The Educational Theatre Association is thrilled to announce our search for teacher leaders to launch the Connected Arts Networks (CAN), a five-year project designed to engage theatre educators in nationwide virtual professional learning communities (PLCs) to nurture and empower them while offering rich professional development opportunities around their practice.
Details on the project, made possible by an $8.5 million U.S. Department of Education grant, were announced last fall.
As part of this high-profile and prestigious national initiative, successful applicants will receive specialized virtual training to build their capacity to address diversity, equity, inclusion, and social-emotional learning within theatre instruction. They will then have an opportunity to conduct action research within virtual professional learning communities centered around problem solving for their classrooms and deepening their own practice. By equipping teachers with skills in these pressing areas for theatre educators, we believe we can both support educators and positively impact students.
In the second year of the project, members of this elite initial professional learning community will begin to form and facilitate their own virtual learning communities of theatre educators.
On behalf of the project, EdTA is seeking 15 teacher leaders, grades K-12, as a part of a passionate and diverse group of educators who will form this first professional learning community cohort of teacher leaders. We welcome educators in media arts/film and invite them to apply as well. Teacher leaders chosen will receive an honorarium as compensation for their time and recognition of their skills.
Applicants must be employed as a U.S. theatre educator teaching any grade level (K-12) and will be asked for a letter of support from their administration. The application opens Monday, February 14. All applications must be received by Monday, March 14 at 11 a.m. ET (8 a.m. PT).
Learn more about the application process and participation in the project.
Questions? Contact Cory Wilkerson, EdTA Education Director.
Program activities for this project are fully funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Assistance for Arts Education Program, projected for a total of $8,515,648 over five years to be shared amongst the grant partners.
