The ArtsLinks Project has several main goals:
• The building of collegial relationships
• Engagment of adult learners with arts content and
skills.
• Development of interdisciplinary curricula.
• Aquisition of technical knowledge that facilitates
improved classroom education.
• Understanding multiple entry points for learners.
Please read more about these individual goals below or click over the goal to
jump to an in-depth description.
The following letter serves to summarize our process of self-evaluation for
the ArtsLinks Project.:
ArtsLinks Self Evaluation
Introduction/Overview
Observations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
To: Sherye Weisz and Arlene Mollo, Co-PI's ArtsLinks
From: Diana Reeves, ArtsLinks Evaluator
Re: Mid project Feedback
Date: June 20, 1996
The goal of The UMass Dartmouth/SMARTS ArtsLinks Projects is to provide time, training and resources for teachers to develop and implement interdisciplinary curricula and to link teaching and learning to technology through the arts. The ArtsLinks Project connects people to people and to information via electronic mail, on-line forums and conferences, and access to multi-media resources in art, music, drama and dance.The observations and recommendations that follow result from input gathered via interviews, questionnaires, and work samples coupled with video taped recordings of the first three sessions of the ArtsLinks project. Responses from teachers, project instructors, university teams, graduate student support staff and school administrators have been reviewed for this report. While five sessions have been held to date, this report is based on documentation obtained from the initial three sessions: Getting Acquainted, Visible Dance and Life Drama. The major questions being addressed for this in-process feedback of the planning stages of the ArtsLinks project are, "Are we achieving the goals of the project?" and "How effectively are the goals met according to the participants?" To explore those overarching questions, observations and recommendations included in this report will be broken down into five major program goal areas: Building of Collegial Relationships, Engagement of Adult Learners in Arts Content / Skills, Development of Interdisciplinary Curriculum, Acquisition of Technological Knowledge, and Understating of "Multiple Entry Points".
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Building of Collegial RelationshipsObservations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
Observations
1. In the survey of April 30, the most frequently given response to the question "What part of have you most enjoyed?" was "opportunity to share ideas, be energized by others who share common goals".2. In the same survey, teachers responded that exposure to the UMass people was stimulating and that interacting with them caused "new ideas to be generated"
3. A clear majority of respondents in the survey felt that they were "consistently" or "frequently" supported by the ArtsLinks project in the experiences of cooperative learning and brainstorming.
4. According to the principals of schools of participating teachers, the most frequently cited benefit of ArtsLinks involvement was the strengthening of collegial relationships. Interestingly, the relationship between colleagues on the same team was mentioned as being of primary importance, with inter school and University relationships next in order of importance.
5. In watching the videotaped sessions, it is fascinating to note the increase over time in the communication that occurs between teachers and not just in response to the person directing the session. By the third session, teachers can be seen and heard to be sharing technology problem solving strategies, ideas for each other's units and feelings around participation in the task of the moment. The teacher-to-teacher sharing take a quantum leap upward once the arts related activity is in place. It could be interpreted that the arts involvement is helping to create shared trust and to open new channels of communication.
6. On the New Participant Survey most participants cited as their own expectations for the project, a desire to work with inspired colleagues as a way to broaden their own understandings of themselves and their subject matter. This finding included university team members as well as all others.
7. Although still in the emergent stages, some participants are beginning to realize the potential of building relationships via Internet communication. The videotapes include comments pertaining to on-line sharing between participants.
Recommendations
1. Attempt to build upon and foster the emerging collegial relationships between teacher participants by conscious "holding back" on the part of the university team. In every videotaped session extraordinary modeling and risk taking on the part of the university team members both leading and participating in the sessions can be seen. The leader for the day's session is asking thoughtful, clarifying questions and giving adequate "wait time". More often than not, the response comes from a university colleague. These responses are wonderful and creative, but appear to be viewed as somewhat daunting by teachers. Session leaders throughout display a keen awareness of their audiences, and continually seek to gather feed back and invite questions. Frequently however, the teachers seem reluctant to risk verbally "going out on a limb". Since they are now more familiar with each other and their leaders, their level of teacher-to-teacher involvement would be expected to increase of its own accord.2. Continue the relaxation activities at the beginning of sessions. Observations of peoples' body language after participation shows how well they are working.
3. Continue sending the "Recap" summaries of each meeting to all participants. These succinct summaries of sessions enable everyone to stay on the same page, and foster communication between school and administration teams.
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Engagement of Adult learners in Arts Content/SkillObservations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
Observations
1. The videotapes are chuck full of observable examples of the participants getting involved (physically, individually, cooperatively) in dance, drama, collage, and problem solving through movement.
2. The process folios, the socks that tell a story, and the object collage on light sensitive paper stand as tangible evidence of adult engagement off site.
3. In viewing the videos to date, one could almost pick up each teacher's area of expertise. The traditional content area teachers initially volunteer little when it comes to group brainstorming about the arts connections to their content areas. It becomes obvious however; that the conversations they are having with their art teacher teammates are having an impact, if one looks to the developing unit outlines.
4. Individual university team leaders who has taught a session have made the meta-cognitive piece extremely clear. Teachers are presented with an activity (building a living mural, interpreting a piece of writing through movement, viewing a slide show coupling dual, images and music). Then they are carefully led not only to achieving the goal of the activity, but also to seeing the steps involved and the learning objective embedded in each lesson. This approach fosters replication within a climate of safety. It also demonstrates through modeling how multiple sensory approaches engage a diversity of learning-styles. Reluctant participants get hooked inspite of initial doubts!
5. Session leaders frequently model strategies for what a teacher should do if the lesson isn't going in the desired direction. Seth, in the living drama segment, advises, "start small, try it, let it go if it doesn't work". Sherye, working with the Yeats poem and music, clarifies that she has a printed copy of the poem, for those who need to see it. She asks people to comment on the large elastic band problem "How did you do it, was their one person who guided?" Adults are guided in a climate of safety to try viewing the world and learning situations through new lenses.
Recommendations
1. It might be useful to distribute the written lesson plan for each session that has been led by a university team member, after the session has been taught. This strategy would present the participants with a diversity of acceptable formats for curriculum writing, and would also strengthen the bridge into the world of art, which is being built for the content area teachers (who frequently prefer linear sequential reinforcement). It is difficult to take notes while involved, and teachers wishing to incorporate strategies from sessions sometimes need to see the steps spelled out.2. A video made of cuts taken from the arts participation portions of each session video might serve as a useful tool in engaging the sending schools faculties when the time comes for the teaching teams to share back in their home schools.
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Development of Interdisciplinary CurriculaObservations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
Observations 1. A portion of each session held thus far has been devoted to curriculum development. Substantial handouts in this area have been provided. The Project Instructors have facilitated group brainstorming in identifying concepts and concepts to content and strategies.
2. Principals see the development of interdisciplinary curriculum as the second "big benefit" of ArtsLinks participation.
3. In the April 30th survey and in their initial work identifying possible concepts on which to build their curriculum, teachers express a broad range of understanding of the task. Five of the nine teachers polled responded that they frequent felt "confident and competent" about their ability to write curriculum. The other four responses ranged from "infrequent" to "never".
4. During work sessions recorded on the videotapes, teachers respond to both Sherye and Arlene that finding time in which to work together is very difficult.
5. All of the Arts participants are beginning to feed each other ideas and information pertaining to units in progress.
Recommendations
1. Provide the teachers with an opportunity to brainstorm the criteria by which to define successful accomplishment of the curriculum writing task. The expectations as they are defined on the April 3oth memo from Sherye and Arlene might be further clarified. (Perhaps this happened at the June 5 session). While the desire to preserve individuality and creativity in the way the unit is ultimately shared is a priority of the project, most teachers welcome a "template" of sorts when designing curriculum.
2. Provide written feedback on the concept drafts submitted May 21. Is everyone on track?
3. The written plans from the university team sessions mentioned in the area above might also fill a need in this area.
4. Continue to provide time during sessions for tech and resource support. Facilitating group feedback on works in progress can be very helpful.
5. The July work sessions targeted primarily for curriculum writing work well given all of the pressures teachers face at the end of the school year. This aspect of the project should continue in future years.
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Acquisition of Technological KnowledgeObservations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
Observations
1. Only three teachers responded "consistently" or "frequently" to the statement, "I employ technology as a tool to research, document and share the process of curriculum writing" on the April 30th survey.2. All of those who are not using technology responded that they wanted to but did not have adequate support (no computer, no online capacity, technical difficulties)
3. In conversations with principals, which took place during the weeks of June 11th and June 17th, technology usage was investigated. In most instances teachers are still waiting for Internet connections in their classrooms. Some are working on home computers; others have no access as yet. One district, (Norton) is up and running. Note: To date, Fall River has not been contacted.
4. The technological information and support provided on line, in print, and via hot line telephone access at the university has been consistently clear and informative. Arts participants have free access to UMass computer labs, and have assistance available on site.
5. Principals mentioned efforts on the part of ArtsLinks PIs to "make things work right" Opportunities for free and low cost hook ups have been given to ArtsLinks participants.
6. An entire day's session was devoted to upgrading participant awareness of and degrees of comfort with computer usage and ArtsEdge opportunities.
7.An initial technology profile regarding technical support and integration within each participating school was developed by the Project Instructors prior to the beginning of the ArtsLinks project.
Recommendations
1. Continue to strive for computer support as a prerequisite to program participation.
2. Repeat hands-on demos given earlier in the project for those just coming on-line.
3. Focus a session on how computer software and graphics can greatly expand the options for the display and sharing of student work.
4. Consider the addition of the computer support person within each school to the individual teams in future years. This strategy would further increase opportunities for immediate technological problem solving, and broadened dissemination of ArtsLinks curricula
Note: Again, this report does not reflect the heavy technology sessions given after May 21st. It may therefore omit important components already provided in the development of technological knowledge.
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Understanding of Multiple Entry PointsObservations and Recommendations for ArtsLinks
Observations
1. Each session leader has skillfully exemplified a diversity of ways in which to motivate students to learn content through appealing to differing learning styles and providing choice in the format of outcomes. Teacher participants can be seen on the videos experimenting with movement and space, acting out concepts, constructing visual/tactile products and experiencing the ways content can be learned through all of the senses.2. Teacher process folios reflect individual points of entry into subject matter.
3. Many of the session leaders demonstrated the ways an activity could move from one entry point to another during a single lesson as a strategy promoting maximum participation.
4. Handouts regarding multiple entry points have been provided.
5. The rough drafts of the concept formation possibilities written by the teachers reflect a broad range of understanding of the theory of "multiple entry points"
Recommendations
1. Provide teachers with sample unit/lesson plans highlighting the multiple entry points.2. "Multiple Entry Points" can mean not only modality choice, but also the degree of random or sequenced, concrete or abstract activities one engages in. Teacher participants might benefit from revisiting a previous ArtsLinks session and identifying the steps involved within these categories. Using Arts content and skills across the curriculum facilitates the creation of classroom experiences that address these personnel preferences. Using these terms might help to bridge the gap for the non-art teachers.