The Educator Salon at the MCA is a forum for educators who seek a different type of professional development experience. Salons engage participants in explorations of timely pedagogical issues, provide access to provocative speakers, and promote an open exchange among peers and colleagues.

This year, the salons will address the theme of teaching as creative practice through a range of lenses. Presentations and dialogue will explore questions that help further our understanding of contemporary pedagogy. What teaching conditions and processes are necessary in order for student creativity and criticality to flourish? What is the role of investigation, documentation, and experimentation—processes essential to creative practice—in good teaching practice? How can drawing on our own creative practice make us better teachers? Educators of all types are invited to attend.

In this salon, our panelists ask what research looks like as a creative practice. Artists and educators Annie Heckman, Rebecca Keller, and Peter Stover explore how different types of questions, grounded in personal, historical, and curricular concerns, can fuel our creative research in teaching and making art.