Ron Clark is the 2000 Disney American Teacher of the Year, a two-time New York Times Bestselling author, the subject of a television movie and the founder of The Ron Clark Academy. Ron pioneered innovative projects in rural North Carolina working with minority students in a low wealth area. His highly effective programs garnered national attention and led to a White House invitation to be honored by the President of the United States.

In 2006, Ron Clark founded The Ron Clark Academy, an inner-city school serving students from across metro Atlanta. The privately-funded institution is unique for its innovative teaching methods and curriculum based on worldwide travel. Each year the students, grades 5 through 8, apply their in-class lessons to international adventures. And, by the time of graduation, each child will have visited six of the seven continents. Almost 50,000 educators, teachers, and administrators from around the world visit the Academy to observe the innovative and “out-of-the-box” methods for achieving student success from all 50 states and 26 countries.

Ron is not only a spectacular educator, but he is also a wonderful speaker and author. You will love hearing from him as he talks about his career in education, his passion for working with kids, and some stories about his founding of the Ron Clark Academy. It will be an exciting and inspirational talk–you won’t want to miss it!

Nic Hahn is a K-5th grade elementary art specialist at a school in Rogers, Minnesota, and the host of the Everyday Art Room podcast. She has been teaching for 18 years, at several schools in the Midwest. She has had the opportunity to work with students from preschool up to adult learners and every age in between.

Billy Kheel is a Los Angeles based artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally, and his art blurs the lines between art and craft. He was a contestant on the first season of NBC’s Making It with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman.

In this presentation, Nic will show you how she was able to bring artist Billy Kheel into her classroom for a collaborative project with all of her K-5 students. Watch as she takes you through the planning, execution, and end result of an incredible project with a visiting artist.

This presentation will explore a fun, creative lesson that lets you take simple ideas on line, pattern, and color, and scaffold them to whatever level you are teaching.

This is the perfect simple project to help your students create, explore, and come up with something colorful!

Melinda Moen is a High School Drawing & Painting Teacher in Anaheim, CA. She has a degree in Art Education and 14 years of teaching experience. She likes designing art projects that revolve around student identity, community and social justice. She is also a mother of 3 who loves camping, coffee and drawing in tiny sketchbooks. You can follow her classroom at instagram.com/artofteaching

Art teachers talk often about how we value the artmaking process, but how often do we actually talk about teaching that process? In this presentation, Melinda will walk you through one of her favorite projects, discussing how she teaches process at every step along the way. See how she takes her students through ideation, revisions, and reflections, all on the way to creating a meaningful and valuable piece of work.

Lena Rodriguez is the High School Painting and Drawing Director at the Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy in Grand Prairie Texas. She is in her 12th year of teaching and focuses on creating a positive culture within her studio, conducive to exploration and conceptualism.

One of the most important, yet most difficult, things to do in the art room is put together a quality portfolio. How do you select works that demonstrate learning and skill, yet still have artistic voice? Should you show a variety, or look toward a more sustained investigation? Lena will share some of her best tips and tricks to help your students develop a meaningful, memorable portfolio throughout the course of the year.

Cartooning – all of your students want to be able to do it, but most of them aren’t sure how. Craig will show you how to quickly mix martial arts, muscle memory, movement, stuffed animals, and cartooning, all at the same time! Teaching students the classic ‘dumbbell’ cartoon model–used in everything from Looney Tunes to Phineas and Ferb–allows even beginning students to create dynamic characters in 3D worlds.

With an impressive amount of visual overstimulation and color, Jenn Russell welcomes her students into her art room at Hebron High School in the Lewisville Independent School District. She loves jokes of the popsicle stick variety, chocolate, tchotchkes, and color (did we mention that?).

She is a newly minted and still lost on a daily basis mom to a little boy named Nate, or #ARussellSprout as he is known to his followers. When she has time, you can find her reading, dabbling with pencils or in the great Texas outdoors with her camera.

Colored pencils are an amazing medium that can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. But here’s the real secret–everyone is different, and everyone uses colored pencil differently! In this presentation, Jenn will show you the varying ways she teaches her students to wield those pigment filled tiny lightsabers (she might even do the noises for you) and some projects that will help your students find success.

Rachel Albert is a middle school art teacher in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In addition to her role developing curriculum and engaging students through a wide range of instructional approaches in the art room, she is also the school’s Student Activities Coordinator. She strives to engage all students in art education through integrated learning and school-wide initiatives. She has developed a curriculum that uses technology in novel and innovative ways such as blended learning, using art-related apps and google classroom to support learning and bringing student voice into art experiences. This is Rachel’s fourth time presenting at an Art Ed Now conference, and she can’t wait to share more ideas with you.

Are you looking for some new ways to engage your students? Are you looking to get your students learning without even recognizing that they’re learning? Are you getting tired of teaching art vocabulary in the same old way? Are you ready to pull your hair out if one more student asks you where the scissors are?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then this presentation is for you. Rachel is ready to teach you about 5 exciting games that you can play with students of any age in art class. You’ll have the chance to explore games that help teach vocabulary and theory, that review rules and procedures, that teach students where to independently find materials in the art room, that encourage students to communicate using art vocabulary, and that promote problem-solving and creativity. Game on!

Caitlyn is the art specialist at two elementary schools in Natick, MA. As an avid powerlifter and tiny business owner, she goes by Coach T, and passionately integrates the importance of growth mindset into her teaching practice. To encourage and inspire creative challenges, Caitlyn uses mindfulness techniques to redirect frustration into confidence-fuel. “When we ‘feel the burn’, it’s proof that we’re growing!” It is her mission to coach students’ natural abilities and facilitate the development of confident young innovators in a space that recognizes differences as assets and empowers young minds to see mistakes as evidence of growth. For adventures in the art room and personal creative exploration, follow @artwithcoacht or visit www.ArtwithCoachT.com.

Are you a teacher without access to a kiln? Do you want to make pottery without using clay? Do you love using recyclables in your classroom? If yes, then Newspaper Pottery is an incredible medium to explore!
See how to use newspaper and magazine strips to create incredible cups and bowls.
This project provides an excellent opportunity for strengthening fine motor skills and dexterity development while practicing patience and control. This presentation will include instructional videos demonstrating newspaper coiling accessible for elementary students, as well as various magazine paper folds for older ages. Handouts will feature tips and tricks that’ll help you and your artists succeed each step of the way!

As a classroom teacher, Yvonne always used art to make connections with academics. Now, as the studio art teacher, she works to seamlessly merge the two. She is constantly amazed by the work her students create and how they see the world. Art, cheeseburgers, talking and collaborating with others has always been a few of her favorite things. She is a Texas native who studied in Wisconsin, only to return to the Lone Star state to teach her passion.

In this presentation, Yvonne will show you experimental monoprinting techniques that can be tried with your elementary students. Using uncommon items for printing collages, simple ideas to create print books, and reductive prints from observation drawings are just a few of the ideas she will cover. You will be amazed at what your students can accomplish and create with printmaking!

Elizabeth Peterson is a teacher, author, and arts integration consultant who hosts www.TheInspiredClassroom.com. As the developer of SEAL, Social-Emotional Artistic Learning, she knows the growing importance of students’ social-emotional development and the integral part the arts can play in that learning. If you would like to learn more about Elizabeth, or more about SEAL, visit www.teachSEAL.com.

Take advantage of the wonderfully unique opportunities you have as an art teacher to integrate social-emotional development into your art room. In this session, Elizabeth will look at the three steps you can take to easily transform your existing art lessons into SEAL lessons for Social-Emotional Artistic Learning!

Caroline Gardner has been teaching art since 2008 and can’t imagine anything better. She particularly loves teaches a huge range of media from metalsmithing, medieval calligraphy, and fiber arts all the way to sculpture, oil painting, and drawing. Caroline is an active artist, currently working on creating 100 small oil paintings and trying to paint daily.

Caroline works in a progressive independent school in the heart of Chicago, teaching 5th through 12th-grade art. In one day she sees 10-year-olds to 18-year-olds, loving the variety and energy they each bring.

Caroline lives in Evanston IL with her husband and three young sons. When she is not running around with her kids, she is drinking tea, doing yoga and painting until someone yells “mama!”

Caroline Gardner shares her passion for contemporary art in the classroom as a way to excite and unite students. We all want our kids seeing more artwork and talking about art critically, but we don’t have a lot of time in our curriculum for it.

Caroline will show you how to bring art history and contemporary art into the classroom without sacrificing too much valuable studio time. This presentation will show you a new way to share artwork and artists with kids in a fast-paced, engaging format that gets kids moving, but is still quick enough to leave a lot of time for art making afterward.

Debi West has been teaching children through the vehicle of the visual arts for 25 years. Debi has extensive experience at both the elementary and high school levels, is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher, and has been recognized numerous times for her contributions to the field.

Debi holds a variety of advanced degrees in Art Education and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in language and literacy at the University of Georgia. She is currently pursuing her dream of consulting and working with teachers to implement PBL learning.

STEAM is still a major buzzword in the world of education, and it should be! As art educators, our goal is to continue to show the value of the “A” in STEAM. So what happens when we add visual art ideal to other disciplines? The results are pretty amazing!

In this presentation, Debi will show how to combine Language Arts, Science, and Art to create a class that is hands-on, collaborative, and arts-based, and works amazingly well! This will walk you through how to set up connections and develop a course, giving you a template for how teachers can collaborate and bring art to the forefront of the school!

Abby is a middle school art teacher in Omaha, NE as well as a writer for the Art of Education. She focuses on creating meaningful experiences for her students through technology integration, innovation, and creativity.

As teachers, all too often we witness unkind acts and hurtful words between students. This is why it’s essential for us to instill ideals of positivity and kindness in our classrooms. Art is a powerful way to do this!

In this presentation, join Abby as she shares a variety of ways to spread kindness to your students, school, and the wider community. Walk away with specific ideas to use art for the power of good!

Lindsey Moss is an elementary art teacher in Yorkville, Illinois, where she has had her dream job for over a decade. She enjoys art history and finding creative and artistic solutions to educational challenges. She thinks that art class is THE place where students can learn to be creative problem solvers in a technology-saturated work world.

Does the thought of starting a sketchbook practice in your elementary classroom seem overwhelming? Are you worried you won’t be able to stay organized or keep students engaged? While these fears are valid, it might be easier than you think.

Join Lindsey as she breaks down her successful sketchbook system. She’ll share specific organizational tips and kid-tested prompts that will entice even your most reluctant drawers. Best of all, this session will include a comprehensive download with everything you need to start a sketchbook practice with your students right away. Just click “print”!

Amber Kane is an art educator, textile designer, and stellar daydreamer. She has been teaching art for 10 years in a variety of public, private, and online settings. She also has experience running and instructing summer programs and providing teacher in-service training. She loves to help teachers of all subjects understand what creativity is and learn how to bring it into their classrooms.

It seems like the last people students blame their classroom outcomes on are themselves. Maybe you’ve heard things like, “Sorry, I didn’t do my sketchbook assignment because I had a chemistry test to study for. Can I have until next week?” “What kind of extra credit can I do? I need to get a 90 instead of an 89.”

While these kinds of requests are incredibly frustrating, they can also be teachable moments. Join Amber as she shares how to have tough conversations with students about choices. Walk away with specific strategies to put the ownership back in the hands of your students.

Amanda O’Shaughnessy is an elementary art teacher in Overland Park, KS. She holds undergraduate degrees in Art and Art History and a Masters of Arts in Teaching.

Amanda has over eight years of teaching experience in a wide variety of settings ranging from teaching from a cart to developing curated art tours.

In addition to teaching art, Amanda is passionate about applying her creative efforts to the company she runs with her husband, Ocean and Sea. Follow her creative journeys on Instagram at @oceanandsea and @artoshaughnessy.

Are you looking to reinvigorate your ceramics curriculum? Whether you’re brand new to the medium or a seasoned pro, this presentation will have something for you.

Amanda O’Shaughnessy has gained a huge Instagram following by sharing the unique ceramics ideas and techniques she uses in her classroom. She’s bringing her enthusiasm and expertise to Art Ed Now, and you won’t want to miss it. Everyone is sure to find a great idea to take back to their classroom!