Professional Development

The Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and the Palm Beach County School District are members of the Partners in Education program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Selected because of their demonstrated commitment to the improvement of education in and through the arts, the partnership team participates in collaborative efforts to make the arts integral to education.

Click here for the Professional Development registration form

SCHOOL YEAR SESSIONS

Teaching Florida History Through Drama
(in preparation for S*T*A*R Series performances of Once Upon a Time … In Florida)
Saturday, September 20 from 9 am to noon
Workshop Leader: Don Butler
For Teachers of Grades 3-5

This workshop focuses on theatrical techniques – with emphasis on the exciting Story Theater form – to enhance interest and participation in the study of history. Teachers will learn how to take a story from Florida’s richly textured past and, by using the selection process employed by playwrights, create a plot which in turn can be performed using the physicality, space substance, imagined environments and narrative techniques unique to Story Theater. There will also be improvisational role-playing on how the teacher can use whatever is occurring in the classroom at any given moment to accomplish a predetermined goal.

Celebrating West African Culture Through Storytelling, Music and Dance
Wednesday, October 15 from 4 pm until 7 pm
Workshop Leader: Trina Soumare
For Teachers of Grades 3-8

This interactive workshop, which offers a multi-sensory approach to teaching students about West African culture, will appeal to a wide range of learning modalities. Join Arts Educator and Performing Artist Trina Soumare in a simulated journey into a West African village where teachers will learn how to incorporate storytelling, music and dance into their lessons. This workshop includes elements of language and visual arts, social studies, world languages, dance and science. Each participant will receive his/her very own “Teacher’s Sahgah” (basket) of teaching materials to take back to class.

Using Storytelling to Reach and Teach: A Parent/Teacher Workshop
Saturday, October 25 from 9 am until noon
Workshop Leader: Madafo Lloyd Wilson
For Teachers of Grades K-5

The logical method for educating children should begin with the arts because the arts are an extension of our senses. In addition, they are the sole, total evidence of man’s development throughout civilization. The strengthening and development of the senses is crucial in the development of the total child. The ability to assimilate the meaning of words, symbols and concepts depends on a foundation of alert senses. Life is motion and motion is constant. Each living moment should lead to another discovery or the pursuit of another discovery, another skill, another challenge or the satisfaction of enjoying and recognizing the arts of other people. The arts establish the universe of sound, motion, sight, touch and taste. These senses need to be reinforced so that further stages of abstract learning can become meaningful. The most important elements of the universe are our children! They are the future! This workshop will bring together parents and teachers, in a seriously, fun-filled forum, to discuss the plight of youth and the responsibility we have, as parents and teachers, to positively impact our childrens’ lives through the simplicity of the arts (Storytelling and Music).

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters Workshop
Saturday, October 25 from 9 am until noon
Workshop Leader: Robyn Flatt
For Teachers of Grades 2-5

This workshop, led by director Robyn Flatt, will introduce teachers to the elements of form from the vantage point of the theatre artist/collaborator. Teachers will discover the roots of their own creativity as they journey through the steps of building a production such as Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. Participants will learn new tools for applying multi-sensory techniques and the vocabulary of the arts (rhythm, line, color and texture, sound and silence, space, shape and light) throughout their curriculum.

The workshop will also prepare teachers for pre- and post- discussions and activities with their students who are scheduled to attend a Dallas Children’s Theater performance of the Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters play. Discussion of the script will be followed by a look at concept decisions and how the designers employed the use of light, color and texture to convey the spirit of the play. Participants will explore the Zimbabwe environments of the story through the lens of sound and movement. They will also examine the characters in the play through exercises in line and rhythm. The workshop will conclude with the teaching of one of the songs composed especially for Dallas Children’s Theater’s production by S-Ankh Rasa.

1-2-3-Dignity: Creative Movement and Character Education
Saturday, November 1 from 9 am until noon
Workshop Leader: Joann Preston
For Teachers of Grades K-2

Teachers will learn a set of warm-ups designed to energize and focus students. This warm-up will include many examples of how movement is a way to practice learning and social skills as well as learning academic subjects as math, science, and language arts. Specific ingredients of dance will then be explored and a short fun dance will be learned that can be shared with students. Immersing a bit further into movement, teachers will learn exciting activities that their students can participate in to encourage character traits of trustworthiness, caring, cooperation and respect. Joann Preston will joyfully guide teachers in these activities with the goal that they will be able to bring to and share them with their students in the classroom.

Dramatizing the Content: Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre
Saturday, November 15 from 9 am until 4 pm
Workshop Leader: Rosalind Flynn

Readers Theatre is a rehearsed group presentation of a script that is read aloud rather than memorized. This workshop’s activities involve teachers in the planning, writing, rehearsing, staging and assessing of curriculum-based readers theatre scripts. The focus? Creating and presenting a short script that fulfills a dual purpose — it must inform about a curriculum topic and entertain an audience! Repeatedly reading and rehearsing scripts based on curriculum content increases the likelihood that students will practice fluent reading, retain information, and perform better on assessments. Theatrical skills of vocal volume, expression, and effective use of gestures are also among the goals of this arts integration activity that merges drama, theatre, writing, reading, speaking, listening, and content learning. A workshop packet that contains sample scripts, guidelines for developing scripts and directing presentations, and other resources is included. For teachers who wish to use Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre as a form of performance-based assessment, assessment criteria and tools are also part of the packet. This workshop addresses all curriculum areas and many national and state standards of learning. (Special note to Math and Science teachers: Yes, even you will leave this workshop with definite strategies and materials to merge drama with the content you cover!)

For Teachers of Grades 4-12

A Playful Approach to Writing
Saturday, December 6 from 9 am to noon
Workshop Leader: Mary Hall Surface
For Teachers of Grades 1-6

Playwriting offers a powerful way to interest students in writing or pre-writing processes. Participants examine ways to help students learn how to think like playwrights and to develop a script — written or pictorial — that draws on their improvisations of characters and ideas. Workshop activities are drawn from Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Deeper Meaning Through Drama: Bringing Characters to Life by Exploring Bet ween the Lines
Saturday, December 6 from 1 pm to 4 pm
Workshop Leader: Mary Hall Surface
For Teachers of Grades 3-8

This lively, hands-on workshop introduces the tools that actors use when interpreting a monologue for performance. Actors bring life to text by seeking to understand the emotions beneath a character’s words – the subtext – and how those emotions change – the turning points. Asking questions and inference are essential skills for the actor when using these tools. The goal of this workshop is to give teachers these same tools to enable students to look beyond the surface facts of a text and search for deeper meaning, both as readers and as writers. These tools will be applied specifically to enriching a student’s understanding in the language arts and social studies curriculum through the writing and performance of monologues.

Word Painting: Mastering Reading Fluency and Oral Expression Through Music
Saturday, April 25 from 9 am to noon and 1 pm to 4 pm
Workshop Leader: Marcia Daft
For Teachers of Grades K-6

How can teachers guide students’ oral reading — changing it from a plodding monotone to a fluid, expressive voice? By integrating music into the teaching of language arts! This participatory workshop for educators explores the connections between elements of music and elements of language. Participants learn strategies for using music to increase students’ interest in the rhythmic patterns of word relationships, teach metric poetry, develop students’ listening skills, build interpretation and oral presentation skills, and improve reading fluency. A must for teachers of English language learners!

Demonstration Teaching Through the Arts
Monday and Tuesday, April 27 and 28
(Two-day, in school session)
Teaching Artist: Marcia Daft
For selected teachers at a designated elementary school

Acting Right: Drama as a Classroom Management Strategy
Saturday, May 9 from 9 am to noon and 1 pm until 4 pm
Workshop Leader: Sean Layne
For Teachers of Grades K-8

Sean Layne has taken the foundational elements of acting such as concentration, cooperation and collaboration and created a structured process, which can become the basis for effective classroom management every day. This engaging step-by-step approach empowers students to take ownership of and be responsible for their own behavior. In this workshop, teachers learn how to help students build the skills necessary to establish a sense of self-control, accountability and teambuilding in their classroom.

Demonstration Teaching Through the Arts
Monday and Tuesday, May 11 and 12
Teaching Artist: Sean Layne
For selected teachers at a designated elementary school

EDUCATOR RUSH TICKET PROGRAM
By presenting their Educator ID at the box office one hour prior to curtain time, teachers receive 50% off the ticket price for any seat in the house, based on availability, for any Kravis Center self-initiated performance.
Sponsored by  Suzanne G. Reis Arts Education Fund

EDUCATOR RECOGNITION NIGHT
By invitation only, a select group of dedicated teachers will be honored at a reception prior to the Dreyfoos Hall performance, The 5 Browns on April 13th to thank them for their unyielding commitment and support of the Kravis Center’s extensive educational programs. A meet-and-greet with the artists will follow the performance.
Sponsored by  Suzanne G. Reis Arts Education Fund

The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and the School District of Palm Beach County are members of the Partners in Education program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  Selected because of their demonstrated commitment to the improvement of education in and through the arts, the partnership team participates in collaborative efforts to make the arts integral to education.