Arts Mentoring
This microcredential represents knowledge, skills, and practices needed to effectively mentor peers and colleagues in arts instruction and arts integration. Mentorship in the arts includes leadership skills related to communication, strategy, and relationship building.
To earn this microcredential you will need to collect and submit two sets of evidence showing how you effectively mentor peers in arts instruction and integration. You will also complete a short written or video reflective analysis.
This microcredential represents more than a teacher’s ability to share their knowledge about the arts with others. This microcredential focuses on displaying evidence of a teacher's ability to effectively advance the value of the arts in schools by sharing the impact of arts education and arts integration on student learning in their community, school, and/or classroom through sustained engagement and relationship building activities with peers and colleagues.
Arts education refers to the teaching and learning of skills, processes, appreciation, and application of dance, drama, music, media arts, literary arts, and visual arts.
Arts Integration:Arts integration refers to teaching in which students are engaged in creative processes by exploring, reflecting, interpreting, connecting, applying and demonstrating knowledge of specific objectives in multiple content areas. Integration occurs when learned and applied skills in multiple content areas synergistically and authentically connect to each other. Authentic integration reflects students' life experience and prepares them to contribute positively to society.
Mentorship:Mentorship the guidance provided by a mentor, especially an experienced person in a company or educational institution.
Mrs. Jasper has produced a visual art exhibit with her fifth grade class every year in October. Her fifth-grade team has seen the impact of the visual art exhibit on building community in the classroom, deepening connections with parents, and improving student master of core concepts and skills taught in the classroom. Mrs. Jasper agrees to mentor her fifth-grade team in the development and production of an art exhibit. Mrs. Jasper shows her colleagues during team meetings how she facilitates the instruction and development of student work (learning objectives, supply management strategies, questioning strategies, past successful projects and lesson plans, basic visual art techniques and skills, writing artist statements, etc.). She then shows them how to mount student artwork to boards provided by the district for visual gallery displays. She describes her process of curating the exhibit and illuminates how she decides where to put what. She shares sample marketing pieces she sends to the principal, district, and parents. After demonstrating her practice she works closely with each of her colleagues as a consultant in the development of each of their own visual art exhibits.
Mrs. Foster is struggling to teach a specific science standard in her class. Students aren’t interested and their learning is not optimal. Mr. Tuttle notices Mrs. Foster’s class is struggling. He has an arts integrated project he facilitates with his class that addresses the topics in question and offers to team teach with Mrs. Foster to help the students and to mentor Mrs. Foster on the arts integrated strategies he uses to engage students and deepen their learning. As they team teach Mrs. Foster takes notes on the process, modeling, language, and assessment techniques Mr. Tuttle uses. At the end of the project they unpack together what has been learned. Mr. Tuttle provides Mrs. Foster with copies of the instructional materials and invites her to try it on her own the next year. The next year Mrs. Foster is able to facilitate the project on her own and the students in both classes participate in a sharing event where they present the artful products that represent their understanding to each other.
Mr. Bodily, a high school theatre teacher, was asked by his colleague Mr. Gray, who teaches English, for assistance in bringing Shakespeare to life through dramatic practice in his classroom. Mr. Bodily agrees to collaborate with him and invites him to observe his Theatre 1 class on Mr. Gray’s prep period. Mr Gray accepts the invitation and Mr. Bodily and Mr. Gray unpack what was learned or observed in an email chain for the course of several weeks. When Mr. Gray feels ready to implement some of the dramatic pedagogy he has observe by Mr. Bodily, Mr. Bodily observes Mr. Gray, takes notes, and shares pointers with him and on his lesson plan in order to better reach the intended learning outcomes.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Select ONE of the evidence options below to demonstrate your preparation and planning for arts mentoring.
Submit a 1-2 page word or google document that describes your intentions, success criteria, and rationale for your mentoring goals. Include the strategy you intend to use for communication and relationship building to achieve your mentoring goals. Include how you will assess your goals and determine your efforts were a success.
Submit an email, conversation transcript, or written paragraph that describes and shows evidence that someone in your sphere needs mentoring and what their mentoring needs are.
Category: Implementation
Select ONE of the evidence options below to demonstrate your effective arts mentoring.
Option 1: Submit a 3-5 minute video documenting your mentoring efforts that includes evidence of your mentoring activities.
Option 2: Submit a 3-5 minute video of your colleague or peer that received mentoring from you describing how they associated and worked with you in the mentoring cycle.
Submit evidence of your colleagues' improved practice that resulted from your mentoring. (This could be photos, videos, student work, a written testimonial, etc.) Provide evidence of growth by including evidence of their pre-mentoring needs and post-mentoring results.
Submit 2-3 letters from your colleague(s) or school or district administrator who can write about the quality and impact of your mentoring efforts.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The evidence demonstrates meaningful mentoring in the arts, namely there is evidence of relationship building, clear communication strategies, and growth in professional learning.
Criterion 2: The evidence demonstrates that the mentoring strategies were effective in reaching the mentorship goals.
Criterion 3: The evidence demonstrates that this individual embodies arts mentorship as a way of being a leader in the educational system.
Describe how being an arts mentor is a consistent part of your leadership in your school, community, district, state, or nation.
Discuss how your colleagues or school community benefit from your efforts in mentoring in the arts.
How do you plan to develop your mentoring skills in the future?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The educator provides compelling evidence that mentorship is a part of their consistent practice as an educator.
Criterion 2: The educator provides compelling evidence that their mentoring practices effectively serve students and their communities.
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/67
This website covers several strategies for educational leaders to nurture the arts culture within their school(s).
Involve Parents
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/69
These resources provide information on how parents can play a role in the effort to increase access to arts experiences for children in the state of Utah.
Utilize Community Partners
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/70
This website provides a list of community organizations that provide professional development, conferences with an arts education focus, links to professional associations, and organizations that offer in-school arts experiences.
Work with Administration
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/68
This website provides resources and ideas for working with administration to support arts programs in schools.
Instructional Coaching by Jim Knight
https://www.instructionalcoaching.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjw47eFBhA9EiwAy8kzNA_DkdiPC3sgX0c3Bhzy5UEiOmoVWsS8oUgDS1vBzM86fcF3nds3ZhoCo3gQAvD_BwE
Suggestions for building and implementing the factors for sustaining a great coaching program.
Melissa Deletant
Joshua Roberts
Bethany Struthers
250 East 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3204
Phone: 801.538.7807