Visit
VisitApply
ApplyEvents
Events

Summer Institute: Activating Learning through the Arts

Summer Institute: Activating Learning through the Arts

Announcing UT Austin's Drama for Schools' 13th Annual Summer Institute: Activating Learning Through the Arts

Join us for 28 hours of professional learning that will prepare you to use arts integration strategies with PreK-12 students. This training will be fun, quickly paced and immediately applicable in a broad range of classrooms and contexts. The 2022 Summer Institute will be held in-person in Austin, Texas.

Foundational and Advanced Sessions: June 20-23, 2022 (four days) 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. (Must have attended a foundational session in previous years to attend the advanced session)
(We will break for lunch from 12:00-1:00 p.m. each day)

Austin ISD teachers apply here.
Non-AISD educators, artists, scholars, please email the Director of the Summer Institute at laradossett@utexas.edu with your interest.

The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance is pleased to host the Summer Institute: Activating Learning through the Arts in partnership with the Austin Independent School District Creative Learning Initiative. 

Program Overview

The Summer Institute is a research-based comprehensive pedagogical exploration and immersion training experience in the use of drama-based instruction across the curriculum. This three to four-day intensive arts integration training program is co-facilitated by faculty and graduate students from the Department of Theatre and Dance and the College of Education. The Institute provides an opportunity for educators and working professional from across the country to gather and explore the power of learning in and through the arts.

notes and drawings on a pageDuring the Institute, participants:

  • Explore drama-based strategies from the student's perspective;
  • Reflect on how the strategies might apply in your context;
  • Work in professional learning communities;
  • Develop and redefine new arts-integrated curricula and/or peer training modules, and;
  • Have the opportunity to observe and facilitate drama-based mini lesson plans.

The Institute concludes with the sharing of multiple drama-based lesson plans for peer review. Ongoing support for participants is provided after the class through the DBI Network website. In-service participants are also eligible to receive follow-up and support from University of Texas at Austin faculty through the Drama for Schools program model.

"I loved debriefing after using strategies to talk about all the different ways they can be applied in various contexts. It helped to deepen my own learning and understanding as well as make connections with other participants.”
- 2021 DFS Summer Institute participant

2022 Tuition and Fees

Summer Institute: Activating Learning through the Arts tuition for non-AISD participants: $350-500 sliding scale.

AISD participants' tuition is provided by the Creative Learning Initiative.

Contact Lara Dossett at laradossett@utexas.edu with any questions. Fees include course texts used in the Institute.

"It was a great training and did not feel one bit like a summer training. So thankful that we took the time to practice everything that was being taught. It kept me motivated and I looked forward to the next day."
- 2021 DFS Summer Institute participant