Partners in Education Project Grants for 2010-2011
A
Arkansas 1991 Team
Amount Awarded: $12,000
The Arkansas 1991 Team of Walton Arts Center and the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative will present continuing professional development training in arts integration strategies for Education Service Cooperative educators and teachers in the service area. Randy Barron, Kennedy Center Artist Educator, and Crystal Bridges of the Museum of American Arts, will lead on-site workshops, provide school year-long coaching, and deliver follow-up and additional training via teleconference. The goals of the project include training participants in art integration strategies to use movement, visual arts, and architecture to teach math and science content.
C
California 2001 Team
Amount Awarded: $7,500
The California 2001 Team will undertake a major assessment project to evaluate the impact of our programs on students. In consultation with Kennedy Center Educator Deborah Brzoska, the team will rework their early assessment efforts and create effective research methods in order to collect measurable data that will inform our strategic planning process. As part of the project, Cal Performances will create partnerships with Berkeley Unified School District teachers who will participate in all aspects of the Cal Performances in the Classroom program with their students. The feedback gathered from student and teacher participation will help guide their future efforts, and the working relationships that they build with teachers will strengthen their commitment to Cal Performances education programs in future years.
G
Georgia 2001 Team
Amount Awarded: $15,000
The Georgia 2001 Team will fulfill The Woodruff Art Center’s vision by launching Arts Partners, a grade-sequenced, in-school arts learning program, as well as support a statewide expansion of professional learning in arts education. Funding from Kennedy Center Partners in Education will leverage matching funds by providing consulting services to expand and enhance The Woodruff’s professional learning program. The program will specifically focus on three days of Teaching Artist Seminars to increase the infrastructure, design, and program delivery essential to grow and sustain professional learning resources for teaching artists.
H
Hawai’i 1995 Team
Amount Awarded: $15,000
The Hawai’i 1995 Team will build a culture of shared leadership to sustain the arts focus at Pōmaika’i Elementary, the only public school in Hawai’i with a whole school arts integrated curriculum. The leaders developed this year will strengthen the school’s vision and pass their experience and knowledge on to an expanded group of teacher leaders in 2011-2012. In addition, leaders will continue to increase their proficiency in integrating the arts across the curriculum and coach new teachers in arts learning. Kennedy Center Consultant Deborah Brzoska will assist the Hawai’i 1995 Team in training these leaders, as well as building support among the parent community.
Hawai’i 2007 Team
Amount Awarded: $10,000
The Hawai’i 2007 Team will initiate Learning through Engagement: Building a School-Wide Integration Model. This program is designed to engage an entire school in order to deepen teachers’ professional development in a drama-based pedagogy to achieve a higher level of transference as well as a finer quality of application in the classroom.
I
Iowa (Cedar Falls) 2003 Team
Amount Awarded: $6,800
The Iowa 2003 Team of Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center and the Waterloo Community School District will host a series of on-going professional development sessions with Kennedy Center Teaching Artist Marcia Daft for PreK-2 teachers. Teachers will receive classroom demonstration, coaching, and feedback based on Musically Moving Math, focusing on an innovative approach to teaching mathematics that explores the conceptual parallels between music, movement, and elementary math concepts. Participants will delve into number concepts to discover creative ways to help students deeply comprehend the relationships between counting, grouping, sequencing, repeating patterns, and skip counting. Kennedy Center funds will be used to support artist expenses, such as stipend, airfare, per diem, and car rental.
L
Louisiana (New Orleans) 2005 Team
Amount Awarded: $13,300
The Louisiana 2005 Team will increase the capacity of Louisiana arts education professionals to present arts integration professional development for teachers. Teaching artists and arts coaches from KID smART and the ICI Initiative of the Louisiana Division of the Arts (LDOA) will increase their knowledge and enhance their skills through participation in the Kennedy Center’s workshop, Planning and Presenting Professional Development Workshops for Teachers, December 12-14, 2010. The Local Next Steps Plan will be implemented within the KID smART/ICI learning community, with additional coaching, demonstration presentations, peer-to-peer feedback on draft presentations, and planning/development of workshops in January and February, 2011. Participants will present their in-school workshops and receive feedback from KID smART/ICI observers and evaluators between March and May 2011.
M
Maine 2007 Team
Amount Awarded: $12,000
The Maine 2007 Team will deepen school and district wide commitment to reform arts integrated instruction through Swapping Fish Tales, Year 2, the second of a two-year Kennedy Center artists’ consultancy for embedded professional development in arts integration. Partners in Education teams from Deer Isle, Maine and Juneau, Alaska will build on the successful work of Year 1, in digital media arts, digital storytelling, drama integration, and coast-to-coast communication around a topic of relevance to both communities. Additionally, they will deepen their work with teachers and administrators through continued classroom modeling, two additional weekend Integrated Arts Learning Retreats, and a culminating performance project shared between the two coasts. The project focuses on Investigation, Communication, Collaboration, Creation, and Reflection as central themes and processes for teachers and students. Throughout Year Two, teams will work with students in grades 4-12 in four schools to produce a collaborative performance piece that reflects the similarities, differences, and learning opportunities between the fishing cultures at the heart of both communities. A final multi-media theater production and visual arts/creative writing exhibition will be performed in both locations in spring 2011 and filmed for webcast between the partner sites and further dissemination.
Mississippi 2007 Team
Amount Awarded: $7,500
The Mississippi 2007 Team will focus on two middle schools, one from each partner school district. These two schools have elementary schools that feed into them that are both involved in the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Whole Schools Initiative, a statewide school reform movement arts education program that uses the arts as a vehicle for promoting high-quality instruction and learning for students in all disciplines. A Kennedy Center Teaching Artist will assist the schools by speaking about the power of arts education to the parents and community supporters. Next, the teaching artist will consult with the administrators and a leadership team to begin program planning. Additionally, teachers from both schools will be offered professional development workshops. Two neighboring counties who have an interest in an arts focus will be invited to attend all workshops.
Montana 1991 Team
Amount Awarded: $15,000
The Montana 1991 Team will support the continuation of Laurel Public Schools’ district-wide initiative to include arts integration in every K-12 teachers’ instructional practice. All teachers of grades 3-8 from two Laurel schools will participate in professional development training led by local and Kennedy Center workshop leaders. This training will include three-hour and six-hour workshops, as well as classroom modeling sessions throughout the school year. These teachers will be mentored by in-school arts coaches, who will provide mini-workshops in the arts strategies and support the development of Big Idea units of study, integrating the arts strategies with their curriculum.
N
Nebraska 2001 Team
Amount Awarded: $15,000
The Nebraska 2001 Team will support the Umo”ho” Arts and Culture Inquiry Project (UACIP) , whose ultimate goal is to improve educational outcomes for Umo”ho” Nation School District’s (UNS) at-risk students through teacher professional development, reflection/inquiry and documentation of the impact of arts integration on student learning. This goal will be accomplished through the creation of a grades 1-8 cadre of teachers, and the development of a professional learning community (PLC) within the elementary/middle school(s). This new team of teachers, along with the music and visual arts specialists, are the primary participants, though teaching artists who collaborate with teachers to create and teach arts integration strategies involving dance, music, theater, and visual arts are also involved. Year 2 builds on Year 1 efforts by expanding the number of teachers involved, adding the PLC component to encourage inquiry and reflection, maintaining the residency collaborations between teachers and teaching artists, and providing professional development workshops led by experienced Kennedy Center Teaching Artists. In Year 2, the team will continue to examine what participating teachers “say, write and do” in classroom practice. Finally, participating teachers, now with more experience in arts integration, will focus on gathering evidence of student learning.
Nevada 2001 Team
Amount Awarded: $7,500
The Nevada 2001 Team will sustain the school-wide reform through professional learning and the arts integration foundation established in the initial phase of the partnership between The Smith Center and Gilbert Magnet School. The vision of “The Arts: A Way to Learn, A Way to Live,” will expand as the partnership adds another school. The team will aid Gilbert Magnet as the school revises its coaching system to support teachers in current arts integration strategies and adds two more techniques and serves as a host to other Clark County School District educators. Collaborating with Gilbert Magnet School, West Prep Arts and Humanities Academy will begin the journey of school-wide arts integration. This important work will guarantee the journey continues towards fully realizing arts integration-focused schools, based on the Kennedy Center’s CETA model.
New Mexico 1999 Team
Amount Awarded: $8,800
The New Mexico 1999 Team will bring two Kennedy Center teaching artists to Grant County to provide consultation and strategic planning to help build a program toward whole school integration in two school districts. They will also provide a total of four workshops for various constituencies, expanding on the success of their 2009-2010 Research Project, which brought together teams of classroom teachers and practice teachers in effective collaboration. In 2010-2011, teams will work together for two semesters, continuing a focus on drama to support academic achievement in the classroom.
O
Oklahoma 2005 Team
Amount Awarded: $7,500
The Oklahoma 2005 Team will bring Teaching Artist Marcia Daft to Enid Public Schools. Marcia will initiate an updated arts integration program by serving as a consultant for our two arts-focused schools, while also assisting with strategic planning for selected teams of grade 3-5 teachers throughout our school district. She will provide demonstration teaching, workshops, courses, and coaching. Teachers will form study groups, develop curriculum strategies, and design implementation plans for arts integration lessons. Marcia’s contribution to the development of instruction will improve the district’s arts integration program by enabling all students to learn through music. Students and teachers alike will craft lifestyle changes that build well-rounded individuals encouraged to appreciate the arts.
S
South Carolina 1995 Team
Amount Awarded: $5,200
The South Carolina 1995 Team will broaden their sphere of influence providing in-depth development opportunities to South Carolina educators to other states. Additionally, they will plan to expand their professional development to foster and cultivate a strong community of teaching artists to work hand in hand with talented classroom teachers throughout the southeast region. Funds received will be used to support three of the Kennedy Center’s Teaching Artist Seminars, which will be made available to teaching artists throughout the southeastern states.
V
Vermont 1992 Team
Amount Awarded: $12,000
The Vermont 1992 Team of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (Flynn) and the Burlington School District (BSD) will partner to provide professional development for the licensed teachers and school arts coaches of Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler School (IAA), opened in the fall of 2009 as the first integrated arts magnet school in Vermont. Building upon their work with Kennedy Center teaching artists last year, selected teacher workshops by Kennedy Center teaching artists will focus on ways to integrate theater and music with writing, to be followed by classroom demonstrations. These workshops and demonstrations will be supplemented by IAA teachers’ participation in the Flynn’s signature professional development program Words Come Alive!, which creates effective ways to integrate drama and movement techniques into their curriculum. This project will also assist in the development of an integrated arts track within one of our middle schools, Edmunds Middle, by bringing in a team of Edmunds teachers to participate in the same professional development program. An evaluation firm will determine this initiative’s overall effectiveness.
