ONLINE: Erica Rosenfeld Halverson

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Maureen Janson Heintz Photography

Erica Halverson is chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education at UW-Madison.

This livestream hosted by A Room of One’s Own features Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, a UW-Madison professor, founder of the Whoopensocker youth arts program, and author of the new book How the Arts Can Save Education: Transforming Teaching, Learning and Instruction. In her book, Halverson offers ways that the performing, visual and multimedia arts can enhance learning and teaching, and argues that risk-taking is the most vital part of being in a classroom. Halverson will discuss her new book and innovative approach to teaching and curriculum with Ali Muldrow, president of the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education.

press release: A Room of One's Own welcomes UW-Madison professor Dr. Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, author of How the Arts Can Save Education, for a virtual conversation on Crowdcast with Ali Muldrow!

How the Arts Can Save Education provides a blueprint for using the arts—performing, visual, and multimedia—to rethink what good learning, teaching, and curriculum can be. Halverson presents a bold plan for saving education with an arts-based approach to teaching that focuses on risk-taking as the most important aspect of a successful classroom. She offers new models for learning that embrace the social, cultural, and historical assets that kids bring to the classroom, with guidance for designing engaging learning experiences for all grades and subject areas. Featuring many evocative examples from Whoopensocker, Halverson’s artist-in-residence program in Madison schools, the book illustrates how classroom practices and school structures can be reorganized for more inclusive success. Readers will learn how to reframe learning as acts of metacognitive representation, identity, and collaboration. And lots and lots of joy.

Dr. Erica Rosenfeld Halverson is a trained theater artist and award-winning professor and chair in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In that role, she teaches a range of courses to undergraduates and graduate students, including future teachers. Erica has been a field leader in the learning sciences, creating a sub-field that focuses on how people learn in and through the arts. Erica is a seasoned performer and co-founder of two community youth arts programs: Whoopensocker (Madison) and Playmakers Lab Theatre (Chicago). She also performs regularly, working with the Children’s Theater of Madison, Four Seasons Theatre, and Music Theatre of Madison.

Ali Muldrow is the president of the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education, a co-executive director for GSAFE, and the host of the program A Public Affair on 89.9 WORT.