Teachers Professional Development

Learn, travel and Earn Professional Development and Graduate Credits.
Come to explore your creative potential and see some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Our Creativity Workshops in New York, Carmel, Crete, Barcelona and Florence are perfect for teachers who want to learn about the creative process and how to apply it in the classroom and their lives.
The Creativity Workshop can help you and your students:

	Tap into your creative instincts and develop your imagination
	Get over creative blocks and the fear of failure
	Develop a daily practice of creativity exercises
	Find the time, permission, and nourishment to keep your imagination alive

Since 1993, the Creativity Workshop has been offering a series of tools which teachers can implement to help students learn to develop their creative, collaborative, artistic and writing skills, as well as self confidence and respect for their peers. To this end, the workshop concentrates its experiential exercises in the following areas:

1. Getting Over Fear of Creativity
and writers block in specific and gaining self-confidence in one's ideas. We do exercises which help students get over 'blocks' which make them afraid to express themselves, say the wrong things, paint a bad picture, take a stupid photograph, write a foggy paragraph. The workshop works against self censorship in the early stages of creation so that critical analytical skills can come into play later and more forcefully. To this end, we use techniques of free form drawing and writing, as well as visualization and meditation exercises.

2. Team Work
The creativity workshop believes that by sharing work in intimate groups, students (at times without their teacher) can learn to develop and feel secure in their academic endeavors. Such work also helps individuals learn self-confidence and respectful listening towards others. The Creativity Workshop involves several modules in which collaborations, ranging from 2 person teams to a whole class are explored.

3. Map Making
Every creative and analytical project has a process or 'way'. To this end, the Creativity Workshop teaches teachers how to make journey maps or scrolls with their students of the process and progress of their work. The maps, which are a visual and written representation of the on-going work in the classroom, help students see where they are in their projects and where they can go with them.

4. Free Form Writing And Automatic Drawing
Teachers learn how to use these techniques with their students in order to help them find innate ideas and develop them. The workshop also teaches imaginative editing techniques.

5. Storytelling
Storytelling, be it visual or literary, is vital to how we perceive and share our perceptions of the world. We do several exercises with telling stories with found objects and also by interviewing each other and then 'becoming' the other person. These exercises also teach listening skills, which greatly enhance our abilities to express ourselves and learn.

6. Changing Perceptions
How we see is important to what we see. We teach a variety of exercises aimed at altering perceptions physically (through cameras, cut out shapes, kaleidoscopes, telescopes, microscopes) and emotionally (through fairy tales, memoir writing or inter-generational interviews), which assist students in broadening their sense of the world they live in.

7. Using Your Environment
We teach participants how to use their natural surroundings to generate ideas. Exercises to be done in local cafes, libraries, cafeterias, woods and mountains show that inspiration can come from the most usual and surprising of places.

8. Time
In our busy, multi-tasking world we seldom feel we have enough time to create. We teach participants how to ‘stretch time’ and use 15-minute blocks to do satisfying creative work on an on-going basis.

9. Self-Nurturing
Teachers spend so much of their time encouraging and supporting their students. At times, teachers forget to nurture themselves! The Creativity Workshop teaches the importance of self-nurturing and curiosity and not always knowing the ‘right’ answer.

10. Professional Development
Many schools pay for their educators to come to the workshop as part of their professional development. Costs for the workshop and related travel charges may be tax deductible if the course is educational to your profession. In addition, if you are completing an advanced degree, you may be able to take the Creativity Workshop as an Independent Study course. In this way, your university can give you credit for it or if you qualify you can receive 3 credits from the University of Iowa.

The Creativity Workshop was taught as a regular course at the University of Iowa for many years, offering 3 credits and open to graduate and undergraduate students through the International Writing Program. The workshop is 36 contact hours.

What educators and students say about the workshop:

One of the qualities of a meaningful experience is that it grows in depth and positive regard as time goes on. That is how I feel about this workshop.
Daniel Lamken, Teacher, American School of Prague, Czech Republic

When I got home after your workshop in Prague, so many people said to me: "How was your workshop? You look so alive, so happy, so fresh!" That’s exactly how I feel. I realize that there will be blocks at times, but I feel a freedom that I have NEVER felt before. The two of you, your gentle, kind manner, your way of making everyone feel so comfortable...you have a real gift to share with others. Thank you for touching my soul, and helping me see butterflies, birds, flowers, colors; for helping me soar and feel like singing and writing and dancing.
Dianne Stuckey, Teacher, American School of Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I cannot tell you how inspiring your workshop was on a number of levels! I continue to draw inspiration from those few days!
Deborah B. Reeve, Ed. D., Deputy Executive Director, National Association of Elementary School Principals, Washington, DC

I left the workshop with a sizable bag of useful ideas to motivate her students to write more and better, a sketchbook full of essays for herself and a bunch of sweet and fun memories. I give this course an A.
Nicole Fandel, Teacher of French, Concord Academy, Acton, MA

This workshop makes administrators realize that creativity is the most necessary resource for any educational organization.
Dr. Murat Barkan, Provost, Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Gazimagosa, Turkey

I produced as much poetry in ten days in Chania as I did in a month in a conventional poetry workshop in another European setting. The primary difference was the ease of creation and the fun I experienced in the Creativity Workshop, and I also saved time and money. Shelley and Alejandro’s emphasis on ‘In process’ works.
Sally Naylor; Poet and English Teacher, Baylor School, Chattanooga TN

This is my third workshop coming up and I can't wait! Shelley and Alejandro ever so gently are able to get us fellow travelers into a discovery mode that submerges us deeply into the experience of our very own creativity. They are magicians!
Carroll Blue, Writer and Professor, School of Communications, San Diego State University

The Creativity Workshop is one of the best ways to discover a new city. Exploring our creative spirits each evening opened my visual and kinesthetic senses for the following day. The participants were as rich as city and they so warmly shared their personal lives through the creative writing and drawing exercises.
Nancy Welch, President, Welch Design Group

Crossing paths with Shelley, Alejandro, and most of those attending the workshop in Florence will remain etched in my psyche as one of the most wonderful, rejuvenating, nurturing, enlightening, relaxing, growth-inducing, experiences of my life. I use their exercises effectively in my own classes, even though I teach hard-core science.
Mohey Mowafy, PhD, RD, CNS, CEDS, Professor and Director of Clinical Dietetics, Department of HPER, Northern Michigan University

I taught a creative writing class yesterday afternoon and felt a new confidence after the summer's Creativity Workshop. I was much more in control and more confident of what I was doing and saying. My students seem more excited about their work using your exercises. I feel that in several months time I shall still be doing and saying things that echo what we covered in your wonderful workshop.
Noel Shepherd, Creative Writing Teacher, grades 5 and 6, Washington International School

The greatest gift I received from the workshop was to learn in a different way. We took time to focus, experiment with different media and take risks. I have used so many of the ideas and exercises from this workshop with my own students and they love them.
Joyce Standing, Teacher, Overlake School, Washington

Thank you for the great, great inspiration and fun of the Creativity Workshop. It helped me get a whole screenplay done during a trip to Mexico afterwards. It was great for me and my students. I don't think I've ever seen them so happy.
Doris Doerrie, Filmmaker, Professor, Munich Film School, Germany

Shelley and Alejandro's workshop challenged my assumptions of the concepts of "time" and "memory" and gave me a new way of "seeing" and interacting with my images. This workshop has transformed my art and teaching. It is a gift that I treasure and at every opportunity share with my students.
Savneet Talwar, Artist, Assistant Professor of Art Therapy, Georgetown University

The Creativity Workshop in Florence was two weeks in Paradise. I wrote the first chapter of a first novel, and opened a new door in my creative life. I'm still in touch with friends I made there. An unforgettable experience!
Lowry Marshall, Acting and Directing Teacher, Playwright, Dramaturg, Brown University

In the Creativity Workshop, I found a place to dream, to question, to understand. I strongly believe that we should fearlessly guard such spaces and ensure that they remain a part of this university. The Creativity Workshop and Shelley Berc and Alejandro Fogel’s teaching are invaluable assets to the University of Iowa.
Evan Mazunik, Student, University of Iowa

Shelley and Alejandro's Creativity Workshop is amazing in that it breaks down all your fears about thinking and writing. If it wasn't for them I fear I never would have finished my master's thesis. I was blocked until I took this course.
Francesca Salidu PHD candidate in Shakespeare,University of Pisa. San Miniato, Italy