BAYFEST trains k-12 teachers to use “active arts processes” in their classrooms through our in-service professional development trainings in schools, as well as at regional and national teacher conferences. For more information, contact info@BAYFESTyouthTheatre.org
Teach for America
OCTOBER 19, 2013
Following a very successful workshop we presented at the Teach for America Institute in Los Angeles, BAYFEST was hired to conduct two longer teacher-training workshops with Teach For America teachers in Los Angeles, called “Make A DRAMAtic Difference In Your Classroom.”
The workshops focused on how teachers can use “active arts processes” — guided play, movement and verbal/kinesthetic learning exercises — to significantly enhance the classroom experience for themselves and their students, and actually deepen and speed up the learning process – often faster and better than the standardized curricula suggest is possible.
In these workshops, meeting curriculum goals and standards was stressed, and teachers got to experience first-hand how these methods can help their students build a stronger and more engaged ‘ensemble for learning’, while injecting some fun and physical activity into the classroom.
The workshops were overwhelmingly well-received, and almost all participants said they felt there was an urgent need for more of this in their classrooms and others the have observed. This is especially true in the current educational atmosphere, where standardized curricula, evaluation and testing receives almost total emphasis, and where arts programs of all kinds are either non-existent or extremely limited.
Workshop participants gave an overall score of 6.4 out of 7 on the following statements:
- This workshop was helpful to me as a teacher.
- The workshop was clear and well-presented.
- I am excited to invent other ways of using/combining these strategies.
- I would like to attend more sessions like this and/or have follow-up after this session.
Go to BAYFEST’s Drama Process Programs, In-School Working Methods and School Feedback.