Introducing...Bear State of Mind!

In 2010, Walton Arts Center partnered with Trike Theater to create Digging Up Arkansas – an engaging Arkansas history production for students in grades 3rd through 5th.

Now, a new play has been developed for K-2nd grades, called Bear State of Mind!  WAC, along with partners Trike Theatre, NWA playwright Ashley Edwards and songwriter Shannon Wurst, produced Bear State of Mind as a way to help students learn about Arkansas. The play uses experiential theater techniques, music and puppetry to meet Common Core State Learning Standards, including Arkansas history and social studies curriculums.  Pre- and post-show lesson plans, activities and materials were developed by our Learning & Engagement Team for schools, to deepen students’ understandings of Arkansas history.

More than 2,000 area students from 14 schools have already seen Bear State this year, and seeing them experience this show has been great!

The story is about Bear, who travels through three of Arkansas’ geographic regions and meets new friends and uncovers native wildlife, folklore and state symbols. The unique staging of the play makes the most of 5-8 year olds’ natural tendency to explore their surroundings; seating them under a tree canopy in a “Magical Forest” to help facilitate their physical participation in the performance.   

Students at a performance of Bear State of Mind. Photos by Ironside Photograpy.

As the students entered the Bear State campground in Starr Theater, they couldn’t contain their excitement! “Wow!” “It’s so dark!” “Oo!” They turned to their friends and giggled in excitement as they followed their teachers inside.

The children sat on their sleeping bags and tarps around the campfire, full of energy, excitement and wonder. Their heads whipped around each time a new sound came through the speakers, crickets and cicadas chirping, a bird’s song, frogs croaking.

Bear State performers Jason Suel, (top right) Shannon Wurst and Julie Gabel. Photos by Ironside Photography.

Performances like Bear State and DUA allow us to bring these benefits to the classroom, and reach students who may not otherwise have access to these opportunities! A recent study showed that field trips to WAC provide students with long term benefits, like higher tolerance and empathy and a desire to participate in cultural activities. For a synopsis of the recent WAC study, visit EducationNext. 

Check out these comments from teachers who brought their classes to see Bear State:

  • “One of the best performances I have ever attended with students!” Anne Garrett, Root Elementary, Kindergarten
  • “This was a fantastic performance! Students were actively engaged the entire time.  I can’t wait to get back and discuss the content with them.”  Root Elementary Teacher, Grade 1
  • “I have always enjoyed Walton Arts Center performances, and this was the best – aligned with expectations for student learning.”  Delia Gorder, Root Elementary, Grade 1
  • “Fantastic and engaging show.  Relevant to our kids’ lives and super interesting.  Lots of details & hidden surprises.  Our kids loved it!”  Ms. Ogle, Washington Elementary, Grade 1
  • “Probably the best show we have seen!  Very entertaining and age appropriate!”  Washington Elementary Teacher – Grade 1

Bear State performers Shannon Wurst, Jason Suel and Julie Gabel. Photos by Ironside Photography.

 

Long-Term Benefits of Field Trips to the Walton Arts Center

Some exciting news came to Walton Arts Center this week: A recent study shows that field trips to Walton Arts Center can provide long term benefits to students! Last year alone, more than 50,000 students experienced the arts through programs like Digging Up Arkansas, the Colgate Classroom Series, and other master classes and activities with WAC performing artists.

In tandem with a study on the educational value of museum field trips conducted at Crystal Bridges, University of Arkansas researchers Jay P. Greene and Brian Kisida investigated the long term benefits of student field trips to Walton Arts Center.

More than 2,000 7th graders from around the area participated in a survey asking about their participation in cultural activities and their values like tolerance and empathy. The students’ answers were analyzed based on how many WAC performances they had been to throughout their school careers. 

For each field trip students took to WAC, there was a statistically significant difference in students’ desire to attend cultural events. And more than that, field trip participation increased student desire to participate in cultural activities, not just attend them. Also notable, the study found that students who participate in arts field trips are more tolerant and empathetic than other students. The study will help educators better understand the important benefits that field trips to arts institutions offer students.

Engaging students at Walton Arts Center

Walton Arts Center strives to improve the entire learning process of Northwest Arkansas students by providing multiple ways to investigate the arts. We have looked at a few arts-integration professional development opportunities for the teachers of NWA, but we also offer programs that directly interact with students. This past year, WAC’s student engagement programs have positively impacted over 6,200 people! 

Workshops, master classes and chances to meet and work with touring artists allow students to step out of their learning norm and engage in creative experiences. One new approach to learning is Youth Volunteer Corps which gives students the chance to work one-on-one with WAC professional staff.

Photo by Ironside Photography

WAC partnered with Camp War Eagle in an effort to recruit participants for the program, provide transportation and English to Spanish language translations of all documents. Students were chosen based on a written essay and four letters of teacher recommendation. 

“My appreciation and love for the arts sparked and sky rocketed!” said a Youth Volunteer Corps participant.  The semester-long program involved students in the everyday events of working and presenting the arts to the public. Students were involved in backstage tours, job orientations and learning about the business of presenting – including areas like Box Office, Communications, Development, Programming, Educations, Production and Tech. An end product of their delving into the arts was participation in five education shows. The students worked and presented the shows to over 2,000 audience members!

Photo by Ironside Photography

Concluding the program was a reception honoring the students, a viewing of War Horse and final evaluations of the students’ progress. Through the final evaluations WAC gained a better understanding of how the students responded to the lessons taught at Youth Volunteer Corps. Feedback included 100 percent of the students gained confidence and a better understanding of themselves, understand more about careers available in the presenting arts and feel better prepared to make school, class or career choices. 

We are proud of the students that participated in Youth Volunteer Corps, as well as all of our student engagement programs! For more information about Youth Volunteer Corps watch Walton Arts Center Youth Volunteer Corp Video presented by CampWarEagle365. Visit our website to learn about more community opportunities with Walton Arts Center! 

View the AWE teachers in action!

Walton Arts Center’s 2013 Arts with Education Institute concluded last week, and we are so excited for the impact arts-integration teaching will have on Northwest Arkansas schools this fall!  The teachers were a part of professional development workshops, lectures and discussions with artists.  To learn more about how and what the AWE teachers were preparing for the classroom, we have a video to summarize the week’s events!       

To learn more about Arts with Education Institute visit our website!

2013 Arts with Education Institute

Walton Arts Center was excited to host the 2013 Arts with Education Institute (AWE) last week! The annual week-long professional development is designed to train Northwest Arkansas teachers to integrate the arts into everyday lesson plans, connecting to core curriculum.  

WAC hopes to positively impact the classroom learning experience for both teachers and the almost 1,200 students that are influenced by the AWE teachers each year. “Arts integrating will help my students build their cooperation muscles,” said an AWE teacher about the foreseen benefits of the program. 

Arkansas History, Social Studies and Visual Arts were the focus areas for AWE 2013. Teachers learned how to integrate the arts in these subject areas with hands-on, interactive workshops presented by John F. Kennedy Center professionals. “My students will be better in communicating,” said an AWE teacher about the program.              

The experts from the Kennedy Center believe in and teach the three main ways arts can be interjected into students’ learning experiences. Arts as curriculum involves music, art, drama or dance teachers, and students learn particular art forms. Arts-enhanced curriculum uses the arts as a “hook” to engage students when learning in other curriculum areas. Finally, an arts-integrated curriculum, which is the goal of programs like AWE, uses the arts as the approach to teaching and learning. Students gain knowledge of both the utilized art form and another subject.  (The Kennedy Center Arts Edge)

 Chart courtesy of The Kennedy Center Arts Edge

This year’s AWE featured lectures and workshops led by Sean Layne from The Kennedy Center. Layne has a B.F.A. in Acting, and has been a part of numerous arts education programs such as founding Focus 5 Inc., arts coaching for the Kennedy Center’s Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA) program, directing and set designing for the InterAct Story Theatre and internationally representing the Wolf Trap Institute Early Learning Through the Arts program. Some of the workshops led by Layne at AWE this year were Intro to Arts Integration, Acting Right, One Minute Challenges, Strategies for Memorization Text Cards and Connections to Common Core. Trike Theatre teaching artists assisted directly in the teaching of AWE, and will help teachers throughout the year by periodically stepping into the classrooms.   

AWE teachers are given a presentation on arts-integration learning

Along with working at the Walton Arts Center, the AWE teachers travelled to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for additional hands-on instruction. Lectures and workshops at CBMAA included an Introduction to Teaching from Art lecture and a Teaching Content with Artwork workshop given by teaching artists.    

While at Crystal Bridges, School Programs Manager Anne Kraybill began a lesson plan revolving around visual essays with an introduction to Visual Essay Instruction. This was followed by Creating Visual Essays given by a team of leaders. After the teachers were introduced to the concept and structure of visual essays, they were taught how to implement the learning technique in the classroom with the facilitated reflection Bringing Visual Essay Back to the Classroom. “My students will be highly engaged and own their learning,” said one AWE teacher about the lesson plans.  

The AWE Institute 2013 creating tableaus

We are excited to see these teachers take what they learned about arts-integration back to their classrooms this fall! To learn more about Arts with Education Institute visit our website! Funding for AWE is provided in part by Crayola® with additional funding from Arkansas Arts Council and Walton Arts Center supporters and benefactors.  

Student Engagement with Colgate Classroom Series

Walton Arts Center believes it is vital to expose children to the arts.  Our Colgate Classroom Series (CCS) provides us with a way to give the children of Northwest Arkansas access to live matinee performances of theater, dance, puppetry and world music.  This year, our focused efforts allowed growth in the reach of the program and cultivated new relationships with a Rural School Initiative.   

Since 2009, our reach has doubled - with 100 schools attending CCS performances this past year.  The number of registered seats grew as well, reaching 34,000 seats, compared to 2011’s 30,000.  Our goal next year is to register more than 40,000 students for the Colgate Classroom Series. 

Students arriving at Walton Arts Center

This growth is due in part to efforts to make participation as affordable as possible for the schools.  Two types of partnerships, Smart Partners and 100% Smart Partner Schools, allow us to work with the schools through every aspect of CCS.  Both partnerships receive assistance in ticket prices, online performance guides which support classroom instruction by helping educators connect art forms with core curriculum standards, and transportation subsidies from J.B. Hunt Transportation Inc.

Another way we expanded our reach this year was by focusing on rural schools in NWA. Of the 15 schools targeted, one third attended CCS performances, including Gentry, Pea Ridge, Farmington, West Fork and Decatur. Rural schools in the area account for 5500 students, and we are happy to have made great contacts in order to reach these students in years to come.  The goal next year is to have participation from at least half of these schools.   

Hakim Bekkam from Caravanserai interacts with students

The Colgate Classroom Series gives every NWA school and their students access to world-class arts. Through research with the University of Arkansas we’re learning more about how attending live performances at Walton Arts Center benefits students.  In a recent research project, Junior High School students from Bentonville and Springdale who attended performances at Walton Arts Center as part of elementary school, were surveyed. The results were impressive. Students who attended more performances demonstrated more positive student values, including greater tolerance and empathy and were more likely to read for pleasure compared to students who attended less or not at all. This research begins to quantify some of the many important benefits the arts have for students.   

Students watching the CCS performance of STOMP

CCS performances are chosen for their ability to enrich class curriculum. To make the process easier for participating schools, we provide a list of the shows offered, a brief synopsis of each and the suggested grade levels that are appropriate for the shows. This past year a few of the select shows were Boats, Grug and Dinosaur Petting Zoo.  We are excited to further expand the CCS reach this next year with theater performances like Digging Up Arkansas, dance productions like Company Käfig and world music demonstrations like AnDa Union!  

For a complete listing of the upcoming Colgate Classroom Series, and to learn more about the program, visit our website. 

Learning & Engagement at Walton Arts Center

Here at Walton Arts Center, we strive to positively impact our community through learning and engagement.  One of our main goals is to strengthen school learning communities through arts integration teacher training by to sharing model arts integration programs with the State education community.

One way we reach this goal is by training teachers throughout the area on how to creatively integrate education about the arts into their classroom lesson plans.  There are three main programs designed for these teachers: AWE Institute, SmART Residency and ARTeacher Fellowship.

ARTeacher Fellows

This year’s ARTeacher Fellowship was held June 19-21.  Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative and the Center for Children and Youth joined the Walton Arts Center in an effort to provide this exemplary professional development. The Center for Children and Youth selected 27 Jr. high and high school literacy and social studies teachers to participate in the program, and they will implement the arts integration strategies across their curriculums for a year.

ARTeacher Fellows studied with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presenter, Randy Barron; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art School Programs Manager, Anne Krybill; and University of Arkansas’ Center for Children and Youth, Hung Pham and Dr. Chris Goering.

ARTeacher Fellowship teachers participating in an art integration strategy for the classroom

Last year, the ARTeacher Fellowship reached nearly 500 students with 10 teachers participating in the program, so there are great expectations for the impact this year’s 27 trained educators will have on Northwest Arkansas students.

Teachers being trained through the ARTeacher Fellowship with small group practices

All three programs have yielded positive results in the classroom, for teachers and students alike, all the while keeping the arts alive in schools.  Teachers have noticed that students respond well to art integration strategies with better attitudes, eagerness to participate and an overall preference to the strategies over traditional ones.  Teachers that have participated in the programs say they have gained confidence teaching literacy and social studies with the art integration strategies and 90% believe their teaching skills have improved through the training.

We are excited to see the talented teachers integrate the arts into their curriculum this upcoming school year!  To learn more about the arts integration teaching training programs, visit our website.