Hi everyone! It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything new here, and that means it’s about time to retire this blog. We’ve transitioned the AEC website to WordPress, so it’s redundant to keep this blog active. You should visit the website; we put a lot of work into the redesign and restructuring with lots of input from our steering and advisory committees.
Thanks for your interest in AEC’s work, and we’d love to continue to hear from you!
You might be familiar with AEC’s Arts Ed Brief, an online publication we release every so often to inform the field about issues in arts education. When the new National Core Arts Standards were released in 2014, we talked about writing a Brief about them, but it never felt like the right time.
At first, we thought we’d wait for a few months to see what educators said as they implemented these new standards. Then, we knew the Model Cornerstone Assessments would be piloted, so it seemed to make sense to wait for that.
Next thing we know, it’s December 2015 and we haven’t released a Brief yet. When we sat down to reflect on this, we realized that the national professional associations have done an amazing job providing supports for teachers as they implement the new standards. These supports include webinars, online courses, learning communities, lesson plan banks, and other materials.
Additionally, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards’ commitment to transparency throughout the process of developing the standards means we have a good record of the genesis of the standards.
So, in lieu of a Brief, we’re compiling some of these resources in one place. If you use any of the resources, make sure you reach out and thank the organization(s) for their great work!
Dance resources, provided by National Dance Education Organization, including webinars, conferences, online courses, supporting documents
Music resources, provided by National Association for Music Education, including toolkits, videos, resources, workbooks, supporting documents
Theatre resources, provided by Educational Theatre Association, including supporting documents, resources aligned with standards
Visual Arts resources, provided by National Art Education Association, including posters, virtual learning experiences, videos, lesson planning resources, supporting documents
AEC has created a back-to-school toolkit to assist educators in schools and arts organizations as they plan for a new school year.
The toolkit is customized for two audiences: schools and arts organizations.
Schools
The school toolkit contains four items as downloadable PDFs:
Arts Organizations
The toolkit for arts organizations contains three items as downloadable PDFs:
Additionally, both toolkits contain directions for using the items and contact information for AEC staff who can assist.
The toolkits are free and available by clicking on the links above.
The AEC is pleased to welcome two new allies for the arts in Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Dr. Kymberly Cruz has assumed the post of senior Program Officer, Arts Education. Dr. Cruz is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. During her formative years are when her creativity was sparked when she asked for an easel at the age of five. She earned a BFA in Graphic Design before deciding to teach. She taught high school visual arts in DeKalb County, Georgia for 16 years. She has been a member of National Art Education Association since 1997 and three of their state affiliates as well. She has written for School Arts and NAEA Advisory and has presented countless workshops at national, state and local conferences. She was named Teacher of the Year in 2013 for Lakeside High School where she also chaired the Fine Arts Department for 9 years.
She earned her doctorate from Georgia State University and as a part of her studies she taught the Secondary Methods course for art teachers. Her research interests are Arts Education Policy Studies, Legal Issues in Art Education, and Partnering Solutions to Sustain Art Education. She served as a mentor teacher for preservice teachers from Georgia State University. She served as an adjunct faculty member for the American Intercontinental University in Atlanta.
From 2013-2015, she worked as the Senior Coordinator for Visual Arts in Polk County, Florida. During her tenure, she spearheaded the redesign of the K-12 curriculum maps and established the FIRST3 program for art teachers with less than 3 years of experience. She served as an evaluator for the Arts Achieve Model School Program with Florida Alliance for Arts Education.
Cruz is a College Board consultant for AP Art History and served as a reader and taught the course for 14 years at Lakeside High School. Currently, she serves as Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Senior Program Officer for Arts Education. She’s eager to preserve the many partnerships and traditions here and make establish new ones as well.
In addition, Mr. Shaun Tomaszewski has assumed the newly created position of K-12 Coordinator of STEAM Education.
In addition to working at PPS, Shaun also teaches courses in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science and the Department of Geology, at the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to PPS, Shaun was a member of the Science Faculty at Mt. Lebanon High School, where he was also the District’s 6-12 Science Department Chair. He holds BPhil degrees in Microbiology and Neuroscience, a MEd in Science Education, and is currently working on a PhD in Policy Studies, all from the University of Pittsburgh. As a native Pittsburgher, Shaun is excited to take on the development of the K-12 STEAM Magnet Pipeline at PPS and very much looks forward to collaborating with community partners from around the region.
Digital badges, also known as “open badges” or simply “badges” for short, are an emerging method of tracking achievement. Instead of receiving a grade or certificate, students earn badges for learning specific knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions. Badges are not constrained solely to in-school experiences; a student may receive a badge for activities and accomplishments during the school day, after school, and in the community. Several achievements can be stacked, resulting in a badge that represents an overall competency.
The advantage to badges is that they showcase the unique experiences of a student. While two students may both be interested in visual arts, badges can show that one has been volunteering with a local arts organization and learning about program planning, while the other has learned how to code through online tutorials. This helps colleges and employers make better-informed decisions, encourages students to pursue interests outside of the classroom, and recognizes them for learning that traditional grades may not reflect. For a more detailed explanation, this video is short but thorough.
A lot of discussion and innovation around digital badges is happening right here in Pittsburgh. Thanks to The Sprout Fund and the Remake Learning Network Pittsburgh became one of the Cities of Learning, pairing summer learning opportunities with digital badges. The Digital Badge Lab at The Sprout Fund is continuing to work with a network of partners to establish a digital badge infrastructure in Pittsburgh.
Do you see the potential for digital badges where you work? What might be the possibilities and limitations of badges? Let us know in the comments.
Further reading on digital badges:
The Digital Badge Lab at The Sprout Fund
Digital Media + Learning Research Hub
Alliance for Excellent Education
Larger themes or discrete disciplines? Art (singular) or arts (plural)? Integration or “art for art’s sake? These questions are pertinent in the current context of education, where the Maker movement has exploded onto the scene and STEAM seems to be the flavor du jour. These questions are driving debate about the name and focus of one of the Professional Learning Networks, part of ISTE – the International Society for Technology in Education.
Originally, the networks – which are member-directed and focused on topics like teacher education, digital equity, and early learning – were conceived as Special Interest Groups (SIGs). A SIG was formed simply when a small group of ISTE members cared about a topic and decided to coordinate a SIG. At the yearly conference alone, there are usually anywhere from 15,000-20,000 attendees; the SIGs served as a touch point within the larger ISTE organization. The SIG for Arts Educators – SIGAE – was formed in 2009 to provide that touch point for arts educators.
This year, ISTE rebranded the SIGs as Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). With this rebranding came the launch of the new ISTE Connect, a social platform to connect ISTE members to each other and to ISTE’s content. Also this year, SIGAE (now called Arts Educators Network) hosted the first Creativity Playground at the ISTE conference.
With the renewed focus on creativity and innovation within education, the Arts Educators Network is taking a hard look at its name. Within ISTE, the Arts Educators Network, Music & Technology Network, and Science & Technology Network are the only groups named for specific disciplines. Other networks (full list here) are focused more on issues or platforms that cross multiple disciplines.
What do you think? Is Arts Educators Network the correct name for a group housed within a large educational technology organization? If you came to ISTE as a new member, what kind of network(s) would draw your attention and relate to your interests?
We’re now about two weeks away from the launch of the new national arts standards! On June 4, 2014, join a live-streamed launch event at 1:00 PM Eastern Time to learn more about these new standards in dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts. The link to join the event is here: NCCAS Launch Save the Date.
1994 seems like quite a while ago, doesn’t it? For AEC staffers, it meant many things: some were still in middle school, some were in high school, and some were teaching. It was before the internet really gained a foothold in popular culture, and definitely before personal digital devices were widespread (although we did have amazing very large, very bulky cell phones). It was also the year that the first national standards for arts education were released.
It’s 20 years later, and the next generation of arts standards are on their way. They’re set to be released in June 2014, just as many schools are ending their school year. Here is a comparison of the two sets of standards:
1994:
2014:
Want to know more? Check out these resources:
The pressing question for us is how Pennsylvania will respond when these standards are released. Our own state arts standards were approved in 2002, making them 12 years old. Because there is currently no arts curriculum person in the PA Department of Education, it remains to be seen how these new national standards will influence the overdue revision of our state standards.
In our work, we often hear arts teachers say that they eschew the state standards in favor of the national standards. We hope that Pennsylvania will take the opportunity presented in June to better align these two sets of standards.
The next issue in our Translations series will be out soon. Previous issues have focused on quality arts education, Habits of Mind, and measuring intrinsic impact of the arts.
Matt Sikora, the AEC’s Manager of Operations, is putting the finishing touches on the latest issue, which digs into the book “Creativity in the Classroom: Schools of Curious Delight.” The final draft is with AEC staff now for a final read, then the text will go to our wonderful designer, Greg Schooley.
In anticipation of this exciting publication, here are two blogs that we check regularly to see what’s happening in the world of creativity:
Warning: don’t visit Colossal if you’re short on time. You’ll get sucked in and look away from the computer four hours later, wondering what just happened!
As some of you may know, the AEC moved on January 2nd. We went from the Regional Enterprise Tower to our new space at Three Gateway Center.
Arts Education Collaborative
Three Gateway Center
401 Liberty Avenue, Suite 1840
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Moving was quite the process! Staff members looked at several spaces downtown before we chose our current location. Once we knew what space we wanted, it was time to make some adjustments. We enlisted the help of a designer to make the space work for us in terms of number of offices and other amenities. We added a few walls and changed the location of the kitchen. We also worked with the designer to decide which furniture was coming along with us, and which furniture would stay behind (our new offices are much smaller than our old offices).
Click here for a diagram of our space.
As we packed, we took advantage of the opportunity to do some serious cleaning of our office! Filing cabinets were cleared out, old supplies were donated, and desks were emptied of all of their contents. It felt great to get rid of everything that we did not need.
Next came working with the moving company. We were able to get things organized in the week before the movers came. Everything got boxed up and labeled with room numbers that the movers used to know where to unload things at Gateway. Our preparation and organization combined with the movers’ efficiency made for a smooth move.
Since the move, we’re all unpacked and ready to go. Our new offices are wonderful. The views are great, the space is well-designed and well-maintained, and to anyone who visited us at the Regional Enterprise Tower – the elevators are fast!
Now for a tour. Welcome to our new space!
^ Entryway.
^ Conference room.
^ Kitchen.
^ From L-R: Kathleen’s office, Jamie’s office, and Phoebe’s office.
^ From L-R: Matt’s office, Sarah’s office, and Kathleen’s office.
^ Hi, Jamie!
^ A view of the Allegheny River from Sarah’s office. You can see PNC Park across the river.
^ Intern stations.
Please stop by and visit us!
Arts Education Collaborative
Three Gateway Center
401 Liberty Avenue, Suite 1840
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
