TEACHING

Arts Integration Studio offers Professional Development Training for teachers, administrators, community educators, health care professionals, parents, teaching artists, and the general public.

Arts Integration in practice

Arts Integration Studio works at the intersection of arts in education and arts for social change. We believe the arts give voice to the human experience and that experiencing the arts opens pathways for learning, communicating, and engaging in the world. We use arts integration to foster deep learning, creative problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and to empower student voice.

Over the past four years, we have developed sustained professional development partnerships with public schools in Springfield, Pittsfield, and Easthampton, working with teachers, administrators, and community partners to develop arts-integrated approaches that respond to the needs of each community. Our work includes professional development, curriculum development, teaching artist residencies, site-based consultation, coaching, and ongoing reflection and support.

Our common goal for each school is to strengthen the ability of educators to use the arts as a tool for engagement and learning, while creating powerful opportunities for students to develop creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, agency, and leadership.

Arts Integration Studio in partnership

Arts Integration Studio’s professional development work is predicated on the belief that meaningful change happens over time. One professional development workshop can introduce new ideas and approaches. Sustained partnership gives educators the opportunity to try, reflect, adapt, and deepen those practices together and with their students.

We work with educators to:

• develop practical arts integration strategies
• connect arts-based approaches to existing curriculum and academic goals
• increase student engagement and participation
• support creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving
• strengthen communication and self-expression
• provide opportunities for student voice and leadership
• support social-emotional learning
• make learning visible through creative documentation and reflection
• build educator capacity and sustainable practice

PUBLIC SCHOOL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

The Springfield Public Schools: Portrait of a Graduate

Arts Integration Studio has a multi-year partnership with Springfield Public Schools, serving as an Arts Integration partner for the district’s Portrait of a Graduate initiative. Through our work, teachers explore ways to use arts integration to support the skills and capacities identified as important to student learning and development, including creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The partnership has also provided opportunities for teachers to experience arts integration directly with their students and to reflect on how arts-based approaches can be incorporated into ongoing classroom and school programming.

Julie Jaron, Director of Visual and Performing Arts, writes,

Year after year, Priscilla’s arts integration work with Springfield Public Schools proves to deepen the way students and their teachers understand so many subject areas. The arts transform the learning process into an engaging, impactful, and often joyous learning experience. Making meaning out of challenging concepts doesn’t have to be boring. Arts integration breathes life into this dreary paradigm and inspires student’s academic growth.”

2026-2027

This year, Arts Integration Studio will continue working with teachers and students in the afterschool program at Walsh Elementary School, supporting student engagement and participation while helping educators develop and apply arts-integrated approaches within the afterschool setting.

Pittsfield Public Schools: Making Learning Visible

The Easthampton Public Schools: Arts Integration

For the last 3 years, Arts Integration Studio has worked with Easthampton Public Schools at the Mountain View School to develop arts-integrated approaches to STEAM and literacy and to support teachers in incorporating arts integration into their classroom practice. Our work is designed to connect academic learning with creative processes, giving students multiple ways to explore ideas, communicate their thinking, collaborate, and demonstrate understanding.

STEM + Arts = STEAM

the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics that emphasizes interdisciplinary learning and engages students in the 21st century skills of communication, creative & critical thinking, analysis & problem-solving, innovation, and collaboration.

2026-2027: Youth Readers

This year, our work at Mountain View School moves into a new phase with Youth Readers, an interdisciplinary, multi-grade literacy program developed in partnership with Mountain View teachers and librarians. Youth Readers uses an arts-integrated approach to reading comprehension and student leadership, with a multi-disciplinary focus on both academic and social-emotional learning.

The program creates a bridge between the youngest and oldest students in the K–8 school community.

Middle school students are trained to read aloud to younger students and lead creative literacy activities. Through this process, they develop skills in reading comprehension, presentation, communication, preparation, self-discipline, and leadership. At the same time, younger students experience reading as a shared and creative activity, helping to develop their literacy skills and to foster a life long love of reading.

We could not do this work without the support of the Easthampton Learning Foundation, Thank you!