Innovative Educators Institute: Narrating Space

July 10, 2017 - 10:00am - July 14, 2017 - 4:00pm

Narrating Space 2017 4

Innovative Educators Institute: Narrating Space
July 10-14, 2017

Faculty member: Rina Kundu
Participating artists: Fo Wilson, Reggie Wilson, Colin Matthes, Rose Curley

Lynden has been working with UWM's Art Education program for several years to develop a place-based K-12 curriculum that focuses on the intersection of art and nature, providing hands-on experiences that integrate Lynden’s collection of monumental outdoor sculpture with the natural ecology of the site. Thanks to the generous support of the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, we have been able to build the IEI into an intensive, hands-on, year-round professional teacher development experience that tests approaches to sustaining and supporting early career (years 1-5) teachers who are committed to teaching through the arts.
The institute runs in three-year cycles, and is built around cross-disciplinary, school-based teams. These teams are typically made up of an art educator and one or two generalists or teachers with other academic specializations (though other configurations are possible). The focus is on teaching interdisciplinary, arts-integrated strategies and methodologies that are easily adapted to the classroom. We also believe that making time for art and reinvigorating one's personal art practice have a positive impact on teachers and teaching. In addition, we make resources and opportunities available to the classrooms of participating teachers throughout the year, including hands-on field trips to Lynden and school-based residencies with Institute artists.

Each year the Institute is built around a different theme. This year’s theme is Narrating Space: Wandering, Encountering, Dwelling, Resonating and these are some of the questions we will be considering:
How do we expand our understanding of space to include those who inhabit it and the ways in which mind, body, objects, and terrain shape each other? How might we write about these dynamic spaces, or physically deploy narratives within them using creative modes of representation to reconfigure our engagement with them? This interdisciplinary conversation will range across dance, writing, art making, and storytelling. It will include opportunities to discuss and write about art and curriculum, and to explore narration in relation to identities and surroundings. As we narrate our experiences using text and image, we will develop an understanding of the use and meaning of spaces.

The 2017-2018 cycle of the IEI begins with a summer intensive from July 10-14, 2017. A toolkit of art-based, cross-disciplinary strategies will be developed that will be augmented by outdoor hands-on experiences with artists Colin Matthes, Fo Wilson (her project on Lynden’s grounds, Eliza’s Peculiar Cabinet of Curiosities, will be central to our investigations), Rose Curley, Reggie Wilson, and others. The institute includes an independent study period to prepare for an exhibition and to complete curriculum projects. Final projects will be exhibited and presented at Lynden on July 28, 2017. The institute also includes two day-long, in-service workshops, in fall and spring, for the entire group; ongoing teamwork on implementation of the new curriculum; and classroom visits from Institute faculty throughout the school year.


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