"Teaching artists do an important job of nurturing self-expression and creativity for Chicago's children and youth. The TAD Studio is a valuable new resource that will equip teaching artists with the necessary skills and training to do their job even better."

Michelle T. Boone, Commissioner of the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events

Teaching Artist Development Studio

The Teaching Artist Development (TAD) Studio is a comprehensive training program for teaching artists. The TAD Studio initiative addresses an essential need in Chicago for systematic professional development of artists teaching in Chicago Public Schools.

The goal of the TAD Studio is to provide teaching artists with a strong foundation of knowledge and skills for teaching in and through the arts. The pilot year will be open to all teaching artists who wish to work in or out of school in Chicago Public School settings with K-12 students.

Timeline and Participants

The TAD Studio pilot year started in November 2011 and served two cohorts of 20-25 teaching artists each. The first cohort, November 2011 through February 2012, included new, emerging teaching artists with less than five years of teaching experience. The second cohort, February through April 2012, included experienced mid-level teaching artists who wished to deepen their practice. Fellows participated in the TAD Studio at no cost, and were provided an honorarium for their participation.

The Curriculum

The pilot program provided 40+ hours of hands-on training and research covering teaching artist practice in curriculum design, inquiry-based learning, documentation and archiving, student assessment, pedagogy, investigation of teaching sites, investigation of teaching and arts practices, action research, classroom management, and collaboration.

For more about the TAD Studio curriculum.

Please check back here for in July2012 for updates on TAD Studio 2012/2013.

For more information contact tadstudio@colum.edu.

The TAD Studio program is supported by generous grants from the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.