Coffee & Conversation: Enriching Learning Through Art Integration

Hands-on Art Integration can be used in the classroom by educators of all backgrounds to enrich student learning and prompt students to make meaningful connections.

Tempest and Ife of Doodles Academy discussed how art can be integrated into their instruction in order to:

• Stimulate new ideas and broaden classroom conversations
• Connect learning to personal experience in culturally relevant ways

Educators will walk away with the tools, resources, and know-how to effectively incorporate art into their lesson plans, and through this, improve their students’ learning outcomes.

• Render students’ thought processes visible, thereby helping teachers better choose and adjust their teaching strategies
• Use art observation to look at and analyze artworks and engage in critical thinking

Ife Abdus-Salam is an educator and administrator with 17 years of experience in New York City schools, non-profit organizations and cultural institutions. Ife has served as an educator and administrator for a number of organizations including the Studio Museum in Harlem, International Center of Photography, Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, and the New York City Department of Education. Ife holds a BFA in Photography from the Tisch School of the Arts, and a MAT in Teaching and Learning from the Rhode Island School of Design. Ife currently serves on the Educator Leadership Council of Doodles, which helps to design and oversee curricular resources.

Tempest NeuCollins has an MFA in studio arts from the School of Visual Arts. After receiving her degree she spent years working as a teaching artist in NYC; she worked with numerous non-profits providing arts education to students in under-resourced communities. She also designed and implemented art programming to socially and emotionally support students in pull-out classrooms. Tempest eventually transitioned into teaching art full-time at a K-5 charter school in Brooklyn. In 2015 she founded Doodles Academy. Her work with Doodles Academy centers around curriculum development, with a specific interest in supporting teachers not just in offering an art education, but rather supporting them to use art as a connective tissue between subjects and ideas.

Doodles Academy empowers educators to offer their students an impactful art curriculum, regardless of where or what they teach. Doodles is fueled by the belief that a high-quality art education needs to be a part of every child’s schooling. The proper art curriculum can support and enhance core subject areas, and can encourage broader thinking about the world and the people in it. Ultimately, quality art education helps students become creative, empathetic, and engaged adults. Doodles works toward these beliefs through the creation of an impactful curricula, available on doodles-academy.org. Doodles Academy also does work with partner schools and organizations to support students in receiving meaningful art experiences.

Interested in opportunities to learn from other educators?  Take the Core Advocate survey to learn about upcoming Coffee and Conversations and other free events.

Have a topic in mind for further discussion or feedback about the event?  We want to hear from you! Please reach out to Joy  Delizo-Osborne.