Arts Learning
ACHF Arts Education
Enrich participants' lives by providing in-depth arts experiences in dance, puppetry, and visual arts. Every arts learner will have 50 hours of instruction with teaching artists and 360 hours of repeated lessons with staff. Barriers to participation will be identified and adaptations made so that learners can succeed in making art. 2: Learners will develop holistically, as art becomes a vehicle for expanded emotional/social wellbeing, and physical and artistic/cognitive functioning. Evaluation is through observations by teaching artists and Epic staff to identify physical, emotional-social, and artistic-cognitive functioning. Following each lesson, artist(s) and staff will meet to review individual mastery and participation.
Artists were in residence 136 hours total. Kairos Alive! (dance and storytelling) was in residence 20 days, leading two daily 1.5-hour sessions. In addition, Kairos and arts learners created a 1-hr final celebration for caregivers and other guests. (Total, 61 contact hours.) Lori Brink was in residence 15 days, teaching four 45-minute sessions daily (total, 45 contact hours). Z Puppets Rosenschnoz was in residence 10 days, teaching four 45-minute sessions daily (total, 30 contact hours). Additionally, Z performed a touring show for our arts learners. In sum, each arts learner had 50.5 total hours of engagement with artists. Arts learners also went on 3 field trips: 1) to Caponi Art Park to see a dance performance, 2) on a nature walk to collect plant samples for art projects, and 3) to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Over the year, when teaching artists were not at Epic, learners participated in 360 hours of staff-led music, movement, and visual art sessions. 2: Staff tracked learners in art sessions, assessing physical functioning (observing endurance, range of motion, and core strength); artistic/cognitive skill-building (gauging the complexity tasks, learner's ability to follow artistic direction, and initiation); and emotional-social wellbeing (noting when learner smiles, interacts with others, and demonstrates enjoyment of activities). In facilitated debriefings at the end of each residency day, artists and staff reflected on (and celebrated!) arts learners' progress and used the information to shape future art sessions. Of the 29 learners we tracked: 28 had experiences affecting their emotional/social wellbeing-13 had experiences that we considered significant. All 29 had experiences affecting their artistic/cognitive development-20 had experiences we considered significant. 25 had experiences affecting their physical development-6 had experiences we considered significant.
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