The document discusses the instructional practices of teaching artists. It identifies seven key practices: using provocations to trigger meaning making; accepting porous boundaries between school and home; allowing silliness and play to disrupt typical school thinking; having open-ended challenges where outcomes are not predetermined; using oneself as a teaching resource through open discussion of personal life; emphasizing teamwork and ensemble work distinct from individual student identity; and highlighting rhythm and flow of class time over speed of transitions.

1. Digital Authorship
Renee Hobbs
EDC 534
University of Rhode Island

4. Instructional Practices
Provocation
An object, images, sound, person, event or
action that is deliberately ambiguous,
unexpected. The lack of predetermined
interpretation is a trigger for meaning-making.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists

5. Instructional Practices
The Texts of
Our Lives
An acceptance of porous boundaries between
school and home combines with a readiness to
translate and re-imagine events, stories,
characters in familiar settings.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists

6. Instructional Practices
Permission to
Play
Silliness, eccentricity and larger-than-lifeness
disrupt “school ways” of thinking and doing.
Appreciation of the carnivalesque.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists

7. Instructional Practices
Open Ended
Challenges
Learning outcomes are not pre-determined.
What is learned is a trajectory or journey but
not chosen by the teacher in advance. Focus
on intrinsic motivation and student-developed
skills of discrimination and judgment.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists

8. Instructional Practices
Self as a
Teaching
Resource
Open talk about personal life based on the
expectation that students are interested in the
identity of the teaching artist. Use of body to
make meaning. Narrative and performance-
oriented activity.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists

9. Instructional Practices
Professional
Norms &
Routines
Teamwork and ensemble sensibility is
designed as distinct from student identity.
Direct instruction and traditions of fine art
used as a formal model for student work.
Rhythm and flow of class time is highlighted
rather than speed or smoothness of
transitions.
Instructional Practices of
Teaching Artists