Teacher Professional Development

National Core Arts Standards to Get Online PD

• By Leila Meyer
• 11/01/16

The State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE) has partnered with Public Consulting Group (PCG) to provide educators with online professional development courses focused on the National Core Arts Standards.

The National Core Arts Standards were published in 2014 by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS), a partnership of 10 national arts and education service organizations. The standards address the artistic processes of creating; performing, producing or presenting; responding; and connecting through dance, media arts, music, theater and visual arts in K–12 education. Since their publication, numerous states have adopted versions of these voluntary national arts standards.

The SEADAE and PCG will provide online professional development courses through PCG's Pepper platform, an online learning community offering interactive professional development content and collaboration with coaches and peers. In addition to taking courses, teachers, administrators and postsecondary faculty members can use the platform "to form communities of learning to promote online collaboration, share instructional practices and exchange resources around topics in arts education," SEADAE.

Professional development courses will include:

• An introduction to the National Core Arts Standards;
• A course on standards-based curriculum design; and
• A course on arts assessment literacy.

The first course will be released next week for the "official kick-off" at the SEADAE Arts Assessment Symposium being held November 11 and 12 in Texas. SEADAE and PCG will begin rolling out the visual, media and performing arts content collection shortly afterwards. According to a spokesperson from PCG, "professional learning created by SEADAE will be released on a regular basis for members of the Pepper community interested in expanding their understanding and confidence in the new arts standards."

Further information about the partnership can be found on the Public Consulting Group's site.