(San Antonio, TX, February 4, 2021) – The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts is seeking participants for a locally-based Kennedy Center Teaching Artist Training Program. These teaching artists will be trained in the Kennedy Center philosophy of Arts Integration and may serve as a resource for K-12 educators and other local organizations throughout the Bexar County area who seek to integrate arts into their non-arts curriculum. These opportunities may include professional learning workshops for teachers, residency opportunities, connective education opportunities with Tobin Center programming, and family and school events.
A teaching artist is a practicing professional artist with the complementary skills of an educator, who can effectively engage a wide range of people in learning experiences in and through the arts, and who work in both the arts and education communities. Participants selected for this opportunity will receive the Kennedy Center training at no charge.
The training is a combination of asynchronous (view, read, interact, and learn on your own time) and synchronous (scheduled, live via Zoom training) and will take around four months to complete. Exact dates for synchronous training will be scheduled with input from the selected participants. Full attendance at all synchronous sessions is required for training to be considered complete and all training must be successfully completed in order to join The Tobin Center Teaching Artist cohort, be listed on our Roster, and have the opportunity to work with our Teaching Artist program through Generation NEXT.
Training modules include:
Arts Integration: The What and Why for Teaching Artists
- This training examines the Kennedy Center’s definition for arts integration, principles for how students learn, and how the philosophy and practice of arts integration is supported by the current theories of learning.
Designing Residencies for Students
- Teaching artists learn and apply a five-step planning process to develop arts-integrated residency plans for students. A residency plan is a detailed document describing various aspects of a residency.
Designing Lessons for Classroom Instruction
- Teaching artists learn three main components of effective lessons in order to create lesson plans that reflect best instructional practices.
To apply for this position, please email a cover letter with application, resume or curriculum vitae, samples, supplementary materials and references to Kimberly.Stevenson@tobincenter.org
ABOUT THE TOBIN CENTER’S ARTS EDUCATION INITIATIVES
Educational programing is a fundamental part of The Tobin Center’s mission, with a focus on strengthening arts education in schools. The Tobin Center opened on September 4th, 2014 with an immediate emphasis on education. During its inaugural 2014-15 season, The Tobin Center presented 73 student/family events with a total of 47,000 participants. Of these participants, 37,000 were students from local school districts who attended free of charge.
In 2015, with the establishment of Generation NEXT, The Tobin Center’s education initiatives program, leadership began reaching out to local school districts to garner an understanding of their needs in arts education. Through an affiliation with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Partners in Education Program and North East Independent School District (NEISD) the Tobin Center began providing arts focused teacher training opportunities, introducing arts integration to classrooms across the district. In the 2019, SAISD began participating in arts integration teacher training through this partnership hosting more than 300 of their teachers in training at The Tobin Center. In addition, SAISD offered full grade level student field trips to the Tobin Center with the goal of fostering an appreciation for the arts that would lead to lifelong arts involvement for district students and graduates.
The Tobin Center is deeply committed to providing the community with access to professional arts and offering high-quality arts education opportunities. Furthermore, The Tobin Center believes the inclusion of the performing arts in a broad-based curriculum improves the quality of a child’s educational experience.
