Stepping into Learning with the Arts: Focus on Dramatic Inquiry and Adaptive Art

In this seminar, information will be shared on how general and special educators can step into engaging learning experiences with their students with the arts. This presentation will focus on active and dramatic strategies, dramatic inquiry, and adaptive art for PreK-12th grade learners. A range of active and dramatic strategies will be shared, as well as resources and recommendations for making the arts accessible for students with exceptionalities. Participants will learn about how they can incorporate dramatic inquiry into their specific learning context and will participate in designing their own dramatic inquiry learning experiences for students. Dramatic inquiry incorporates social imagination of play and dramatization to create a shared fictional context that is meaningful to students as they make meaning (Edmiston, 2014). Dramatic inquiry supports multiple modes for meaning making and encourages educators and students to use multiple modes, such as movement, drama, music, visual arts, talking, and writing. With the mantle of the expert approach, students are positioned as experts as they collaborate with their peers and teachers to make meaning to solve a problem that is of interest to them. For example, students can be positioned as paleontologists commissioned by a local museum to create accessible exhibits about paleontology and dinosaurs that can be shared in an upcoming exhibit. Examples from previous units will be shared with examples of how IEP goals, curricular goals, and social-emotional goals were incorporated to support the needs of individual learners. In addition, information will be shared for supporting family involvement and partnering with organizations within your community for support with planning, such as museums and universities. Lastly, educators will learn how they can design adaptive art experiences to make the visual arts accessible to a range of learners with exceptionalities. Examples and information will be shared about adapting tools and art techniques to provide students with access to art experiences and expressing themselves through the arts.