Attend VMFA teacher workshops and seminars to gain innovative ideas and activities for interdisciplinary learning. All teacher programs are aligned with Virginia SOLs and model strategies for integrating works of art across the K-12 curriculum.
Energize your teaching practice—and yourself—in these innovative, practical sessions.
Online Resources for Educators
Creative & Critical Thinking with Art Course Developed by VMFA and hosted on Virtual Virginia, this course uses VMFA collections to empower creative and critical thinking across different content areas. Participants will explore how inquiry-based engagement with art objects might serve as a laboratory for honing the creative and critical thinking skills crucial to the discipline they teach. Sign up today!
VMFA Resource Center A free and comprehensive online learning database of classroom and gallery teaching resources. Find guided looking exercises, lesson ideas, thematic object sets, engagement strategies, videos, and more. This resource features content for our permanent, rotating, and even past collection objects. Learn more!
For any inquiries regarding teacher programming at VMFA, please email us at teacherprograms@vmfa.museum.
Upcoming Programs
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Teacher Program | The Art of Argument
Thu, Jan 16, 2025
6–7:30 pm
Free (registration required)
Conference Room 1
In this workshop, educators will learn how to use objects from VMFA’s collection to design learning experiences for students that inspire, enhance, and hone their argumentative skills. Art implies and imposes a meditation on point-of-view. Using art objects, educators will learn how to support their students’ development and defense of novel points-of-view. Argumentative discourse is an essential feature in all disciplines, and the use of art as a catalyst for this discourse can transform its curricular potential. This session is applicable to practicing K-12 educators of all subjects.
Light snacks will be provided.
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Virtual Teacher Program | In the Galleries with Edmonia Lewis
Tue, Feb 4, 2025
6–7 pm
Virtual event
Free; registration via Zoom required
Visit VMFA’s galleries virtually to share ideas about the instructional potential of Mississauga Ojibwe and African American Artist Edmonia Lewis’s important 19th-century sculpture Hiawatha's Marriage. Join Siera Hyte, Schiller Family Curator of Indigenous American Art, and Dr. Christopher C. Oliver, Bev Perdue Jennings Associate Curator of American Art, to take a closer look at Lewis’s sculpture, consider the artist’s chosen subject, and learn about her artistic approach. This session is applicable to practicing K–12 educators of all subjects.
Creator’s Workshop | Designing a Learning Experience for the Artist in Every Student
Thu, Feb 13, 2025
6–7:30 pm
Free; registration required
Conference Room 1
In this workshop, educators will learn how to guide their students through artmaking using the process-driven “Writer’s Workshop” model—here reimagined as a “Creator’s Workshop” using a visual arts lens. A deep dive into the importance of process over product in the artmaking experience, this hands-on workshop will empower educators to facilitate their own Creator’s Workshop in their art classrooms. This workshop is geared toward practicing K-12 art educators, but curious educators across disciplines are also encouraged to attend.
Light snacks will be provided.
Teacher Program | Crafting a Personal Narrative
Thu, Apr 24, 2025
6–7:30 pm
Free; registration required
Conference Room 1
The stories communicated through art can teach us about other places, times, cultures, and perspectives, revealing ideas about personal experiences and identity. By questioning how artists approach this task, educators in this session will work together to conceptualize strategies for supporting their students in crafting their own personal narratives. This session is applicable to practicing K–12 educators of any subject area and grade level.
Light snacks will be provided.
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Teacher Program | Museum Conservation for the Curious and Creative Educator
Thu, May 22, 2025
6–7:30 pm
Free; registration required
Conference Room 1
In this session, educators will be introduced to the work of VMFA’s award-winning conservation lab and identify the creative, critical, and computational thinking skills integral to the conservator’s mindset. Object-based discussions will help recontextualize the conservation process as it applies to the classroom. This session is applicable to practicing K–12 educators of any subject area and grade level.
Light snacks will be provided.