International Teaching Artist Collaborative offers assessment guides, toolkits and curricula for teaching artists

The International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) presented a suite of free resources for teaching artists, including an Impact and Assessment Guide, a 40-hour online course on teaching artistry for social impact, commissioned climate projects and 63 Eden engagement curricula.

Madeline McGurk, executive director of ITAC, said the network includes roughly 5,000 teaching artists across more than 45 countries and operates national hubs in New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, the U.S. and England. She described flagship projects that commission teaching artists to address local problems (for example, climate-related relocation in Alaska) and monthly think tanks that focus on emerging sector topics.

McGurk demonstrated the Impact and Assessment Guide, which is organized into pre-project planning, mid-project delivery and post-project reflection and is designed to help teaching artists map stakeholders, set baselines and document outcomes for funders or professional reflection. She also highlighted the free, asynchronous online course Teaching Artistry for Social Impact (about 40 hours) that pairs learners with mentors after course completion.

Other resources McGurk noted include a toolkit for nonverbal teaching artistry, an action-research guide for classroom practice and 63 Eden engagement curricula — modular workshop plans used during Joyce DiDonato’s Eden Engagement tour that are available for download in multiple languages.

McGurk said ITAC’s goals include formalizing membership systems, improving demographic mapping and advocating for the role of teaching artists with institutions such as the World Health Organization and UNESCO to create new spaces that hire and support teaching artists.

ITAC also plans its next international conference in New Zealand and runs Young and Emerging Leaders cohorts that provide mentorship and leadership pathways for early-career teaching artists.