The American Place Theatre

REFLECTIONS: Staff Development for the APT Company

by Jackie McDonnell
November 19, 2010

The APT Company participating in a warm-up during the Fall 2010 Literature to Life Teaching Artist Symposium.

This past Veterans Day, our talented company of teaching artists took a break from their role as teachers to come together to play and learn! Thursday, November 11 was the launch of our first quarterly company development series.

APT Master Teaching Artists had a rare opportunity to spend a couple of hours reflecting on successes and best practices in the field. We learned how teaching artists are using project-based learning in their arts integration residencies, how we are all using unique and effective ways to assess teacher and student learning in the classroom as well as how we have been building strong partnerships with our school partners along the way. To top it off, we had an activation of Master Teaching Artist, Adam Crescenzi's workshop he developed for his 8th graders at IS 208 as part of their Three Cups of Tea Residency.

I left the session with a shared sense of company as well as a stronger appreciation for the talents and skill set of our teaching artists. I definitely plan on incorporating ideas and tools shared. Our next company development session will be on Monday, January 17th. In this session we will bring our full company of teaching actors and teaching artists together to continue to explore the intersection of art and education that we began in our back to school symposium this past September.



To read more about our Company of Master Teaching Artists, visit our Company page.

To learn more about how to bring arts and education Professional Development to your school or organization, please contact Associate Director: Education Programs, Manuel Simons at msimons@americanplacetheatre.org.

To bring an American Place Theatre teaching artist to your classroom in residence or presentation, please contact Associate Director: New York Education Outreach, Jackie Wolff at jwolff@americanplacetheatre.org