Arts integration, or teaching through the arts, encourages active play and helps students retain what they learn. It is a powerful teaching tool that can be used with any school subject. The annual training shows teachers how to use arts integration in the classrooms and will benefit 8,600 Northwest Arkansas students during the upcoming school year.
Educators from schools in Gentry to Harrison, Bentonville to Fayetteville and everywhere in between attended the professional development workshops in preparation for the new school year.
Walton Arts Center’s learning and engagement team works with three programs annually to provide a cohort of teachers the training they need to implement arts integration in their classrooms.
Arts With Education (AWE) Institute engages teachers in hands-on, interactive workshops presented by John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts teaching artists, modeling how to use the arts to make teaching across the curriculum more engaging and effective. Walton Arts Center has been an education partner with the Kennedy Center since 1992.
Teachers trained this week in the AWE Institute will also continue into the SmART Residency, a year-long professional development program, funded in part by the Arkansas Arts Council. The residency includes additional support for teachers who are working to include the arts into their specific curriculum to help students achieve in literacy and build their collaboration skills.
Walton Arts Center and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art have also partnered to support the ARTeacher Fellowship, a program of the University of Arkansas Center for Children and Youth. This year-long professional development series supports secondary teachers who are working to integrate the arts into their classroom. ARTeacher training was held recently at Walton Arts Center and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
These trainings have impacted hundreds of teachers and thousands of students in Northwest Arkansas over the years, and they are supported by donations from Friends of Walton Arts Center and through fundraising events including AMP Up the Arts, a benefit concert at the Walmart AMP on Sept. 11 with Boyz II Men.
Support arts education programming
when you reserve your seat with a donation of $103 or $128.75. To celebrate 33 years of Walton Arts Center, an additional donation of $33 gets you reserved parking in the Blue, Gold and White lots.