Please visit our new Professional Learning website: teachwithartsconnection.org.
Professional Learning Methodologies
Teachers are the single most powerful influence on student achievement and are essential in linking learning and the arts. ArtsConnection respects educators as professionals and engages them in action research focused on student learning in and through authentic arts experiences.
Participation in an ArtsConnection professional learning community transforms teaching through a rigorous process of experimentation, analysis, and reflection on evidence of student learning that builds knowledge, develops skills, and inspires changes in teaching practice.
ArtsConnection’s professional learning opportunities support achievement of local, state and national arts standards, and are congruent with current education mandates.
Professional Development at ArtsConnection
A brief history of projects funded by US DOE’s Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Program (AEMDD) and Professional Development in Arts Education (PDAE)
Through an unparalleled series of grants from the US DOE, ArtsConnection has:
- deepened organizational knowledge and understanding about teaching and learning
- conducted practitioner research that had led to increasingly complex work
- built the capacity of ArtsConnection staff and artists, classroom teachers and art specialists to help students in the New York City public schools learn to work and think like artists
- worked with an independent research team to gather data about our programs and their effect on teachers and students
DELLTA: Developing English Language Literacy through the Arts
2005-2008 DELLTA/Elementary Schools Residency Model (AEMDD)
2006-2010 DELLTA/Middle Schools Residency Model (AEMDD)
Project Inquiry
What is the nature of teaching and learning in dance and theater; and, in what ways do they influence second language acquisition in English language learners?
Results
The Contours of Inclusion: Frameworks and Tools for Evaluating Arts in Education
Language at the Core: Developing Meaningful Connections between the Arts and Classroom Instruction
2011-2014 DELLTA PD Model (PDAE)
Project Inquiry
Given positive results among students in ArtsConnection’s AEMDD projects have consistently been highest in classrooms where partnership between teaching artists and classroom teachers were strongest, how can the practitioner research processes ArtsConnection has developed or adapted be used to facilitate partnerships among arts, ESL and classroom teachers?
2014-2018 Digital DELLTA (AEMDD) (new for middle schools)
Project Inquiry
What knowledge and support are necessary to help middle school ELLs as they learn to make artistic choices, reflect on their learning process and learn to represent it to an audience through digital portfolios?
Results
Watch this space for new information that will be shared throughout the process
The Arts and Literacy
2001-2004 Exploring the Arts and Literacy Connection (AEMDD)
Project Inquiry
How can classroom teachers and teaching artists work collaboratively in inquiry-based partnerships to develop a learning environment that will nurture creativity and curiosity across disciplines?
2010-2014 Common Core and the Arts (AEMDD)
Project Inquiry
How do children learn to work and think like artists? And, what are the authentic connections between the Common Core State Standards and learning in the arts?
Results
Language at the Core: Developing Meaningful Connections between the Arts and Classroom Instruction
This study in the final stages of analysis. Watch this space for information on findings.
2014-2018 Bridges: Bridging the Achievement Gap through Puppetry (PDAE)
Project Inquiry
How can we use ArtsConnection’s practitioner inquiry process to build educators’ capacity to teach for transfer across sequential puppetry and English Language Arts (ELA) curricula in order to help students meet the rigorous demands of the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)?
Results
Watch this space for new information that will be shared throughout the process
Planning and Assessment in Arts Education
2005-2008 The Art of Teaching: Promoting the Professional Growth of Arts Specialists (PDAE)
Project Inquiry
How can a professional learning community build the capacities of arts specialists to design and implement sequential arts curricula that support students to achieve national arts-standards?
Results
2008-2011 Artful Learning Communities: Assessing Learning in the Arts (PDAE)
Project Inquiry
How does engaging communities of arts specialists (K-8) in action research develop their formative assessment practice and support students to work and like artists?
2011-2014 Artful Learning Communities II: Assessing Learning, Transforming Practice, Promoting Achievement (PDAE)
Project Inquiry
How does engaging communities of arts specialists (K-12) in action research help develop their formative assessment practice and support students to work and like artists?
Results
What is Video Study?
Video Study is a professional development model for building new teaching strategies based on the study of student work samples captured on video by teachers. Video Study was developed at ArtsConnection, through our PD DELLTA grant where we focused our first study on the verbal and nonverbal communication that happens when students are learning to work and think like artists.
Video Study is action research. Professional Learning communities composed of artists and teachers, facilitated by ArtsConnection staff, collaborate to identify research focus areas and to develop plans to gather digital data of their students at work. After collecting the video data at school, they watch, log and analyze this data individually and across classrooms. Working together, they use this process to develop new teaching strategies tailored to their classrooms, which they test and revise through the same process.
By studying samples of their students’ work, teachers and artists develop new insights into students’ strengths, challenges and how they learn. Video Study offers a structured process from which teachers and artists build on this learning by developing, testing and revising new teaching strategies.
Overview: Video Study Curriculum-ArtsConnectionVideo Study Resources
Planning Action Research: Research Plan
Gather Video Data: Video Documentation Plan – ArtsConnection
Study and Interpret Data: Video Clip Catalogue – ArtsConnection
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