S2.9.1 Empowering 2e Learners through the Visual and Performing Arts

This symposium seeks to illustrate the experiences of twice-exceptional (2e) learners in a visual and performing arts program at a laboratory school in the midwest United States. 2e students are more likely to succeed when they learn to compensate for deficits while developing their gifts and talents simultaneously (Reis and Ruban, 2000). In an effort to provide specially designed visual and performing arts instruction to meet the unique needs of children with various learning disabilities in grades K-12, we have created and implemented strategies and skills for gifted students to experience academic and social growth.

We seek to illustrate specific instructional strategies as part of gifted services to enable 2e learners to be educated through visual and performing arts programming that is designed with a focus on innovative pedagogy and academic acceleration. Presenters representing a variety of roles such as Gifted Coordinator, Director of Orchestras, Visual Arts Instructor, Special Education Teacher, and School Counselor will each spend 12 minutes sharing vignettes and highlight the interconnectedness of their various roles as they relate to supporting twice-exceptional learners and their gifted peer through the arts. Specifically, we will discuss: -After school peer mentoring that provides extended supplementary aid for 2e learners while modeling pedagogical techniques for students to learn and master. -Community musical performances that not only build more confident performers and mastery of their primary instruments, but encourage community activism and citizenship. -How engaging in the creative process from planning to product creation can create a sense of pride and accomplishment that carry over into other academic areas. -The mutually inclusive relationship between the arts and education that can support building compensatory skills with a focus on social and emotional development.

Implications of these experiences that can empower teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders to support and promote meaningful and equitable learning opportunities via the arts.

To conclude the session, 15 minutes will be dedicated to discourse amongst participants and panelists utilizing a “question and answer” format.

Author(s):