Five (5) new awards were made in FY 2006.

The overarching focus of Professional Development for Arts Educators: Increasing Rigor and Relevance in Arts Education is to strengthen standards based arts education. Intensive and sustained multi-format professional development includes peer coaching and mentoring to support classroom application of new learning. Current programs are enhanced through the development of strategy banks, model lessons and the development of standards based alternative assessments. The goals that frame the proposal are (1) Design a high quality professional development model program for elementary and secondary arts education, (2) Implement an individual, collective and systemic professional development system that supports continuous teaching and learning, (3) Integrate ongoing performance feedback for all participants, (4) Develop systems that link ongoing student and teacher assessment in the arts to instructional planning and professional development plans.

To maintain this focus there are three interconnected activity strands: (1) Develop high quality, standards-based, ongoing professional development, (2) Integrate arts and non-arts curriculum, (3) Design an assessment system that enables data driven planning and professional development in the arts curriculum. The first activity strand, professional development, involves the creation of strategy and model lessons banks, opportunities for individual and collegial learning, and gateway experiences for non arts teachers. The second strand, integration, enables non arts teachers to develop model lessons and strategies for arts integration. Small group study supports classroom application. Arts teachers facilitate the integration process through coaching and dissemination of information concerning research based arts integration practices. The third strand, assessment, encompasses both teacher and student assessment. Assessment becomes feedback with direct linkage to expectations (standards) and instruction. PDAE: Increasing Rigor and Relevance proposes to create authentic, multidimensional student assessments that will support the standards based learning process in the arts. The creation, piloting and validation of a teacher observation instrument feels a void in the arts education field. Arts standards are actualized in a dynamic way that is different from other disciplines. This proposal will develop an observation instrument that will provide administrators and teachers with common assessment indicators that will provide a source of data specific to the arts disciplines.

PDAE: Increasing Rigor and Relevance will profoundly change the architecture of Arts Education in the School District of Hillsborough County through the elevation of the professional skills, knowledge and achievement of students and teachers alike. As we build new structures for arts education, we will create a blueprint for other districts and strengthen the foundation of the arts in our schools.

The Art Catalyst project presents a vision for improving and expanding standards-based arts education in the Jersey City Public Schools, the most culturally diverse school district in New Jersey, by providing innovative, research-based professional development that will improve students' knowledge and skills. Created in partnership with The Newark Museum, a major art education institution and respected provider of professional development, these in-depth, programs will equip arts teachers and language arts teachers with new skills, strategies, and resources for building visual arts and language arts literacy.

Using the district's cultural diversity as a springboard, the Art Catalyst project will explore three themes that have universal appeal and enduring relevance: Dress, Shelter and Cultural Celebrations. Working as a team, teachers who share the same group of students will participate in a year-long series of professional development conducted in the Museum's galleries, art studios, classrooms and computer lab. Master artists and language arts literacy consultants will also play a vital role in the training. The project will provide teachers will unparalleled access to the Museum's curators, education staff, and educational resources, as well as research-based strategies for improving standards-based arts education and for integrating standards-based arts education into the language arts subject area. An important outcome of the project will be the creation of a Library of CD Roms containing lessons developed by the teachers, images of art and cultural objects and curriculum resource material for use in the classroom. The Arts Catalyst project will serve 136 teachers and positively impact the academic achievement of 6,000 at-risk youth.

ARTS EDUCATION FOR MASSACHUSETTS DYS TEACHERS

The Hampshire Educational Collaborative (HEC) is applying for a three-year, $1,050,000 Professional Development for Arts Educators grant under the U.S. Department of Education discretionary/competitive grants program. If awarded, HEC will provide a three-year program of professional development focused on integration of the arts into the core academic curriculum for teachers serving students in residential facilities under the Massachusetts Division of Youth Services (DYS). The bulk of the students in DYS facilities come from high-risk, high-poverty backgrounds.

Through participation in a comprehensive professional development program, all DYS teachers will study, practice and refine the integration of multiple art forms into their instruction in English language arts, social studies, math and science. Components of the program will include an annual in-service training day, regional workshops, artist-educator residencies in the institutional classrooms, and ongoing follow-up coaching from artist-educators. HEC will craft a new website to supply DYS teachers with examples of arts-based lessons that take into account the special circumstances of the incarcerated juvenile offender population and that connect to state and national academic standards.

A full-time Arts Training Coordinator will implement the program under the supervision of HEC's Director of DYS Professional Development for our existing state-wide program of DYS training. An application process will be established to attract, screen, and select professional artist-educators who have experience training teachers to integrate the arts into the curriculum. The focus of this work will be on the use of visual arts, media arts, music and drama to teach English language arts, social studies, math and science. The Arts Training Coordinator and the selected artist-educators will conduct the in-service training, workshops, residencies, and coaching assistance.

The Santa Cruz County Schools, in partnership with community agencies, arts organizations, Workforce Development, the local Weed and Seed Program (sponsored by Office of Justice Programs focusing on applying arts to combat violence), and our Santa Cruz County Art Works Center submit this application to the Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, Professional Development for Arts Educators Program, in response to CFDA No. 84.351C.

The proposed program, Project ACCE (Arts Curriculum in Core Education): Crossing Boundaries, will address the overall priorities established for the competition by providing for: (1) the development, enhancement, and expansion of standards-based arts education programs; and (2) the integration of standards-based arts instruction with other core academic area content, ensuring all arts education programs are directly connected to the Arts Standards for grades K-12 enumerated in the Arts Standards adopted by the state Board of Education on April 28, 1997. Additionally, Project ACCE is designed to provide support for arts education programs that provide for improved student academic performance through participation; and increased range of arts program activities in accordance with Arizona Standards for music, visual arts, theatre, and dance that integrate arts education (creating art, art in context, and art as inquiry) across the curriculum suggesting integration links for each discipline and its related standard. That competence provides a firm foundation for connecting arts-related concepts and facts across the art forms, and from them to the sciences and humanities.

Three goals of the project are as follows: (1) to establish and maintain programs and policies that foster equal access to high quality arts professional Development education programs for arts educators and other teachers in target schools; (2) to offer arts educational programs that will increase the educational attainment of at-risk children and youth in connection with Arizona Arts Standards; and (3) Project ACCE participants will learn how to integrate standards-based arts instruction with other core academic area content. A key factor in this approach to learning is the use of parallel and interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies used to support arts educators and other teachers in demonstrating how the arts can be taught with integrity through the interdisciplinary content standards. This work is extremely important because it promotes learning by providing students with opportunities to solve problems and make meaningful connections within the arts and across disciplines. Project ACCE is designed to encourage teachers to seek new and innovative methods for encouraging students to generate new insights and to synthesize new relationships between ideas. These ideas lend themselves in transcending across multiple disciplines thereby increasing the student's ability to make meaningful connections between and discipline core content areas.

The target population to be served includes a minimum of 90 teachers working in 22 eligible K-12 schools (all exceed the 50% mandatory minimum free-reduced lunch rate threshold) providing educational opportunities for over 10,000 predominately Hispanic at-risk children and youth residing in an impoverished EC/EZ US/Mexico border town, as well as seven federally designated "colonias" (areas lacking infrastructure, potable water, adequate roads, sewers, etc.). Target schools participating in Project ACCE experience some of the highest unemployment in the state (12-26% due to seasonal farmwork), the largest number of Latino population in one area in the State of Arizona, are credited with the dubious distinction of having the second lowest spending rate per student in the nation, and one of the most active border regions with illegal criminal activities including drug and human trafficking. These barriers often interfere with our students' ability to learn in a peaceful and nurturing environment.

Service components will include: development of individualized teacher professional development arts-based development plans (ADAs); classes in arts-based methodology; artist-in-resident workshops; summer arts academy; public arts program; community involvement programs to integrate cultural, historical and curriculum-based studies with Arizona Standards measurements.

Two unique features of the program include hiring a Professional Development Sustainability Coordinator who will work with school districts/schools, teachers, program staff, and institutions of higher education (University of Arizona) to articulate the acceptance of CEUs earned from Project ACCE professional development components toward the accumulation of required CEUs for continued state teacher licensing. Additionally, we will be working with Young Audiences, a local non-profit organization and liaison to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to explore new methodologies practiced nationwide for infusion of arts-based education with core curriculum content. Young Audiences representative will provide quarterly updates on "lessons learned" from other communities delivering arts-based education programs, as well as providing information on how to develop teachers' knowledge of the arts and empower them to use the arts in their classrooms.

The proposed project, Systemic Professional Replication of Education in the Arts Dissemination Plan or SPREAD, is a strategic partnership between the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE), the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), the Arts Education Initiative (a consortium of 6 universities and colleges led by UC-Berkeley and including the California College of the Arts), six Alameda County arts providers with professional development and teaching artist programs in place, and 10 Arts Learning Anchor Schools in the Oakland Unified School District.

The Alameda County Office of Education has identified the need for a systemic culture of teaching and learning that can respond effectively and coherently to school and district needs and support a learning environment that promotes professional, engaged and artful teaching for student achievement. To accomplish this, common planning, learning and assessment tools for professional action and accountability for student success through arts learning must be created.

The Alameda County Office of Education sees an opportunity to build on the knowledge gained from the pilot years of its Visual Arts Learning for Understanding Education in Schools (VALUES) Project. The VALUES Project began to create and disseminate this common language in order to provide for a sustained, systemic culture of teaching and learning. This common language will evolve through sharing of professional development models and consideration of school reform strategies, educational research, teaching and learning frameworks, and ideas from Harvard University's Project Zero. Using the Teaching for Understanding framework, the SPREAD Project partners with local arts education provider organizations that have an existing track record of providing high quality teacher training institutes in arts learning. These organizations include the Museum of Children's Art (MOCHA), Luna Kids Dance, Opera Piccola, California College of the Arts, and the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. By focusing on existing community resources, SPREAD educates and supports local arts education providers so they can cohesively work to align with, and meet the needs of, schools and school districts that have articulated plans in place to help students meet and achieve state and federal standards.

The ACOE believes effectiveness of professional development programs is assured by this multi-pronged and inclusive approach: developing networks of school districts, committed to arts learning for every child, with arts providers, community resources and arts learning anchor/demonstration schools to share learnings and coordinate resources.

The goal of the SPREAD Project is to develop a systemic professional development network that honors teachers and addresses their arts learning needs, so they can teach and integrate the arts to improve student achievement through the following objectives:

Objective 1: Situate the creation of a professional teaching and learning community squarely in the center of school and district reform efforts.

Objective 2: Create a common language through sharing of professional development models and consideration of school reform strategies, educational research and Project Zero ideas and teaching and learning frameworks.

Objective 3: Develop a professional network that can flexibly and appropriately respond to identified pre-service arts learning needs.

2005 Awards || 2003 Awards || 2002 Awards