2008 INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATORS

From July 28 – August 1, 2008, three schools from the San Gabriel Valley Partner Schools Project started their third year of partnership with the Music Center by sending teams to attend this summer’s Institute for Educators. Mime artist, Sharon Diskin, and classical pianist, Beth Sussman, lead a collaborative Institute focusing on the brilliant musical story Peter & the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev.

Sophisticated, yet accessible, Peter & the Wolf is one of the most appreciated classical works of the 20th century. With the inspiration of Peter & the Wolf as an anchor work, classical music will become approachable and unstuffy as you learn active listening, steady beat and mapping out a piece of music.

Participants were also introduced to the ancient art of Mime as they learned to create invisible objects, physical characterizations, creative movement and silent storytelling. Using these newly acquired skills, participants combined mimetic portrayals of the bold, colorful characters in Peter & the Wolf with their own imaginative soundscape and narration to bring this beloved classic to life.

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2007 INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATORS HIGHLIGHTS

From July 16th - 20th, 2007, three schools in the San Gabriel Valley Partner Schools Project (SGVPSP) kicked off their second year of partnership with the Music Center by sending school teams of 5 or more teachers and their Principal to the 5-day Institute. The SGVPSP is funded in part by the Rose Hills Foundation. Led by Music Center artists, Madeleine Dahm in Dance and Peter Kors in Theatre, school teams studied "The Sleeping Beauty," a classical ballet performed by American Ballet Theatre based on the age-old fairy tale. The Music Center Institute's two lead artists, five Teaching Artist Fellows, four Apprentice Artists, staff and school teams partnered to support growth in teachers' ability to plan and teach their own arts units of study based on the anchor work and to integrate arts concepts and skills with other curriculum content areas.

Read our program evaluations here:

2007-08 SGVPSP Program Evaluation (347K PDF)
2007-08 NEA Program Evaluation (369K PDF)

"This is like taking the piece of clay and molding it and thinking about where we're going and to be playful. And one day [these students will] be doing a ballet." - Teacher

From July 30th - August 3rd, 2007, seven Arts Capacity Team (ACT) III schools convened to begin their third year of partnership with the Music Center by sending teams of 4 to 5 teachers and their principal to the Institute to study a Model Curriculum Unit featuring "On the Pulse of Morning," a poem by Maya Angelou. Music Center artists, Peter Kors in Theatre, and Beth Peterson in Puppetry Arts, led the in-depth study. Seven Teaching Artist Fellows and four Apprentice Artists, also attending the Institute, collaborated with teachers to adapt the Institute model lesson sequence to teachers' own grade levels. From October, 2007 through May, 2008, teachers and their Music Center artist partners are collaborating to present teachers' anchor work lessons, assess students' creative work and achievement of standards-based goals, and support teachers' increased practice and capacity to teach the arts.

"Through the process and experience of using the theatre and puppetry strategies our understanding (of the poem) has deepened, and now, through relinquishing to the process, has really opened up. I now know where to start." - School Program Director

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2006 INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATORS HIGHLIGHTS

From July 10-14, 2006 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, eleven NEA Arts Capacity Team schools attended the summer Institute to celebrate their second year in their Music Center partnership. The anchor work for in-depth study was the choreography by Jose Limon, "There is a Time," inspired by the enduring understandings in the lines of the poem, "To Everything There is a Season." Inquiry also linked to several versions of the song, "Turn, Turn, Turn." In constructing the 2006 Institute, Music Center lead artists and staff collaborated to develop a model five-lesson curriculum unit to use for demonstration and facilitation of teacher learning, as well as to give to teachers to adapt and develop their own grade level-specific series of lessons. Dance artist, Madeleine Dahm, and Music artist, Michelle Borque Ybarra, guided participants in exploring and examining the choreography through the lenses of poetry, language, dance, music and formal concepts/structures, such as ABA, theme and variation, and contrasting "opposites."

"This is definitely the best professional development that I've ever been involved with. Professional development is usually a mile wide and an inch deep. Most workshops just skim the surface. This was great. We covered a lot of teaching content while experiencing doing it. This made for a much richer, meaningful, and useful experience." - Teacher

From July 24 - 28, 2007, four schools in the San Gabriel Valley Partner Schools Project (SGVPSP) launched their first year of partnership with the Music Center by sending school teams of 5 or more teachers and their Principal to the 5-day Institute Introductory Level. The SGVPSP is funded in part by the Rose Hills Foundation. Led by Music Center artists, Peter Kors in Theatre and Poetry and Beth Peterson in Puppetry Arts and Mask-making, school teams studied the anchor work "On the Pulse of Morning," Maya Angelou's ground-breaking poem presented at the 1993 inauguration of President Clinton. The Music Center Institute's two lead artists, five Teaching Artist Fellows, four Apprentice Artists, staff and school teams partnered to support growth in teachers' ability to plan and implement their own arts units of study based on the Institute's five model lessons and to integrate arts concepts and skills with other curriculum content areas.

"The Institute experience was awesome! The concept of using an anchor work - and such an anchor work - is a terrific way to organize my arts instruction for the year and deepen my students' appreciation and understanding of all the arts." - Teacher

From October, 2007 through May, 2008, teachers and their Music Center artist partners are collaborating to present teachers' anchor work lessons, assess students' creative work and achievement of standards-based goals, and support teachers' increased practice and capacity to teach the arts.

Following each Institute, artists visited teachers' classrooms to observe and provide support and feedback related to the anchor work lessons and teaching strategies they observed. School partnership project teachers and principals also convened to share with one another their lessons taught and lessons learned, along with evidence of student learning and samples of student work.

NEA ACT II FINAL Report – June 2007 (734K Word Doc)

SGVPSP FINAL Report June 2007 (1794K Word Doc)

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2005 INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATORS HIGHLIGHTS

HIGHLIGHTS - July 5-9, 2005 at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion "Each day seemed to uncover something new within myself and afforded my teachers inspiration for change and for reconnection to their passion." - School Principal

Fifty educators comprising twelve school teams, each with three to four teachers and one administrator, inaugurated the NEA-funded 2005 Institute at the Experienced Level. These "Arts Capacity Team" schools engaged in the Music Center's initial "anchor work" study of an enduring master artwork through the lenses of theatre, poetry, music and the Blues. The anchor work selected was Langston Hughes' poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Music Center artists David Prather and Chic Street Man led participants through theatre and music exercises, improvisation and creative compositional tasks to explore and deepen their individual meaning found in Hughes' poem. Administrators attended their own break-out leadership sessions as well as joined with their school teams in the Institute arts learning process sequence:

• Experience & Respond
• Inquire
• Create & Perform
• Reflect & Assess

Eight Artist Fellowships were awarded to Music Center Teaching Artists who participated with and coached teacher groups within the Institute. Teachers also attended a Music Center series of five 4-hour professional development Saturday workshops from October through April, to further expand arts knowledge and skill and anchor work Insights. The Institute group reconvened in early December to report their lessons learned and share documentation of their projects and examples of their students work.

NEA Final Report 2005-2006 (182K Word Doc)

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