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What is Art As a Way of LearningⓇ? Art as a Way of LearningⓇ, AWL, is both a dynamic professional development program for preservice and inservice educators and a curriculum framework for integrating the arts into young children's classrooms.
The four professional development components of AWL are drawn from educational research and best practice. AWL is based on beliefs about how children learn, the role of art as a language and the adults' role as a facilitator in the learning process. In an AWL professional development program adults work in collaborative teams, build their own art literacy, learn new teaching strategies and learn to set up their classrooms as aesthetic environments for children. When AWL is used as a curriculum framework it serves to fully integrate the arts into a early childhood or elementary education classrooms to enhance the quantity and quality of children's learning. When children produce and interpret art they develop analytic thinking which supports cognitive development, enhances social skills and develops perceptual abilities. |
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