Professional Development
Professional development is a key component to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Arts Education Department and programming. The Trust creates and delivers robust learning events designed specifically to meet the needs of the educational community being served. Through hands-on programs focused on arts integration, teachers are equipped with innovative tools and techniques to incorporate artistic practices into their own teaching style. Workshops can be scheduled for groups of educators at your site or individuals can register to attend workshops at the Trust Arts Education Center. Act 48 credit hours available.
Early Childhood
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and its Western Pennsylvania Wolf Trap program offer a variety of hands-on, participatory professional development workshops throughout the year, specially designed for early childhood practitioners. Sessions in dance and movement, music, dramatic play, and visual arts are taught by professional teaching artists. Emphasis is on developmentally appropriate practice for children ages 3-5, options are available for workshops addressing infants and toddlers.
Music
Jump Off the Page! Using Music and Movement to Make Picture Books Come Alive
Presenter: Margaret Hooton, BA
Early childhood music educator Margaret Hooton will demonstrate a developmental approach to engage the whole child in the joy of literature and the arts. Participants will learn to apply the basics of pitch, beat, singing in tune, and movement to circle time activities. Simple props will be used to enhance engagement in picture books.
Keep Them Moving and Singing
Presenter: Margaret Hooton, BA
This hands-on workshop allows educators to experience the benefits of large and small movement and music to engage young children in learning. This workshop will offer practical information for educators interested in making their early childhood classrooms more active and engaging by adding movement activities and music to their circle times and throughout the day. Educators will learn ways to integrate songs, fingerplays, and music into their daily schedule as well as ways to engage families by using songs and music from the children's home life.
Dance & Movement
Dancing Our Way Through STEM
Presenter: Joanna Abel
Providing children opportunities to explore creative movement can spark so many natural connections to STEM concepts. During this interactive workshop, educators will participate in a variety of dance focused strategies that will deepen understanding in science math, ingenuity, and other fundamental STEM concepts. Participants will have the opportunity to demonstrate their own creative movement techniques that can support student’s STEM learning.
Dancing and Social-Emotional Learning
Presenter: Joanna Abel
Educators often find it difficult to engage in social and emotional learning with young children. The most successful programs for these concepts use active forms of learning to teach students. In this workshop, educators will learn how to integrate social-emotional learning into their daily routines by incorporating dance and movement activities.
How to Develop a More Active Storytime
Presenter: Taylor Couch, MA
Turn an artful eye to your favorite circle time books. Adding a little extra to your story time can create deeper engagement with vocabulary, themes, and peer interaction. In this workshop, we’ll explore all aspects of circle time, including: choosing great story time books, different ways to approach story time (how to do a selected reading, picture walks, spreading out a story, etc.), ways to artfully enhance story time in the classroom, and ways to extend a great story through arts integration.
Social Emotional Learning
Self-Regulation, Grounding, Coping Skills for the Early Childhood Classroom
Presenter: Taylor Couch, MA
From the unique challenges faced by "Pandemic babies" to the needs of students that have directly experienced Trauma, Early Childhood Educators need resources for supporting students social-emotional needs. Through an Arts Integration lens, this workshop will give participants a chance to expand their classroom toolbox with activities that have strong pedagogical backing and require as few new materials as possible. Curricular areas that will be addressed include literacy, visual arts, performing arts, science, and math. Through reflection activities, participants will apply knowledge learned during this course.
New Professional Development Offerings
To learn more about our professional development workshops, contact 412-471-6079 or by e-mail. To receive our updates to educators, please fill out the form below.