Arts Impact Receives Two U.S. Department of Education Arts Education Grants

The U.S. Dept. of Education awarded two new grants totaling $2 million to Puget Sound ESD's Arts Impact program. The two grants will add to a body of research that supports teaching core concepts in math and literacy in and through the arts. Arts-infused teaching provides students who have difficulty learning in traditional ways the opportunity to learn through artistic pathways. Both grants will also develop professional development models for training teachers to integrate the arts.

The 4-year Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) grant partners with Tacoma School District to expand development of Arts Impact's arts-infused training and curriculum into middle school. The experimental project will bring teachers, specialists, instructional facilitators, Title I and LAP teachers and district arts and curriculum coordinators together to work on establishing sustainable systems and frameworks to provide students with creative pathways to learning math.

The second grant is a 3-year Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) grant. This project will work with grade level teams and district literacy coaches from elementary schools in the Seattle School District. Arts Impact will implement its Core 2-year teacher-training program with an emphasis on infusing arts and literacy concepts. This grant will also work with Seattle School District to develop a district-wide professional development program in the arts for classroom teachers.

These two grants brings Arts Impact's total number of DoEd arts education grants to four, more than any other arts education program in the nation. Click here to learn more about the Arts Impact Program.

New! Arts-Infused Workshops: Visual Art and Math

Saturday, November 8, 2008, 9:00-4:00

PSESD Arts Impact program is offering a workshop that provides K-6 teachers with strategies to infuse the arts into Math. Using various media and visual art techniques, the workshop presents strategies to introduce, present, or reinforce visual art and math infused concepts. Each workshop produces works of art to serve as a model for the lessons back in the classroom. Performance based assessments are modeled and included with each lesson. The workshop presenter models and leads criteria based reflection of completed artwork. Each lesson is supported by examples of artwork from Tacoma Art Museum and/or Seattle Art Museum permanent collections. Art materials for the workshop are provided.

Click here for more information.

Exciting New Opportunities Come to Our Region!

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Workshops for Teachers & Administrators

Puget Sound ESD is proud to sponsor the following ASCD courses in the Puget Sound region. Internationally recognized instructors will present three 3-day workshops. One-day administrator leadership development workshops are offered in conjunction with two of the series.

Strategies for Success with English Language Learners

Nov. 19, 2008; Jan. 6, & May 5, 2009; PSESD #SD08ELL

Administrator Leadership Development– Strategies for Success

Feb. 10, 2008; PSESD #SD08LELl

Explore best practices for simultaneously increasing the English language proficiency and academic achievement of English learners. Learn how to work together to make this happen and how grade-level academic standards can be used to get this work done.

Participants at this institute interactively answer these and other provocative questions. Specific outcomes include:

• The development of a professional knowledge base on linguistic and cultural issues related to teaching English learners in K-12 settings
• An understanding of programs, options and curricula models
• How to use time-honored ESL strategies to develop language proficiency for beginners
• How to use vocabulary, reading and writing tools to increase academic language literacy skills
• How to use differentiation, cooperative learning and co-teaching tools to increase academic achievement
• How to use collaborative formative and summative assessments to equitably grade ELL
• How to utilize Understanding by Design to plan build equity into the instructional process.

Practical assignments will help teachers apply specific strategies in their classrooms.

Formative Assessment Strategies for Every Classroom

Dec. 16, 2008; Jan 21, & May 6, 2009; PSESD #SD08FA

Administrator Leadership Development–Formative Assessment Strategies

May 7, 2009; PSESD #SD08LFA

It's true that classroom formative assessment, if appropriately used, can yield dramatic improvements in students' learning. Yet few educators really understand what formative assessment is and what it isn't. This series will guide teachers in exploration and application of formative assessment. Teachers will be assigned follow-up study and classroom implementation activities to support in-depth learning. This experience will help teachers to:

• Understand the nature of classroom formative assessment and how it helps teachers to determine students learning needs and adjust instruction to improve learning
• Identify the key steps underlying the implementation of four distinctive levels of classroom formative assessment
• Provide practical strategies to identify and effectively address what each student understands and how they learn
• Explore tools to transform existing assessment practices into structures that inform instruction and curricular decisions
• Learn how to organize a professional learning community addressing formative assessment

Meaningful Mathematics: Leading Students Towards Understanding

Jan. 13 & 27, May 28, 2008; PSESD #SD08MM

Why is it that math seems to be so challenging for so many students?   There are many explanations as to why math starts out being one of the most favored school subjects by students in primary grades, but quickly becomes one of the most hated.

In this series of three one-day workshops Nanci Smith addresses the impact of students' differences on instruction and how those differences can be addressed through math instruction that emphasizes conceptual understanding along with procedural fluency.   Specifically, participants will:

• Discover and deepen understanding about what it means to teach math conceptually.
• Use the National Research Council's definition of   “mathematical proficiency” to guide curriculum and instruction.
• Explore many different strategies for engaging students in learning and reasoning about mathematics.
• Learn and use the framework of differentiation to address students' learning needs.
• Use tools to diagnose their own learning profiles, which can then be used to analyze students' learning profiles.
• Share and learn ways to evaluate students' readiness and interests that impact learning.
• Participate in hands-on activities, many of which come directly out of the presenter's classroom.
• Engage in independent or small group learning activities between sessions from books and/or DVDs provided.