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Educator Professional Development

National experts in arts integration strategies provide educators with tools and teaching strategies to transform their classrooms. Through interactive workshops and supports, such as demonstration teaching and coaching, educators discover new ways to reach students with diverse learning styles.

FOR INTERESTED SCHOOL LEADERS

Des Moines Performing Arts is seeking a small group of partner schools for arts integration professional learning in 2026–27.

Spots are limited, and we are starting conversations now for the 2026-27 school year.

If you are interested in learning more or being considered, please fill out this Two-Question Inquiry Form. You will be contacted by a member of the DMPA Education Team to have a brief conversation to explore mutual interest or fit.

What it entails:

  • Customized, on-site professional learning for your staff
  • Arts integration strategies (music, movement, drama, visual art) connected to classroom goals
  • Alignment to your school’s priorities, culture, and student needs
  • Practical tools for teachers to increase engagement and support diverse learners

What Des Moines Performing Arts provides:

  • Funding to support your participation
  • Training led by nationally recognized teaching artists
  • Collaborative planning to ensure relevance and impact 

Partnership Expectations

Expectations for School Partners:

  • An administrative leader’s buy-in and support
  • Identify and provide a coordinator for the training session, logistics, and communication with participants
  • Ensure attendance and participation of a minimum of 20 educators in the training session
  • Provide appropriate space, furniture set-up and AV equipment, as requested by the instructor
  • Administrative support for all scheduling
  • Maintain open communication with Des Moines Performing Arts

Expectations for Des Moines Performing Arts:

  • Work with school partner to understand needs and learning goals, to identify possible workshop strategies
  • In consultation with the school, secure the instructor
  • Serve as a liaison between instructor and school by facilitating communication related to logistics and providing general guidance to ensure a successful experience
  • Coordinate travel and accommodations related to instructor’s travel, if applicable
  • Pay the balance of the fee and expenses due to the instructor for the services

Costs and Funding

Specific costs will vary by school and the depth of the professional learning plan we design together. Some schools will elect to have a single touch-point experience; others will elect to create a multi-touchpoint experience to deepen learning and application.

We will work together to get estimates and to create a shared funding structure that works for both parties. For most schools, Des Moines Performing Arts will underwrite 80% of trainer and related costs.

Example Strategies

Here are some examples of arts integration strategies from across a variety of curricular areas. They represent a small selection of the many strategies available. Please view these as a jumping off point to start to imagine the possibilities. DMPA will work with you to identify a strategy and instructor that will best meet your needs.

Reading Art Across the Curriculum
Art Form: Visual Art
Curricular Areas: Literacy, Science, Social Studies

Visual art is a text that students of all reading abilities can access. This arts integration workshop introduces the language of visual art so that teachers feel confident looking, thinking, and talking about art with their students. Learn about resources for building a library of images that can be used to efficiently build background knowledge, teach content, generate points of inquiry for research, and assess understandings in social studies, science, and reading.

 

Reading Portraits as Biographies 
Art Form: Visual Arts
Curricular Areas: Literacy, Science, Social Studies

There’s more to a portrait than you might think. Portraits are often viewed as a mere depiction of a person when in actuality they can be read as biographies that communicate significant information about a person’s life. This arts integration workshop examines ways to teach students to view portraits as a visual text filled with meaningful symbolism to make the study of people and biographies more engaging. Reading portraits helps activate and build background knowledge, construct understanding, and reflect on historical and literary figures across the curriculum. 

 

Building Reading Comprehension Through Sound and Rhythm 
Art Form: Music
Curricular Area: Literacy 

Explore new paths to help students develop reading comprehension strategies and make connections between music and language. This arts integration workshop guides participants through a process to help students create a Soundscape – a way to retell the story that connects students to the story’s tone, mood, setting, and the characters’ culture(s). This learning process will help students create sensory images, use questioning strategies, develop inference skills, and determine importance. 

 

Acting Right: Building a Cooperative, Collaborative, Creative Classroom Community Through Drama 
Art Form: Drama
Focus Area: Classroom Management, enhancing all instruction 

This arts integration workshop takes the foundational elements of acting such as concentration, cooperation, and collaboration and creates a structured process, which can become the basis for effective classroom management every day. This engaging, step-by-step approach empowers students to take ownership of and be responsible for their own behavior. Learn how to help students build the skills necessary to establish a sense of self-control, accountability, and teambuilding in your classroom. This workshop is recommended for any classroom based in active, social, cooperative learning.  

 

An Introduction to Shadow Puppetry 
Art Form: Drama
Curricular Area: Literacy 

In this foundational workshop, participants learn shadow puppetry performance techniques, make-and-take their own shadow puppets for best-loved scripted stories, create their own shadow puppetry stages, and brainstorm curricular connections. By the end of this arts integration workshop, participants obtain both the skills and confidence necessary to successfully introduce this unique teaching strategy to their classroom communities. 

 

These example strategies are workshops developed and taught by our partners at Focus 5, Inc. We maintain partnerships with this and other nationally-celebrated arts integration experts to help identify resources to best meet the needs of central Iowa educators and schools.

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