and settings.
- Deftness with inquiry processes – an expert sense of and flexibility with questioning, considering multiple perspectives, digging deeper, wondering, revising, self-assessing, and reflecting. Reflective processes include looking back, within, and ahead, as well as guiding learners to personally relevant discoveries.
- Authenticity – a commitment to the presence of your artist-self and an artist-to-artist relationship with participants; this manifests in the quality of your attention, in co-learning, in spontaneous experimentation and improvisation, and in a transparent sharing of your ongoing discoveries.
- Imagining meaningful new worlds – an inclination toward “the more”—a relentless urge to reach beyond the literal, beyond the “good enough,” beyond right answers and standard solutions, and to seeing the world as if it could be otherwise.
- Gain tools for planning and facilitating effective activities, lesson, and workshops
- Develop strong and effective learning plans for both individual lessons and multiple session residencies
- Learn and practice effective student/class management and engagement strategies
- Embedding Social/Emotional and Equity focused instruction into lessons
- Learn and utilize self-assessment strategies/tools to use as a professional growth platform
- Gain skills to assess student learning in the arts
- Develop and support leadership competencies and communication (listening/speaking/presenting) skills with student
- Learn about best practices in arts education through in-person modeling of strategies, workshops, reading assignments, and discussion
- Develop strategies to bridge your artistic and teaching practices, strengthening both
- Receive ongoing, individualized support from master teaching artist and peers
- Learn to collaborate with teachers and community stakeholders to support your work
- Participate and reflect on activities facilitated by teaching artist to tease out key concepts and practices in strong work
- Connect with a community of dedicated teaching artists
- Become part of a St. Louis professional learning community
