By Jacob Campbell, Program Manager for Turnaround Arts: California
I recently made a trip out to Santa Ana, CA, to see how Sierra Preparatory Academy’s first year as a Turnaround Arts: California partner school has been going, and I was blown away by the infusion of arts projects and instructional strategies that have begun to permeate all areas of this special school.
By Natalie Hentze, First Grade Teacher at King Elementary
What is Focus 5’s Acting Right?
For our first year as a Turnaround Arts: California partner school, King Elementary School in Seaside decided to implement Focus 5’s Acting Right, which uses drama as a classroom management tool, school-wide. Acting Right is an arts-based strategy that provides students with the tools to remain calm, focused, and balanced.
An interview with Dan Donovan, Digital Media Arts Teacher at Willard Intermediate
What is the Arts Leadership Team (ALT)? How did you form Willard’s team?
The ALT is a core group of teachers and administrators charged with leading a positive shift in school culture and building staff capacity to utilize arts-based teaching strategies and arts integration to boost student achievement. Following the 2016 Turnaround Arts Summer Leadership Retreat, which I attended with our principal, Amy Scruton, and our 8th grade Science teacher, Laura Compton, we were energized to share this amazing program with our Willard Intermediate School community. Part of being a Turnaround Arts: California partner schools involves developing a Strategic Arts Plan (SAP) to identify our school’s short- and long-term goals and guide our use of the arts to move toward those goals. With the development of this living document in mind, we set out to create an ALT that was representative of all grade levels and content areas.
By Cathryn Deering
What is VTS?
This year at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School (FloJo), we have decided that the school-wide, arts-based strategy we’re implementing will be Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). VTS is a method that teachers can use to lead inquiry-based discussions around different art images.
In this process, students are asked to look carefully at a work of art without knowing the name of the image or the artist. They discuss their observations and give evidence from the image to support their observations. In using the three VTS questions, teachers are able to facilitate thought-provoking conversations in a neutral way that promotes critical thinking and creative problem solving.
Sometimes you have to slow down to keep your momentum, especially toward the end of the school year when short-term priorities have the potential to distract from long-term goals.
Last month, ECE coaches Ana Rosas (Avenal ES) and Brenda Selva (King ES) explored the topic of sustaining instructional change at the annual conference for the California Association on the Education of Young Children. In the week following the conference, the pair identified several strategies to help their grade-level teams slow down, recharge and refocus.
Starting a new school year is always hectic. There are classrooms to set up, student files to review, assessments to complete and lessons to plan. But communicating to students and colleagues how the arts can be used as a vehicle for learning is one of the most important things to do when you are a Turnaround Arts school.
Our wonderful principal, Sandy Wilbanks, gave us the opportunity to do just that during a professional development day. After attending the Turnaround Arts: National Summer Leadership Retreat, we were inspired and excited at her proposition to model an arts-integrated lesson for the school staff.