October 23rd and 24th, 2015, SECAI  leads Full STEAM Ahead!! Closing the Gap in STEM Subjects through the Arts for K-8 teachers in eight counties in Southeastern North Carolina. The workshops are sponsored by Wilmington’s Cameron Art Museum. They follow a series of professional development sessions on Closing the Gap in Literacy through the Arts.

The workshops are fully funded by Duke Energy and The Corning Foundation, so they are free for teachers from New Hanover, Brunswick, Bladen, Onlsow, Pender, Columbia, Sampson, and Duplin counties. There will be follow-up half-day workshops in each of the eight counties on using the arts to teach Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

We express our gratitude to the Cameron Art Museum, especially Martha Burdette, Curator of Education, and Anne Brennan, Director, for their deep commitment to education, and to Duke Energy and The Corning Foundation for their generous support.

Jef Lambdin, Faye Stanley, and Sheila Kerrigan gave a presentation, Effective and Efficient Arts Integration Learning Strategies, at the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education conference in Columbia, on October 8, 2015. About twenty-five teachers, old friends and new, participated. Jef taught the group a simple mime game that can be used to assess, teach, reinforce, and demonstrate learning in science. Teachers immediately made connections to several other subject areas. Sheila told the group a story while some people drew key images on large paper. Everyone chose a character in the story and explored key moments through movement, stillness, and in relation to other characters. Faye taught everyone a traditional African-American chant with interchangeable verses, and we sang it about the cycle of human life, butterfly life-cycles, and other topics.

Teachers grasped the point–that they can use these simple structures to teach subject areas across the curriculum. They do not have to be mimes to invite their students to show what they know using their bodies. They don’t have to be musicians to lead a chant. (No melody!) They can tell a story while their students create the setting on big paper and physically explore character relationships, thoughts, and emotions.

In spite of devastating flooding in parts of the state, and in spite of the fact that the city of Columbia had no potable water, the SCAAE board decided to go ahead with the conference, as planned. Many teachers and administrators from all over the state managed to attend, even with hundreds of roads across the state closed due to flood damage. The conference hotel staff at the Marriott, put in much extra effort to creatively manage contingencies like the inability to wash dishes, using bottled water to make much-needed coffee, and providing bottled water for 200 or so attendees.

Our hats are off to the SCAAE board, to all the educators who managed to get there, and to the Marriott staff who made it work for the group. We look forward to seeing them next year!

We are excited to be presenting at the A+ Schools 20th Anniversary Conference in Durham, NC, at the Carolina Theater, on August 3-5th.

http://www.aplus-schools.ncdcr.gov/workshops/conference

Sheila Kerrigan leads a workshop for educators on “Fostering Creative Thinking in the Classroom.” Here is a handout: FosterCreativThinknClassA+2015

Jef Lambdin leads, “Multiple Intelligences: Theory in 1983 is Practice in 2015.”

Sheila Kerrigan was invited to present a workshop, called, “How Do I Get My Students to Collaborate and Discuss Effectively?” at the 2013 Arts and Education Forum of the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts in Chattanooga, TN on May 15 and 16, 2013. Co-founder of the Southeast Center for Arts Integration, Jef Lambdin, also attended and assisted with the workshop (and drove and made the trip fun). About a dozen educators, artists, and administrators participated with a will. They created beautiful mini-performances about equity and social justice, using a collaborative method that Sheila has developed for use in the classroom. “I love it when a plan comes together!” (Hannibal from The A-Team)

Here is the handout:

How Do I Get Students 2 Collaborate wkshp2013

Teaching Artist Training in Durham, NC

Sheila led a training for about 45 teaching artists for the Durham Arts Council’s Creative Arts in the Public Schools program in January, 2013. She led a brief arts-integrated activity involving history, theater, and writing.  She walked the artists through the process of accessing the new Common Core and NC Essential Standards in their arts residencies. And then artists collaborated to locate standards that they are already teaching in the arts and one other subject area.

“Sheila’s kinesthetic exercises were inspiring.”

“It was engaging, informative, fun, & an ice-breaker. Mind if I steal it?”

“The Civil War improv/statue/writing exercise really sparked a lot of ideas for me.”

Martha Burdette and Sheila Kerrigan attended the Arts Education Partnership Forum in Washington, DC, May 6 & 7, 2011.