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Creative Classroom Institute

Supporting Tulsa's Teachers

Every summer, ahha Tulsa provides a professional development for Tulsa area educators and administrators that centers around meaningful methods of arts integration that cultivate creative classrooms and school campuses. 

Professional Development for Educators

About the Creative Classroom Institute

The Creative Classroom Institute (CCI) is a summer professional development institute for Tulsa area educators and administrators. The institute is free of charge to participants who are able to receive a professional development certificate for their participation. The objectives of the CCI are as follows:

  • Participants will expand their view of what creativity is and understand the value of creative thinking.
  • Participants will learn practical and applicable strategies they can use in their classrooms and schools to cultivate student creativity. 
  • Participants will feel confident and inspired to use what they have learned in their classrooms and schools. 
  • Participants will become familiar with ahha Tulsa and see the organization and its staff as a support system and resource for the vital work of arts education. 
Three teachers stand and gesture with their hands like they are wearing glasses.
An aluminum foil sculpture of a person sits on a table.
Guest Facilitators

MINDPOP

MINDPOP is a nonprofit consultancy and incubator out of Austin, Texas, that connects individuals, organizations, and communities with the insights, tools, and resources they need to increase student access to the arts and to the benefits of creative learning. The MINDPOP approach combines empirical research, a strong theoretical base, and decades of practical experience. Using the tools of collective impact, MINDPOP brings equity and access to quality arts education to schools and communities, and builds the instructional skills of teachers to lead creative classrooms. The MINDPOP staff are leaders in designing and implementing creative learning systems nationwide. 

MINDPOP is the lead partner organization of Austin’s Creative Learning Initiative, a collective impact program in Austin Independent School District. The Creative Learning Initiative provides extensive professional development for teachers and builds a strong community network of partner organizations in order to increase creative learning and arts-rich environments for all students.

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What You'll Learn

Institute Content

Over the course of 2-3 days, CCI participants attend workshop sessions that focus on learning creative teaching strategies and using them in the classroom. 

Creative Teaching Strategies are ways of teaching students that are rooted in artistic methods and processes, are easy to learn and implement, and are flexible across curricula and lesson cycles. The strategies cultivate creative thinking by requiring students to:

  • Generate multiple ideas.
  • Make creative choices.
  • Construct mental and/or physical models.
  • Analyze and synthesize content.
  • Translate symbol systems and transfer understanding.
  • Contribute points of view.

The strategies are divided into categories based on artistic discipline – visual and media arts, music, theatre and drama, and dance and movement. Educators can use the strategies to integrate the arts and artistic thinking into everyday curriculum in meaningful ways to establish routines and rituals, assess learning, and teach procedures and academic subject content. 

After learning creative teaching strategies with the team from MINDPOP, participants will design lesson plans that integrate the strategies and practice teaching them in small groups.

A group of teachers talk and gesture around a table with sticky notes.
Two teachers sit at a table talking. On the table are papers, random objects, and a bucket of colored pencils and crayons.

2021 Schedule
@ ahha Tulsa

Monday, August 2 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

  • Learn Creative Teaching Strategies
  • Hour lunch break

Tuesday, August 3 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

  • Learn Creative Teaching Strategy
  • Design lesson plans using Creative Teaching Strategies
  • Practice teaching with the strategies
  • Hour lunch break

Wednesday, August 4 | 9:00 - 11:30 AM

  • Come back for more! 
  • Learn/review Creative Teaching Strategies from 2018 and 2019 CCI – for both new and returning teachers

Creative Classroom Institute 2021

Register Here

In the case of a resurgence of COVID-19 and implementation of gathering and/or traveling restrictions, the Creative Classroom Institute will be presented virtually. Participants will be required to wear masks.

Thank you to our partners:

The MINDPOP logo in red and white.

Contact Us

learn@ahhatulsa.org