accessARTS

accessARTS is a learning strategy that unites arts and education.
It is not difficult or expensive. It inspires. It works.

Cameron Taylor-Brown and Amanda Parsons founded ACCESS Community Arts & Education as a consulting partnership that worked with teachers, artists and organizations to make direct connections between the arts, curriculum, content standards and community arts experiences. AccessARTS places the arts at the core of creative learning, helping students become flexible, innovative problem solvers. Two accessARTS models, Start with Art and Arts in the City, were developed with the support of California State Charter School Grants. These classroom-tested models were disseminated throughout the state of California in 2004-5. The partnership is no longer active and this page is now archival in nature. Strategies used in accessARTS are incorporated into all of Cameron's seminars and workshops and are explored in createIt@ARTSgarage, the professional development education initiative she launched in 2011.

Introduction to accessARTS

  • These seminars introduce two basic accessARTS models.

  • Start with Art

    Start with Art introduces classroom techniques which use the arts to inspire learning and enhance academic achievement across the curriculum. Two-hour format introduces inquiry-based learning through the arts and the importance of divergent thinking as a source of creativity. Explore a variety of inquiry-based materials, including Minds in Motion, Visual Thinking Strategies, and  Collecting Their Thoughts. Experience how classroom teachers use Start with Art to introduce academic themes and motivate performance. Four-hour format includes a hands-on Start with Art lesson, plus small group work to create a series of Start with Art integrated lesson plans.

  • Arts in the City

    Arts in the City shows how the focused use of community arts can be used to strengthen and enhance classroom learning and curriculum. Arts in the City reaches beyond the school campus into the arts community, using techniques and materials that tie a simple field trip or school performance back into the curriculum. Two-hour format introduces collaborative brainstorming with Standards at a Glance to create integrated lessons. Four-hour format includes small group work to practice brainstorming and create a series of Arts in the City integrated lessons plans.

accessARTS Quick Starts

  • Each seminar is a quick and stimulating ninety minutes.

  • Connecting Threads

    Dive in to an incredible bag of colored fibers and experience how a simple ball of yarn can be used to explore content across the curriculum. Discover how fiber can make science, mathematics, language arts, social science and the arts come alive in your classroom. Experience hands-on examples and create some of your own - and leave with a bag of yarn and lots of new ideas.

  • How String Changed the World

    Traces of ancient weaving pressed into clay show that fiber was already an integral part of human life 27,000 years ago. Explore why humans first twisted fibers into thread, and how this invention revolutionized early cultures. Spin and ply your own string and make a simple band weaving. Discuss how this foray into discovery can be applied to our own teaching and learning.

  • Powers of Ten

    Powers of Ten, a classic film by Charles and Ray Eames, takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic, this famous film transports us to the outer edge of the universe and ends inside a proton of a carbon atom. View Powers of Ten , discuss how the Eames' artistry helps us "see" a mathematical concept, and how we can apply this approach to our own teaching and learning.

  • Why Man Creates

    Why Man Creates is an award-winning film by Saul Bass that explores the essence of creativity and how creativity is the core of human culture. View Why Man Creates and discuss how key concepts embedded in the film can inform and inspire our own approach to teaching and learning.

  •  WordPlay: Imagine It!

    Creatively inspire new ideas by playing with words and images. Toss a deck of descriptive words such as BRIGHT LIVELY DRY SMOOTH WET SLOW BUMPY onto the table. Select word combinations that inspire a visual image you find compelling. Rummage through piles of fibers, photos, pastels and colored papers to transform this image into your personal  WordPlay collage. Discuss how this approach can be applied to our own teaching and learning.

 

AccessARTS professional development seminars have been presented through a number of organizations and schools, including California Charter Schools Association regional workshops, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the American Association of Museums, the California Association of Museums, the California Art Education Association, Arts in Education Aid Council, California Charter Schools Conferences, P.S. Arts, The Actors' Fund, California Fibers, and Angeles Mesa, Baldwin Hills, Coliseum Street and Third Street Elementary Schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Standards at a Glance, an arts-centric annotation of the California State Content Standards is distributed through accessARTS seminars. Standards at a Glance is used by a number of arts organizations, including P.S. Arts, the California African American Museum, the Getty Museum, Arts Orange County, the Zimmer Children's Museum and the Museum of Latin American Art.