We’ve created a human-centered and wildly innovative
co-expertise philosophy that brings schools and museums into creative collaboration. Read our latest publications here: 7 Ways to Ignite Learning with Museums, Learning to See Learning at the Art Museum, and Museums as Cultural Landscapes for Learning.
In Spring 2012, midway through the year, the South Coast Writing Project is hosting ASIA2 (Advanced Spring Institute for the Arts) in Santa Barbara, CA in
partnership with the Santa Barbara Art Museum, where ASIA innovators will report projects and processes by engaging each other in spectacularly designed learning experiences. The experience begins with a February 15 cross-site planning session, following by the actual institute February 16 – 18. This innovative institute will include teachers and directors representing three National Writing Project sites: Piasa Bluffs (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville), South Coast (University California Santa Barbara), and, the Gateway (Univeristy of Missouri Saint Louis).
We’re embarking on a bolder journey this year to broaden the artistic cultural landscapes for teacher inquiry as we develop a professional and creative dialogue between SLAM and the Santa Barbara Art Museum (SBMA). We will engage in 3 days of intensive ResponsiveDesign™ processes, experiences and learning to both MAKE and SEE learning within the museum settings using RD in order to harness multi-modal ways of doing and being that lead to multi-modal ways of thinking that make way for future multi-modal enactments.
Since the summer of 2004, the CoLab has offered an Advanced Summer Institute for the Arts (ASIA) for teachers, we call ASIA Innovators, from Writing Project sites and museum settings across the country who convene for a focused and intense experiential workshop integrating creative confidence, literacies learning and
visual and dramatic arts as key elements to support classroom and community based innovations in learning and teaching. Get your own museum and Writing Project involved by contacting us!
In August, 2009 the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) with support from Director of School Services, Dr. Mike Murawski and CoLab Director, Dr. Ralph Córdova, became a creative space for teachers to explore, envision and enact the museum as a cultural landscape for innovative literacies learning.
The 3-day experience launched a year-long experiential inquiry that explores, envisions and enacts models of practice guided by our research questions:
1. How can museum and formal school settings become cultural landscapes for 21st century literacies learning?
2. What role do innovative and creativity-generating cultural practices play in local and cross-site collaboration?
3. How does taking a design and innovation stance provide new spaces for teachers to expand their individual and collective community of professional learning for self and students?
4. What new models for learning can be developed through the CoLab ASIA 2011 process?
June 2011 Fellows Artfully Being and Thinking with Anselm Kiefer’s piece: Destruction, Death & Renewal:
Acoustical Orchestra: From Individual Sounds of Life to a Collective Oneness with Gerhard Richter’s “January, December, November”:
Learning Partnership with School Districts:
The dynamic work we create with museums, we also do with schools in our partnership model. Learn about our Professionals Developing Professionals models-in-action and how it facilitates a mutually-respectful partnership between school districts and the CoLab.