2026–2027 Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar Series
Free, Interactive Arts Education Webinars for PK–12 Educators
Join me throughout the 2026–2027 school year for free, live professional learning designed specifically for music, visual art, theatre, and dance educators.
Together, we’ll explore how to design arts learning that maintains high artistic expectations while connecting to students’ lives, identities, communities, cultures, and the world around them.
Each Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar focuses on one part of designing arts curriculum that is purposeful, relevant, accessible, and challenging. You’ll examine your current practice, explore what that design decision can look like across the arts, and leave with one focused improvement you can apply to your own curriculum.
2026–2027 Arts As a Vehicle™ Webinar Schedule
Each webinar is free and held live online. Registration opens individually for each session.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 | 6:30–7:30 PM ET
Beyond Technique: Designing Arts Units Around Ideas That Matter
Wednesday, October 21, 2026 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
Relevant AND Rigorous: Designing Arts Learning That Connects Without Lowering Artistic Expectations
Wednesday, November 18, 2026 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
The Whole Artistic Process: Designing Arts Units Where Students Connect, Respond, Create AND Perform
Wednesday, December 9, 2026 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
Context Without the Lecture: Weaving Culture, History, and the World Into Arts Learning
Wednesday, January 20, 2027 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
Show Me the Learning: Arts Assessment Beyond the Final Product
Wednesday, February 17, 2027 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
One Class, Many Starting Points: Designing Access to Arts Learning Without Lowering the Bar
Wednesday, March 17, 2027 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
Choice With Purpose: How to Build Student Agency Without Losing Rigor, Direction, or Quality
Wednesday, April 21, 2027 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
From Unit Idea to Learning Journey: How to Sequence Arts Learning So It Builds
Wednesday, May 12, 2027 | 6:30-7:30pm EST
Can They Use It Again? Designing Arts Learning for Transfer Beyond One Piece, Project, or Performance
What We’re Exploring in This Year’s Arts Education Webinars
Strong arts curriculum is about more than choosing engaging repertoire, projects, artists, performances, or activities.
It requires us to think intentionally about what students are learning, why that learning matters, whose knowledge and experiences are represented, how learning connects to students’ lives and the world around them, what barriers may exist, and how students are invited to think, create, respond, question, and make meaning through the arts.
Throughout the 2026–2027 Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar Series, we’ll examine how those decisions work alongside artistic rigor rather than competing with it.
We’ll explore questions like:
- What is this unit really about beyond the artistic material or skills being taught?
- How can learning connect to students’ lives, cultures, communities, and experiences while maintaining high artistic expectations?
- How can students experience all four artistic processes within meaningful arts learning?
- How can culture, history, social context, and the world around us become meaningful parts of arts learning?
- How do we know what students actually know, understand, and can do?
- How can we design access for students with different starting points without lowering the bar?
- How do we create meaningful opportunities for student voice, choice, and agency?
- How do we sequence learning so students build knowledge, skills, and understanding over time?
- How do we design learning students can transfer to new artistic situations?
What You’ll Do in Each Webinar
Each Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar will help you:
- Take a closer look at one part of your current curriculum.
- Identify where learning may be disconnected, limited, or missing an opportunity for greater relevance, access, or depth.
- Explore practical examples grounded specifically in music, visual art, theatre, and dance.
- Consider how students’ identities, experiences, cultures, communities, and the world around them can meaningfully inform learning.
- Make one focused improvement you can apply to your own classroom, curriculum, or program.
You will not be overhauling your entire arts curriculum in an hour.
Each session gives us space to examine one design decision, understand it more deeply, and strengthen it with intention.
Who Are These Arts Education Webinars For?
The Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar Series is designed for PK–12 music, visual art, theatre, and dance educators who want to create arts learning that is artistically rigorous, relevant, accessible, and responsive to the students they actually teach.
The series may also be helpful for:
- Arts instructional coaches
- Department chairs and teacher leaders
- Curriculum specialists
- Arts supervisors and coordinators
- School and district leaders responsible for supporting arts teaching and learning
Whether you’re developing new arts curriculum or taking a closer look at what you already teach, each session is designed to help you make thoughtful, practical improvements without abandoning the artistic goals at the heart of your discipline.
How the Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinars Work
Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinars are free, live, approximately 60-minute online professional learning sessions.
Each webinar focuses on one specific arts curriculum design question. We’ll explore the idea together, consider what it can look like across different arts disciplines, and give you opportunities to reflect on and apply the learning to your own work.
Each session stands alone, so you can attend the topics most relevant to you or join us throughout the school year as we explore how different pieces of rigorous, relevant, culturally responsive arts learning work together.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are not sit-and-get webinars. Each session is designed to be interactive, with opportunities to reflect, respond, share ideas, and apply the learning to your own practice.
Plan to join from a place where you can fully participate. You may be invited to engage in the chat, turn on your mic, respond to prompts, take notes, and work through ideas alongside other arts educators.
You’ll get the most out of the session if you come ready to think, participate, and apply what you’re learning.
Yes! The 2026–2027 Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar Series is free for arts educators and leaders.
No. Each Community Webinar stands on its own, so you can register for the sessions most relevant to you.
Together, the nine webinars explore different decisions that contribute to rigorous, relevant, culturally responsive arts curriculum, so you’re also welcome to join us throughout the school year.
There is no required preparation. Depending on the topic, you may find it helpful to have a current unit, concert plan, lesson, assessment, curriculum document, or something to take notes with nearby so you can immediately connect the learning to your own practice.
Yes. Registered participants will have access to a replay for a limited time following each webinar.
Because the sessions are designed to be interactive, the live experience is the best way to participate when your schedule allows.
Live participants may request a certificate documenting one hour of professional learning.
Requirements for professional development credit vary by school, district, and state, so please check your local requirements to determine whether the certificate can be applied toward your professional learning requirements.
Registration opens individually for each webinar.
When a webinar is open for registration, you’ll be able to access its individual registration page directly from the schedule above.
For future sessions, join my email list community to be notified when registration opens and receive updates about upcoming Arts As a Vehicle™ professional learning opportunities.
Join Us for the Next Arts As a Vehicle™ Community Webinar!
Take a closer look at your arts curriculum, strengthen one piece, and leave ready to put your learning into practice.