Description

Arts Leadership Academy (ALA) is a professional development program for elementary educators for the purpose of building basic skills in dance, drama, media arts, music, and visual arts. By building personal capacity in these areas, participants are able to bring the arts into their classrooms and provide students with arts experiences as well as deepen learning through arts integration. 

ALA was developed six years ago by the BYU ARTS Partnership in conjunction with other professional development programs, such as Arts Bridge and Arts Express, aimed at increasing arts integration in elementary schools throughout the BYU-Public School Partnership. Each year district arts coordinators (DACs) and principals recommend approximately 25 classroom teachers to participate in ALA. This year three or more teachers have been selected from each participating school to deepen the impact of the arts in their schools. One of the main goals of Arts Leadership Academy is to help principals and teachers build a school-wide arts-friendly climate to enrich learning. 

Arts Leadership Academy 2012 from McKay School of Education on Vimeo.

To read how participants are using what they are learning, please visit our blog.

Goals of Arts Leadership Academy

The main objecitves for  Arts Leadership Academy are that each participating teacher will

  • increase personal skill and confidence in the arts,
  • increase pedagogical skills in the arts,
  • increase arts integration skills, and
  • increase advocacy for the arts.

Arts Leadership Academy is designed to enable teachers make changes in their classroom practices to help students

  • experience singing, dancing, drawing, acting, and using technology with aesthetic quality;
  • experience engaging lessons that deepen meaning and understanding;
  • develop motivation to continue to develop skills in the arts in middle school; and
  • develop 21st century workforce skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.

Arts Leadership Academy prepares participant teachers to share their ideas with their colleagues and advocate for the arts in their schools.  The goal is that with the help of participating principals each school will 

  • develop an arts friendly climate;
  • practice  21st century workforce skills (creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking);
  • coordinate with the meetings and events of the school arts team, community council, and district arts coordinator to support their efforts; and
  • use the Utah State Core Curriculum in the Arts and other academic areas in tandem with the Common Core Curricula in Language Arts and Math.

Application for Participation

This program is availble to schools in the BYU-Public School Partnertship districts (Alpine, Jordan, Nebo, Provo City, Wasatch). Registration is closed for the current school year.  To get involved for the next school year, contact your district arts representative:

Alpine, Mari Braithwaite
Provo, Carol Lynn Pothier
Jordan, Mary Ann Erdmann
Wasatch, JoAnn Memmott
Nebo, Julie Christofferson

 

Previous Years of Arts Academy

Click here to view previous Arts Academy sessions over the years.