Sample PD ProviderSample Program

Background

Sample PD Provider was formed in 2004 to achieve its mission to provide professional development to teachers and administrators working in the public schools. We believe that the most effective way to effect change for the students of Los Angeles County is through forging partnerships that build capacity for high quality arts instruction.

Program Objectives

Teachers will have confidence and capacity in the artistic process. Through hands-on art making, participants will explore the artistic process. Participants will engage in the art form through the Summer Institute. Art making will continue to be incorporated in the professional development across the school year.

Teachers will understand how the artistic process connects to project-based learning objectives and the VAPA standards. Art making experiences will be followed by reflective conversations about the knowledge and skills required to make artistic choices. Connections between the artistic process and project-based learning and the VAPA standards will be modeled in the monthly workshops. Collaborative curriculum planning will be facilitated throughout the year.

Teachers will have the skills to incorporate artistic process and the VAPA standards into their lessons. Co-teaching collaborations with teaching artists will support teachers in incorporating the artistic process and VAPA standards into their daily practice. Weekly planning meetings as well as an online lesson plan development tool will be used.

The Sample Program is a customizable school-wide partnership model that incorporates a summer institute, monthly staff workshops, and co-teaching. The program has been supporting schools for 5 years and has built intensive collaborations with over 125 teachers. Through the program, we aim to empower teachers to bring the arts into their classrooms and the lives of their students. Led by a team of artists and former teachers and education administrators, we have seen powerful shifts in student learning, pedagogy and the sense of school community after collaborating with schools through the artistic process.

Structures

The partnership kicks-off with a meeting with the school’s principal and a team of teachers who serve as the advisory committee. Through a series of planning session with the committee, specific objectives and accompanying evaluation plans for the school are identified. Instruction begins with the Summer Institute, an immersion in the chosen art form. Interactive monthly workshops continue through the year for teachers to explore how the artistic process comes to life in their curriculum. A coach is provided to support the staff in interdisciplinary project-based curriculum planning. In the spring, teaching artists and teachers co-plan, implement and evaluate ten-session residencies designed to address the teacher’s artistry and instructional goals. School partnerships can be multi-year and continue to build on prior year’s objectives. The program is subsidized by the Sample Foundation. Schools are required to pay for 50% of all costs.

Methodology

As put forth by the CCSESA Arts Initiative, schools need prepared teachers to be able to teach the visual and performing arts and connect the arts to the other core curriculum areas. The Sample PD program’s focus on the artistic process is an effective way for teachers to build artistic knowledge and skills that can begin addresses the inequities in arts curricula offerings. To support teachers in being able to teach their students through an arts integrated curriculum, the Sample PD Program provides authentic, experiential engagement with the arts. The program then supports teachers to construct their own understanding of how the arts integrate into their curriculum and then with strategies adapted from “Understanding by Design” supports the curriculum planning.

Participants' Experience

Starting with the Summer Institute, teachers will be immersed in the arts. Over four days, teachers will produce a play, choreograph a dance, compose a song and create a mural. They will engage with accomplished artists, explore the tools and language of each of the art forms and then employ the artistic process to make the choices that will bring their own art to life. At the monthly workshops teachers will continue to create art through participating in model art integrated lessons. These lessons will be a tool to explore arts infused teaching strategies, classroom management techniques, VAPA standards connections and assessment protocols. With the support of a coach, collaborative curriculum planning will take place across teaching teams. In the spring, teachers will pair up with a teaching artist to co-teach an arts infused project-based curriculum. Teachers and teaching artists will meet weekly throughout the spring and use an online lesson plan development site.

Classroom Relevancy

Throughout the program, teachers will engage in reflective dialogue on how their arts experiences connect to their classroom practice. As new arts knowledge and skills are acquired by the teachers, the VAPA standards will be revisited to identify alignments. Teachers will be provided with a planning notebook with arts resources, tools for tracking arts integration ideas, worksheets for collaborative planning and lesson plan writing and sample assessments. Through art making experiences, exploration of model lessons, curriculum planning support from a coach and the experience of collaboratively implementing arts infused curriculums with a teaching artist this professional development will influence and enrich the teacher’s daily practice.

Interdisciplinary Connections

The Sample PD program supports teachers who seek to integrate the arts into their other curriculum areas. Through high quality art-making activities, teachers will identify the authentic connections that exist between art making and language, math, science and social studies. Through participation in model arts integrated lessons, teachers will experience and analyze interdisciplinary connections. With these experiences, they will then be supported by a coach to build curriculums that bridge the arts and their other core content areas. With a teaching artist, they will then practice delivering these lessons to their students.

VAPA Standards

The Sample PD Program incorporates into all of its convenings and tools the opportunity to connect to the concepts and skills outlined in the VAPA standards. Teachers will engage in the arts and reflect on which standards came to life in that experience. Tools and planning and instructional support will be provided throughout the partnership to create arts integrated curriculums that are rooted in the VAPA standards.