General Information

Workshop Guidelines

Workshops are free choice.  No pre-registration is required.  If a workshop presenter has requested a certain limited number of participants, it will be indicated on your conference schedule.   In consideration of others, please try to get to your workshop a few minutes early to give yourself time to get a seat and get settled. 

Special Breakfast Presentations

There are special breakfast presentations planned for Thursday and Friday from 8:00-9:30am.  Please check schedule for details.

Special Interest Box Lunches 

Grab a box lunch and choose from several special interest conversations led by several of our extraordinary Missoula Team members on Thursday from 12:00-1:00pm.  This is your time to join a discussion, network, and ask plenty of questions!

Free Concert at The Wilma with the Whizpops and Supaman

https://www.facebook.com/events/499563833774691/

National Presenter Workshops

Teachers often ask:  What assessment practices lead to improved quality of student work in music and dance? How can I provide more effective feedback to students?  How can I engage students in the assessment process?  This active workshop is for performing arts specialists as well as classroom teachers who desire to integrate music and movement with their students.  Participants will take part in a performance assessment originally designed for the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the Arts (NAEP) and will come away with a process to develop effective rubrics with students that is transferable to other subjects.

Creating an Arts-rich School District (AGC Austin)with Sloan McLain 

How do you move from the desire to become an arts-rich school district (or campus) to a scalable implementation given all the competing demands of a school district? Using Austin's Creative Learning Initiative as a model, this workshop will focus on the practical steps our community took to make our schools arts-rich.  After discussing the Initiative's nine components of an arts-rich school, we will workshop examples of the "creative teaching strategies" that thousands of educators in Austin Independent School District and the Parks and Recreation Department are using to increase rigor, engagement, and community. We will close with a discussion on how we work at the classroom, school, district and community levels to realize our goals.

The Right Brain Initiative: Ensuring an equitable education through arts integration (AGC Portland) with Marna Stalcup

In this session you will discover how The Right Brain Initiative, an arts integration partnership in the Portland metropolitan region, provides an equitable, systemic and innovative approach to arts education for K-8 students. Through storytelling and interactive discussion, learn how a community can be galvanized to support systemic change, engaging leaders from arts organizations, education, business and government to collectively achieve a shared vision. 

Regional Presenter Workshops

 Maps Works: Creating Community with Media Arts with MAPS Media Institute (60 minutes)

Explore the MAPS VISTA project with members of the award winning MAPS Media Institute team.  This project incorporates all of MAPS media arts programming and expands upon it with intentional community service participation.

Embodying/Embracing Difference, Making Theater with Students of All Abilities with Peter Musante (60 minutes) 

How can we adapt traditional modes of theater-making and storytelling to suit the demands of students with special needs? And what can we learn about ourselves in the process? This workshop is for Arts Education professionals interested in making performance-based work with students of all abilities. Learn unique approaches to making sensory-based immersive theater, including those used in devising "Up & Away", commissioned by Lincoln Center Education for audiences on the autism spectrum (“immersive theater at its most thoughtful and deliberate...a compassionate embrace of human variety” - The New York Times). Created by NYC's Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, their 1-on-1 Experience Director, Peter Musante, will guide participants through elements of their creative process, and discuss applications to the classroom.

Media Arts: Applications & Literacy with Wes Hines (90 minutes)  

The Media Arts now has its own National Arts Standards. This workshop will introduce and provide some hands-on experience with Media Arts content areas and applications that can be used for arts integration in the classroom. Also discuss the significance that the media arts have in developing new literacies and understandings.

Arts Integration 101: What, When, How? with Jenny Bevill (90 minutes) 

This workshop will de-mystify Arts Integration by taking a look at what it IS, what is ISN'T and providing a framework for how to begin creating arts integrated lessons. You will be guided to look for organic entry points in your curriculum where the arts and another subject area might intersect. You will come away excited by the possibilities and more confident in creating arts integrated curriculum for your students.

Walking Ghost Trails: Writing Poems based on Montana History with Caroline Patterson (90 minutes)

Using Richard Hugo's "Degrees of Grey in Phillipsburg," students will learn to research a historic place in Montana, set the research aside, and then write a poem inserting themselves in the place. Inhabit a ghost town. Ride the waves of Glacial Lake Missoula. 

Shaking up Social Studies with Lindsey Ratliff (90 minutes)

Tired of the same old notetaking and worksheet-filling social studies lessons? In this 90 minute workshop teachers of all age groups will learn the efficacy of arts integrated social studies lessons as well as gain ideas on how to implement the arts in their own classrooms. Teachers will participate in social studies lesson ideas by using fine arts, theatre, creative movement, and music. All teachers will take away useful applicable arts-integrated ideas they can use with their own students

Singing in the Classroom with Kristen Vogel (60 minutes)

This workshop will explore the magic of singing in the classroom. The spectrum of song in the classroom is limitless! Classroom management, transitions, core curriculum, building classroom community and adding interest to lessons are some of the ways we will practice using singing. Each person attending this workshop will receive a google doc for a songbook to use in your own classroom.

Creative Placemaking with Kia Liszak (60 minutes)

Creative placemaking is a buzzword in the art education world, but what does it really mean? This workshop will look at creative placemaking from a community arts center perspective. We will explore ways in which a community's access to the arts can be seen as critical for shaping healthy neighborhoods and people. We will look at successful creative placemaking projects, and discuss ways to find the tools to integrate this practice your own work.

Intro to Visual Thinking Strategies with Sondra Hines (90 minutes)

Explore Visual Thinking Strategies and learn the basics of this interactive way to integrate art into your classroom. Observe and examine the practice of VTS. Time will be devoted to breaking down the strategy process, selecting successful discussion images for discussion how to use VTS across the curriculum.

All Abilities Acting Accessibility and Advocacy with Matt Loerhke (90 minutes)

The Missoula Children’s Theatre fulfills its mission to “develop life skills through the performing arts” by producing full-scale musicals in more than 1,100 communities around the world annually. From Sunburst, Montana to Shani, India – ensuring that every child, of every ability, has equal access to the performing arts. We will be sharing some of the processes and techniques we use to engage special education students in our performing arts workshop.

SPECIAL AFTERNOON NATIONAL PRESENTER SESSION Visual Arts and 21st Century Skills with Deb Brzoska (90 minutes)

Integrating the arts in the classroom can provide authentic opportunities for students to practice and demonstrate the national 21st Century Skills – collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity.  This active workshop is useful for visual arts specialists as well as classroom teachers who desire to integrate art with students in the classroom.  Participants will take part in an active performance assessment of student creativity and will learn methods that increase student collaboration in the classroom through peer observation and group reflection.

Your Story Matter: Personal Storytelling in the Classroom with Marc Moss (60 minutes)

Students are as much a part of their communities as the adults around them. Teaching them that their story matters and teaching them how to share their stories makes them better citizens, builds confidence and self-esteem while fulfilling Core objectives in Language Arts.

The Art of Dance Integration with Jordan Dehline Burt (60 minutes)

In this presentation, participants will be guided through the process of designing a successful dance integration lesson plan. Workshop participants will be introduced to the lesson plan design process and format, and then will be guided through a sample arts residency integrating dance with fourth grade geometry. This workshop presents an original lesson plan format developed to suit the needs of classroom teachers and dance specialists.

SMALL Town-BIG Dreams-BEAUTIFUL Words-SHARED Treasure with Jennifer Ogden (60 minutes)

We all have a connection to National Parks which preserve both cultural and wild landscapes. Victor School students connected with Presidents Park in Washington DC in order to highlight Montana Poems and Images inspired by an all-school Poetry Marathon with a guest poet from the Humanities Montana Speaker's Bureau. Come and see ways in which our Parks and Monuments hold a treasure trove of educational resources for arts integration and place-based learning opportunities.

Connecting Students through the Arts with Alisha Meyer (60 minutes)

Connecting Students through the Arts: Tier 1 Universal Art Interventions is workshop that examines how art can be utilized as an intervention to integrate all diverse learning styles.  This workshop is designed to address the best way to support students’ emotional success in the general education setting.

A Sea-change: Shakespeare and Arts Integration in a Rural Montana Landscape with Jeff Ross (90 minutes)

In this workshop we will learn about the challenges of creating and sustaining a classical youth theatre program, one that requires the development of a new “resident" arts culture in a rural Montana community. Then three of our student actors will perform a short scene, lead us in a couple activities, and relate the importance of theatre arts for their own artistic, academic and personal development.

Building a Toolbox to Work with Hard to Reach Kids in Busy Classrooms with Tabitha Beard (60 minutes)

Classrooms are dynamic and diverse. Creating lesson plans, structure, routine and rapport with kids and staff often presents challenges as well as rewards. In this class we will explore tools, language and positive reinforcement strategies that are often in place in classroom settings through the Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) and Response to Intervention (RTI), tiered systems to help identify and support behavioral and learning needs.

Media Arts Integration and Distance Learning with Big Sky Film Institute and Inspired Classroom and Rachel Gregg (60 minutes)

Today students of every age interact with digital video content on a daily basis. It is present on the computers, smartphones, tablets, and televisions that make up their learning environments at school and at home, making media literacy education an increasingly important need to address. In 2016, the Big Sky Film Institute (BSFI)  established a partnership with Inspired Classroom (IC) to extend its established Filmmakers in the Schools program into classrooms across Montana virtually. Through this collaboration, BSFI and IC bring nonfiction films on contemporary issues into elementary, middle, and high schools all around the state. Learn about how BSFI and IC are leveraging the power of documentary film through education programs including the Filmmakers in the Schools and the Native Filmmaker Initiative.

Theatre Integration: A Path to Empathy with Rosie Ayers (60 minutes)

The Neurology, Physiology, and Practice behind using theatre skills to help students and education communities create empathy as a tool for social and emotional process as well as educational enhancement. Theatre skills can help classroom management, differentiations for all abilities learning environments and synthesizing deeper understanding of traditional curriculum through theatrical integrations. In this workshop we will learn the background and research behind empathy as a result of theatre arts and practice using theatrical techniques ourselves. The workshop will be full of laughter and lightness as well as ways to expand and deepen our emotional experiences in educational settings.

Integrated Art as Socially Engaged Art: Lessons from the Field with Jennifer Combe (90 minutes)

In this session I’ll share some examples of teaching socially engaged art with a focus on community experience teaching college and high school students. We will explore questions such as: What does teaching art from a social context look like?, What are enduring ideas, essential questions, and key concepts and how could I integrate them into my curriculum design? I’ll share some projects I’ve take on with students including  Oliver Herring’s TASK party, community building activities, collaborative float-making projects for Missoula’s Wild Walk, and how this played out a in my high school classroom in Tumwater, WA, where I taught K12 for fifteen years.

Arts and the Economy with Tom Bensen (60 minutes)

This session, designed for administrators seeking to solve school issues and elevate learning outcomes while engaging the school in community-building activity, will provide participants with meaningful evidence and funding opportunities to support the development of school-wide arts integrated learning.

Leveraging Technology to Build Professional Communities for Arts Teachers with Christy Mock-Stutz (60 minutes)

The Teacher Learning Hub is not only a place for teachers to engage in high-quality online professional learning, it is a place that builds communities across the state. This session will provide an overview of the Teacher Learning Hub and how it’s transforming learning for teachers across the state.

The Arts Integrated School: For Administrators with Monica Grable (60 minutes)

This session, designed for administrators seeking to solve school issues and elevate learning outcomes while engaging the school in community-building activity, will provide participants with meaningful evidence and funding opportunities to support the development of school-wide arts integrated learning.

SPARK 101 with Jackalynn Snow (60 minutes)

SPARK!, Missoula's Kennedy Center Any Given Child initiative,  is providing over 700 additional hours of arts education per year to students in Missoula County Public Schools.  During this interactive presentation, participants will see the inner workings of SPARK! programming while artfully exploring ideas for implementation in their own communities.  Learn about collective impact systems and Kennedy Center resources for Arts Integration and develop strategies for creating equitable access to arts for students.

The ARTS the State Legislature and YOU:Understanding the State Legislative process with Jean Price  (60 minutes)

This will be a lecture with handouts that (1) Discuss the structure of the Legislature in our state. (2) Illustrate the process…from idea for a bill to its becoming a law. (3)  Suggest ways that a citizen of Montana can become a part of the process in support of the arts.

The Radical Act of Self Care- Sustaining Yourself as a Leader with Kia Liszak (60 minutes)

This will be a fun, highly interactive workshop that uses movement, writing, art making, and communication building techniques for collective healing and renewal. This workshop will be led by staff of the Zootown Arts Community Center and inspired by a workshop presented at The National Guild For Community Arts Education Conference in 2017, led by the amazing staff of Dream Yard Project in Bronx New York.

Marriage of the Arts and Indian Education for All with Tammy Elser  (60 minutes)

One thing IEFA and the Arts have in common is the frequency with which they are taught through integration, often relying on the passion of a teacher to create the window of opportunity. In this session teachers will be presented with a framework for integration that could be useful toward comprehensive implementation of Arts curriculum and Indian Education.  The connection between the two domains and common pitfalls in integration will be highlighted.