Teaching Artist Development and Implementation
John Bertles has been deeply involved in the development and implementation
of teaching artists and the issues associated with them. He has a unique
perspective on how programs and institutions can effectively form, train,
and manage a stable of teaching artists, since he was both a Teaching Artist
for some years as well as a manager and trainer of other teaching artists.
He originated the position of Lead Teaching Artist at Carnegie Hall
in 1991 and has been instrumental in the assembly and development of an
exemplary group of scholar/artists who work in Carnegie's Link-Up Program.
He has led conference workshops on teaching artist issues, most
notably at the 1999 Face-to-Face conference where he was the moderator
in a colloquiam for Experienced Teaching Artists. He has also written
on these issues, most notable in an essay in "Beyond Enrichment - Building
Effective Arts Partnerships with Schools and Your Community" by Jane Remer.
Here are some areas that he can address:
- Help create and train a stable of teaching artists, including:
* Creating a set
of lesson plans
* Classroom management
techniques
* Working within
the "culture of the school"
* Making connections
between classroom teachers and teaching artists
* Incorporating
assessment tasks, curriculum standards, etc.
* Best practices
for teaching artists
- Work with teachers, teaching artists or arts specialists to help understand
how to create assessment tasks specifically geared to arts activities, rather
than using general "one-size-fits-all" assessment tasks.
- Create staff development sessions for teaching artists
- Classroom observations of teaching artists, followed by meetings with
either individual teaching artists or as a group to share observations, note
areas of possible improvement, etc.
- Advise (from an adminstrative point of view) how to administer and
implement a group of teaching artists
