Using Creativity and Collaboration to Develop Innovative Programs That Embrace Diversity in Higher Education

This paper provides an example of an innovative solution to program development that addresses the diverse needs of teacher educators throughout various geographical locations in Florida, through a collaborative multi-university, multi-agency teacher training program funded by one collaborative grant. In this time of economic uncertainties, institutions of higher education must become creative and emphasize interdisciplinary collaborative efforts both internally and externally in order to develop cost-effective, innovative programs that embrace diversity. Innovation is driven out of need. My teaching experience, in the K-12 public school and in the university setting, fostered my awareness of the need for professional collaboration, and this awareness ignited my creativity. I will discuss how I identified the needs at my university and then utilized creativity and collaboration to network and obtain the grant, which then facilitated, developed, and taught in a new Masters of Education program in Arts and Academic Interdisciplinary Education. Program content and delivery were both planned around the diverse student population within the multi-university collaboration, with each university designing diverse programs to address the specific needs of their population but with the same concept of arts integration. Collaboration also occurred within each university: the College of Arts and Science and the College of Education. In addition, teachers were required to collaborate as coaches in their schools to train and support others in increasing arts integration in their schools.