There is no one-size-fits-all way to keep pace with the changes affecting students and those who educate them. That's why Joan Lazarus has gathered here the insights of hundreds of theater teachers and teaching artists on how they have responded to the shifting demands of theater education in today's schools. She paints a portrait of active,…

Abstract: Developing and nurturing empathy in medical trainees has been recognized as an essential element of medical education. Theater may be a unique instructional modality to increase empathy training. Methods: A multi-disciplinary team developed a theater workshop for first year medical students. Through the use of theater games, art images…

Stories in the "ALT/Space" section of each issue of "Teaching Artist Journal" illustrate and document a wide variety of topics surrounding the work of teaching artists while simultaneously revealing some larger truths about what it means to be an artist who teaches. This particular section focuses on the process and realities…

In 2007, Simon Fraser University's satellite campus in Surrey, British Columbia, received an Official Languages Dissemination Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to examine the role of official bilingualism in the multilingual context through installation and performance art. This essay considers the processes…

Family Medicine residency programs in the United States are required to promote resident well-being. This article describes how one residency does this by teaching the concepts of Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness developed by Dr. Martin Seligman utilizing a multi-media curriculum. As part of this curriculum, residents listen to the song…

The author of this document spent time as the Associate Artistic Director of The 52nd Street Project, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to the creation and production of new plays for, and often by, kids between the ages of nine and eighteen that reside in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. Through a series of unique…

The challenges and joys of presenting high school and middle school musicals are myriad--and, due to the many variables involved, often unlike those of choral concerts, band concerts, or just about anything else that one may encounter as a teacher. With so many moving parts, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, especially if one is new to the game. In…

This volume has explored embodied knowing in formal and informal education, including the university classroom, the workplace, the health professions, and the community. Educators considered the role of intuition, theater, dance, yoga, and outdoor education activities as forms of embodied learning. While the contexts of education were different,…

A partnership with the Hmong American community produced "The Wildlife and Wilderness Exploration Show," a DVD that puts a modern twist on traditional Hmong storytelling. Key educational messages in the DVD were identified through interviews with Hmong natural resource professionals. The messages are delivered in entertaining segments in the DVD,…

When one says "writing about teaching artist practice," what exactly does that mean? In the first two sections (EJ1039315 and EJ1039319), the authors considered different ways to frame a story by either zooming in closely to a specific moment or zooming out to provide more context in an effort to address complex issues. The stories in…

The last two sections (EJ1039315 and EJ1039319) presented stories about specific moments or lessons. Also, situations infused with complexity where the writers had to toggle back and forth between providing the larger context and the details that support readers' understanding of that big picture were presented. In this section each story is…

Theatrical improvisation is a joyful, creative, and playful activity of discovery and a spontaneous process. It seems to be the opposite of teaching, which requires proper planning and advance thinking and seems a very "serious business" that deals with values and knowledge. Improvisation is shaped by flexibility and by transformative…

The author shares his experiences teaching a unit based on the Broadway musical "In the Heights" as a way of engaging the cultural identity of his students, mainly Dominican Americans. The unit he created around the musical was initially built in an effort to make Dominican culture overt in the classroom, fulfilling pedagogical ideas…

In this essay, the president of Miami Dade College describes the anchoring role that the institution plays in the Miami metropolitan region, with a particular emphasis on the many arts and cultural contributions. These efforts, combined with the economic and workforce development endeavors, make Miami Dade College a model anchor institution.

To inform students about global violence against women and to empower them to take action, the authors developed an interdisciplinary course focused on experiential learning and theatre education. Their article discusses the development of the course; the implementation of active learning strategies to develop critical thinking, empathy, and…