Join Rebecca Cuscaden Marvin, MASS MoCA’s Senior Manager of School Programs, and facilitators for a free professional development day of workshops for PreK-12 educators! Workshops will provide ways to enhance your students’ learning through arts integration activities and techniques such as Visual Thinking Strategies, Universal Design for Learning, and activity-based teaching.

Topics of focus will include how to discuss difficult topics through art, utilizing visual thinking strategies in the classroom, as well as movement and art-making activities to support diverse learning styles. Coffee, lunch, and gallery admission will be provided.

Educators will have the opportunity to receive 5 PDPs in the area of visual arts for participation. Lesson plans and resources will be provided after the workshops with the opportunity to complete additional work offsite to receive another 5 PDPs.

Agenda:
10–10:30am: Welcome, Coffee, & Introductions
10:30am–12:30pm: Translating Visual Thinking Strategies from Museum to Classroom
12:30–1pm: Lunch Break
1–3pm: How to Discuss Difficult Topics Through Art
Educators are welcome to stay at the museum until 5pm for self-guided exploration.

Translating Visual Thinking Strategies from Museum to Classroom
Instructor: Alli Ross, Artist & Educator
The unique way each student sees the world is the beauty of being human. Developing perspective or observational skills is something each subject matter relies on to decode, learn, and collaborate. This workshop will ask educators to use a number of visual, aural, and movement-based strategies to draw on Universal Design for Learning and multiple intelligences of the body, whether in a museum or a classroom. We will begin with noticing practices in solo and small group work in the galleries. This will lead to integrated ways to engage learners across abilities and disciplines. Educators will leave with a bag full of practices to elicit student focus and creativity.

How to Discuss Difficult Topics Through Art
Instructors: Rebecca Cuscaden Marvin, Senior Manager of School Programs, & Beth Davis, Lead Museum Educator
Contemporary art often references difficult and highly relevant topics that challenge students to think critically and connect personally to the work on view. In this workshop, we will teach the pedagogy MASS MoCA Museum Educators use in our guided tours to engage students in conversations through art, as well as manage the variety of responses that arise. The group will then practice conversations in our galleries to showcase how art can be used in the classroom to discuss topics such as racial injustice, LGBTQ+ identities, and immigration. Educators will walk away with conversational tools and examples of contemporary art that they can use to encourage and confidently manage discussions on challenging topics with their students.

About the Educator: Alli Ross M.Ed is a movement artist and educator teaching in Massachusetts for over 20 years. Her training spans the art and performance of theater and dance as well as scholarship and practice of accessible arts education with an M.Ed from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 201l. Alli’s experience teaching through the performing arts spans from kindergarten- college aged students. For 10 years she taught and mentored other teaching artists in creative dance and theater in the Boston Public Schools. During this time she developed curriculum in partnership for the Museum of Fine Arts and Young Audiences of Massachusetts, Mass Motion, the Cambridge Performance Project, the Topf Center for Dance Education and Riverside Theater Works. Other museum residency work includes Dia:Beacon education workshops (2017), Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park (Summer Solstice 2019). She is trained in antiracist practices through the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and Urban Bush Women’s Summer Leadership Institute 2012, 2018 and both taught, devised and toured under the mentorship of Liz Lerman 2012-current. Ross is an Associate Professor of Theater at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee where her research and classes over 11 years work at the intersection of movement arts, grassroots theater making and building immersive theater.