Why Arts Educators Need Differentiated, Content-Specific Professional Development
If you ask any arts educator about the professional development (PD) sessions they’ve attended, chances are they’ll tell you about workshops designed for general classroom teachers. Sessions on lesson planning, formative assessments, or literacy strategies may have value, but they rarely address the realities of teaching dance, theater, music, or visual arts. More often than not, arts educators leave these sessions frustrated, knowing they just spent hours in a training that does little to improve their craft or their students' experience.
This is a systemic problem in education, one that reflects a larger issue of how the arts are treated within schools. When school leaders fail to provide content-specific, differentiated PD for arts educators, they send a clear message: arts instruction is an afterthought, not a priority.
But here’s the truth: Arts educators need and deserve professional development that is as specialized, rigorous, and impactful as the training their academic counterparts receive.
The Limitations of One-Size-Fits-All PD
Most school-based professional development is designed with core academic teachers in mind. While classroom management, student engagement, and assessment strategies are relevant across disciplines, application in the arts looks very different. A dance teacher doesn’t teach from behind a desk. A music teacher doesn’t assess student learning through multiple-choice tests. A theater educator isn’t measuring success based on standardized exams. Yet, arts teachers are routinely expected to translate PD sessions built for math and reading instruction into something usable for their practice. This expectation is not only ineffective- it’s dismissive.
When PD is not content-specific, arts educators are left to fend for themselves. They seek out external workshops, fund their own professional learning, or rely on informal networks to grow in their field. While this speaks to their dedication, it also exposes the inequity: academic teachers are given job-embedded training to refine their craft, while arts educators are often left without institutional support.
What Content-Specific PD Looks Like
Effective professional development for arts educators should do what all good teaching does—meet teachers where they are, provide relevant and rigorous learning experiences, and allow space for collaboration and application. Here’s what that could look like:
Dance Teachers: Training on movement analysis, choreography for young learners, injury prevention, and culturally responsive pedagogy in dance education.
Music Teachers: Workshops on ensemble-building, vocal health, adaptive music instruction, and integrating technology into music education.
Theater Teachers: PD on devising theater with students, directing school productions, and supporting students in developing confidence and presence on stage.
Visual Arts Teachers: Sessions on contemporary approaches to arts integration, critique and feedback strategies, and cultivating student voice through visual storytelling.
Beyond the technical aspects of their disciplines, arts educators also need PD that addresses how to advocate for their programs, secure funding, and navigate the challenges of working in schools where the arts are often undervalued.
A Call to Action for School Leaders
School and district leaders must move beyond the outdated notion that professional development can be one-size-fits-all. To truly support arts educators, they must:
Invest in content-specific PD opportunities led by experts in the field.
Partner with organizations that specialize in arts education training.
Create learning communities where arts teachers can share best practices and collaborate.
Acknowledge that arts educators are professionals who need ongoing development tailored to their discipline.
Providing arts educators with meaningful, differentiated PD is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. When we invest in arts teachers, we invest in students’ creative potential, in school culture, and in a more holistic vision of education. It’s time for schools to recognize that the arts are not an afterthought, and neither is the professional growth of the educators who teach them.
