Professional Development
The Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education provides resources, workshops, a conference, consultations, and other support for professionals in the field, including educators, arts educators, special educators, administrators, program leaders, and visiting artists.
ABLE Assembly: Arts Better the Lives of Everyone
Our annual three-day conference, the ABLE Assembly: Arts Better the Lives of Everyone, will take place online April 19–21, 2024.
ABLE Conversation Symposium
This symposium includes presentations, performances, and opportunities for facilitated discussion. It will take place both online and in person as a hybrid flexible event, November 2024.
ABLE Voices Podcast
Our podcast, ABLE Voices, features disabled artists as guest hosts and provides a platform where disabled artists and arts educators discuss their art, their careers, their artistic development, their arts education, and their creative process.
ABLE Snapshots
ABLE Snapshots is the official blog of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education. ABLE Snapshots provides arts educators with practical tools, information, lesson plans, and strategies they can use in their inclusive arts education classrooms/lessons.
Digital Learning Series
Explore our free collection of lectures, workshops, and presentations by teachers and experts in the field of arts education for students with disabilities.
ABLE Arts Resource Center
This online clearinghouse provides music educators with resources to assist them in their work with students with disabilities.
Accessible Music Education Study Group
Our annual study group for music educators can be attended synchronously or asynchronously.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL)-Music Education Study Group
Our new Social Emotional Learning (SEL) study group is a fully online, educator professional development opportunity offering both synchronous and asynchronous participation options so that anyone, anywhere can learn SEL-informed music education strategies for studio, classroom, early childhood, and ensemble settings.
Leadership Network for Accessible Arts Education
This professional learning network meets regularly to engage international leaders in the field of accessible arts education.
Speaking Engagements
Rhoda Bernard, managing director of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education and Assistant Chair of Music Education, has given numerous local, national, and international conference presentations on various topics in arts education for students with disabilities.
Workshops
Bernard and her staff regularly provide professional development workshops to educators, arts educators, special educators, teaching artists, program administrators, and college faculty and students. Surveys and guiding questions before the workshops are used to create professional development materials and activities that cover the topics of greatest interest to the participants.
Consultations
Consultations can take the form of team teaching, observations of teaching with feedback, and/or meeting with teaching staff, administrators, and college faculty and students. Surveys and guiding questions before the sessions are used to ensure that consultation time is valuable and productive.