New Partnership: Arts for Learning and the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta

Arts for Learning Program Breaks New Ground

Boy's & Girls Club, Mary Moya and Teaching Artist, Roberta Stutzman

Young Audiences' Arts for Learning Program breaks new ground by starting off the 2011-2012 program year collaborating with the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta. The after school program at both the Lawrenceville Center (Lawrenceville) and A. Whorley Brown (Norcross) will feature an Arts for Learning Residency in October and early November. One day a week for 6 weeks, students in grades 2-5 will create an individual collage representing their own interpretation of the qualities of a hero as described in the featured story. They will share their experiences in this work with an invited audience. The weekly classes are taught by an Arts for Learning Teaching Artist with the support of the Boys & Girls Club's Education and Visual Arts staff.

Arts for Learning Lessons: Beyond the Pilot

IMAPCTING LITERACY THROUGH THE ARTS

THE PILOT

Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons was developed nationally by Young Audiences, Inc. in collaboration with a University of Washington design team led by Dr. John Bransford. The strength of the program is that it educates the whole child by developing the students' ability to learn and process information as they work back and forth between arts and literacy tasks. Young Audiences trains teachers to deliver 16 hours of sequential instruction, 2-3 sessions per week, 40-60 minutes per session, to students during the regular school day. Students spend time working througth text with the instructor and reinterpreting what they learn througth hands-on group work. Outcomes are characterized by student driven learning, strengthened critical thinking skills and highly engaged hands-on learning.
 



The second part of the program is 5 hours of of arts instruction in a residency format. Led by a Young 

Audiences teaching artist, the residency allows students to work individually in a particular art form. At the program's conslusion, student are given a chance to share their knowledge and artwork with peers, parents, and the community.

Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center introduced this program to Georgia in the spring of 2010. Teachers from seven DeKalb County elementary schools were nominated by their principals to partipate in the Professional Learning experience. During this training, the teachers developed their skill in blending reading, writing and art techniques in order to analyze and interpret their understanding of an assigned book. (See intial post for this blog on October 4, 2010 for more details.)  Returning to their schools, each teacher pair guided their students through the same process of analysis, critical thinking and creativity.

The research components of the Arts for Learning Lessons program were conducted by WestEd and Roanoke College.

YEAR ONE

Fall, 2010

The fall semester marked the first opportunity for schools to apply to be accepted into the Arts for Learning Lessons Program.

Adrian School of Performing Arts



Adrian School of Performing Arts was the first school outside the Metro Atlanta area to collaborate with Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center in the use of the Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons Program. Teachers in grades 4, 5 & 7 plus the literacy coach particiapted in a full day of professional development held at their school. With funding support from the Nordson Corporation Foundation, the participating Adrian teachers and students worked with A4L Unit 3: Everyday Heroes. A Young Audiences teaching artist delivered the Hero's Journey Residency. A 7th grade boy, after reading the biography of Roberto Clemente and creating a community collage on that text, commented that that "It (A4L Lessons) is better than just reading a book and answering the questions. It helps you remember the story better". 



Sawyer Road ES

Teachers at Sawyer Road Elementary School introduced Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons to students in grades 3, 4, and 5 of the schools' extended day program. Students met 3-days a week from October - December. The results of their hard work were shared with fellow students. Principal Jill Sims presented them with A4L certificates. Ms. Debbie Burleigh, Assistant Principal, described the Arts for Learning Program as "a wonderful experience for our students and our teachers".

Spring, 2011

In the Spring sememster of the 2010-2011, we returned to our roots in DeKalb County Schools to work with three new elementary schools.

Atherton



Selected Atherton teachers and students in grades 2, 3, 4 and 5 participated in Arts for Learning

Lessons  during the school day. Atherton gave us the model of a music teacher and 5th grade classroom teacher collaborating to deliver this arts and literacy integrated program.

Glen Haven



Glen Haven served as our first school completing a second year of Arts for Learning Lessons. Classroom teachers and YA teaching artist once again delivered Arts for Learning Lessons in an afterschool format for students in grades 4 and 5. From the Glen Haven Arts for Learning Team: "The Arts 4 Learning After School Program provided our students with an additinal literacy safety net. The Instructional Units are correlate to the Georgia Performance Standards which helped our boys and girls to acquire a deeper understanding of literacy while learning more about Art Forms, Techniques, and Elements. We were excited to learn that 96 % of the students that participated in the program (during the Pilot) met or exceeded the Reading Standards on the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test".

Idlewood

Idlewood taught us how to work with an entire grade level. The Art Educator served as A4L Site Coordinator and Team Leader, and all 6 classes of second grade students participated in the Arts for Learning Program and Residency.  One of the teachers carried the A4L arts and literacy strategies into work her students did in Science and also in the creation of cards for Mother's Day.

Special Activities

During this first full academic year of Arts for Learning Lessons in Georgia schools,  Arts for Learning Program Director attended and gave presentations at several state and national conferences, including Georgia Arts Education Association, Beyond School Hours, and National Young Audiences.

Arts for Learning Lessons: Impacting Literacy Through the Arts

 The Arts for Learning Lessons (A4L) Program was highlighted in 2 workshop sessions during the recent Beyond School Hours XIV that was held in Atlanta for educators and staff in afterschool programs. The hands-on activity was the high point for the A4L workshop participants.

THE PROCESS

Glen Haven ES teacher, Kimberli Maxwell, read an excerpt from Jose Clemente, Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates by Jonah Winter to the participants. Members in each small group were asked to listen to the story of Clemente's early life in Puerto Rico and determine what details were most important. Each group had to agree on the most significant information given the facts they had just heard in the story excerpt.

The next task was to turn to turn to their  box of art supplies and select materials that would help them re-create the parts of the story that they found to be "most important".

THE FINAL PRODUCT

The A4L team presenting the workshop modeled the process students experiences as they move back and forth from reading text to group discussion, writing and hands-on art making. In the A4L Lessons Unit, Everyday Heroes, students complete this same cycle of work as they read the full story of Roberto Clemente's life and create narrative collages to express what they found to be the important details. 

Teachers, students - and workshop participants - all come to realize the powerful learning that results when literacy & the arts are combined.

Some of the final collages from the workshop are shown below.

Partnership Model for Student Success Through Literacy & The Arts

A4L LESSONS PROGRAM & GLEN HAVEN ES PARTNER for STUDENT SUCCESS

A4L Presenters: Barbara O'Brien, Vera McKenzie, Francine Goodman, Kimberli Maxwell

The good news came in November, 2010. The conference proposal to tell other educators about the partnership between Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center's Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons and DeKalb County's Glen Haven Elementary School had been accepted! More importantly, we could now share the success students achieved by working with dedicated teachers in a curriculum based program grounded in literacy and the arts. February, 2011 was circled on the calendar as the date to give two presentations at the  Beyond School Hours XIV national conference in Atlanta, GA.

Inspired by the students' work in the A4L Lessons unit on Everyday Heroes, we designed a workshop that would allow participants to explore strategies for reflective thinking, creative problem solving, and critical thinking through literacy and the arts.

We used a team approach to talk about the partnership between the A4L Lessons program and Glen Haven Elementary School, the professional learning for the teachers, resources and instruction, assessment, and documented success for the students.

 

Participants working on Everyday Heroes Collage

For the participants, having the opportunity to experience the dynamic hands-on aspect of the literacy and arts activities was the highlight of the workshop. They heard an excerpt from the book, Roberto Clemente, Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The next task was to work in small groups (collage communities) just as the A4L students do to determine the important facts in what they heard then represent those facts in a group collage. The sharing at the end of the workshop again supported what we see in students who participate in the A4L Lessons program: the high level of engagement, processing information, decision making and unique responses from each group. 

Sharing Accomplishments

More on Beyond School Hours Conference



Susan McQuade & Barbara O'Brien





A4L Leadership Team Takes Advantage of Conference Offerings

Susan McQuade, Director of Program Initiatives for Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center and Barbara O'Brien, Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons Program Director, attended the Beyond School Hours national conference in Atlanta.  The conference workshops & large group sessions provided an ideal setting for professional learning as these members of the Leadership Team begin to plan the A4L program for the 2011-2012 program year.

Some of the sessions Barbara & Susan attended included topics on Family Engagement, Project Data Collection, Community Partnerships, Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners, Program Funding Sources and Creating Partnerships for Summer Program Delivery.

Afterschool: Effective & High Quality

National Conference In Atlanta

Beyond School Hours  XIV, the national conference organized by Foundations, Inc., is meeting in Atlanta from February 23-26, 2011. Programs at the conference offer opportunities to focus on student success in school, afterschool and in the community.

In one of the first sessions, we were all reminded that an effective & high quality afterschool experience for students and teachers is created when the following realities are in place:
> The staff sees themselves as educators.
> The responsible adults in the program know what students are learning during the school day
> Leaders are trained in appropriate methods & techniques for afterschool instruction and activities.
> The afterschool team has plans & tools to reflect on and assess the programs along with student progress.

This session was interesting and helpful as the Arts for Learning Lessons Program builds on its initial introduction in DeKalb County as an extended day program at 7 elementary schools.

A4L Lessons Teachers Presenting at Beyond School Hours Conference

Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center and DeKalb's Glen Haven Elementary School

Present at National Conference



Francine Goodman, Kimberli Maxwell, Vera McKenzie

Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center introduced the Arts for Learning Lessons Program to Georgia in Spring, 2011.  DeKalb County's Glen Haven Elementary School was one of the original 7 school sites for the extended day collaboration around this Arts & Literacy curriculum based program know as Arts for Learning Lessons.

The 3 Glen Haven teachers and Arts for Learning Lessons Program Director, Barbara O'Brien, decided to tell the story of the collaboration, teacher team building, and student achievement in the context of arts & literacy curriculum activities. They submitted a proposal to the Beyond School Hours XIV when this national conference convenienes in Atlanta, February 23-26, 2011.



Barbara O'Brien



Barbara is pleased to announce that the conference proposal has been accepted. Look for the A4L team at 2 sessions of the conference. The topic: Inspiring Everyday Heroes: A Partnership Model for Student Success Through Literacy and the Arts.