About the Summer Institute for Teachers
The Portland Museum of Art’s program, A Place for Art: Summer Institute for Teachers, and the resulting curriculum units have proven that the immersion approach to visual arts education is an effective and meaningful way for students and teachers to engage with art and artists.
The in-depth study of a single work of art allows teachers and students to create rich personal connections and individual interpretations of works of art while achieving important standards and curriculum goals including artistic production, media skills, and art history knowledge. The immersion process using an anchor work encourages interdisciplinary studies and authentic connections between content areas.
A Place for Art: Summer Institute for Teachers were intensive five-day professional development workshops that featured the Portland Museum of Art’s masterpieces, Weatherbeaten by Winslow Homer and Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp by Frederic Edwin Church as the anchor works. The week was designed to model the immersion process and to provide curriculum and assessment resources for effective classroom implementation. The curriculum units developed during the workshops explore the theme of “a sense of place in art,” establish the immersion approach as a foundation of interdisciplinary study, and develop students’ engagement with and understanding of art and culture. These two paintings were selected for their relevance to Maine students and for their iconic stature in the history of American art. Both works have been the focus of school tours and curriculum projects at the Museum and are favorites of teachers and students.
The Summer Institute for Teachers celebrate educators as life-long learners and art lovers, and include intensive gallery explorations, hands-on art making, art history lectures and readings, and visits with local artists. Workshops on curriculum and assessment development provide tools and resources that help teachers implement the immersion approach in their classrooms.
THE IMMERSION PROCESS MODEL
Personal interactions with original works of art
- A Place for Art: Summer Institute for Teachers begins with a gallery experience with the anchor work. This intensive, inquiry- and object-based discussion allows teachers to look closely, think deeply, and make personal connections to the work of art.
- Teachers also make use of the PMA’s extensive exhibitions and collections to compare the anchor work to other museum masterpieces.
Individual art-making
- Teachers create journals and portable studios to document the institute and to explore reflection questions. Refection Questions (pdf)
- Plein air painting workshops. Teachers travel to Diamond Cove in Casco Bay to experiment with outdoor landscape painting.
Artist studio visits
- The theme of “a sense of place” is discussed and experienced first-hand at the Winslow Homer Studio at Prouts Neck.
Workshops with contemporary Maine artists reveal the wealth of artistic achievement in the state today.
Lectures and readings
- Lectures by distinguished scholars and relevant readings provide art historical and cultural contexts to the works of art.
Institute Readings (pdf)
Curriculum and Assessment workshops
- Curriculum Unit Guide (pdf)
- Curriculum Unit Design Checklist (pdf)
- Five Key Strategies for Formative Assessment (pdf)
- Assessing Student Work (pdf)
- Documenting Teaching & Learning (pdf)
- The Perpich Center for Arts Education in Minnesota has good resources on curriculum and assessment
Reconvene meeting
- Teachers share their work and the process of implementing their curriculum units in the classroom.
