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Arts Learning - Curriculum -
Planning a Residency
Artists and arts organizations relationships with schools take many forms
and are most rewarding when they stretch the artists and school/community
to approach learning in the arts in new, rich and deep ways. Partnerships
of classroom teachers, arts specialists and community arts resources
(artists and arts organizations) play an integral role in helping to
design and deliver arts programs that serve the interests and needs of
individual schools, museums, social service organizations and
communities.
Ideas to Get you Started
Steps to a Creative and Successful
Residency Project
Resources
Ideas to Get you Started
There are many possibilities for integrating the arts in
curriculum. The following list demonstrates the wide range of options in
presenting an Artist in Residence Program. You may also download a
grant preparation worksheet to help guide
your ideas.
Brainstorm
with an Artist
- How might the students
understanding of molecular structure be enhanced by actually creating a
dance piece based on the structure of an atom? A residency could explore
authentic integration between elements of science and elements of dance.
- Develop a time line with students
focusing on a particular time and place. How might their understanding
of that region or period in history be developed through the inclusion
of the arts? Create masks of characters from Greek mythology, learn a
related folk dance, write new lyrics to a song from the time, make
handmade paper illustrated with Egyptian images.
- A theater artist can guide students on
important journeys such as developing an original play. The range of
possibilities is vast, from the creation of a gritty, realistic work
addressing difficult issues to fantasy from another time and place.
- Design a community quilting project with
a quilter. Involve local historical societies, museums and festival
organizations in exhibiting the quilts you create. Have students
interview the artist and write stories about the quilts and quilters.
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Steps to a Creative and
Successful Residency Project
Ask your
Artist Questions
The Commission encourages teachers to work closely with
artists in planning a residency project. The following questions offer a
starting point to frame that conversation.
- Describe your ideas for the
residency project.
- What do you want the
students you work with to understand through the residency experience? What
do you want them to know and be able to do?
- What are some of the
specific activities you will use during the residency to achieve these
understanding goals.
- How can you tell if the
students understand?
- Will you work with other
artists during the residency? If so, please provide names and resumes.
- Please talk about the ways
you see your residency work tying into the curriculum at our school.
- What standards will you
address in your residency?
- How many students do you
prefer to work with at one time?
- Do you provide any workshops
for teachers as a component of the residency? Do the teacher workshops
include information on how to integrate the arts into the overall
curriculum?
- What kind of space
requirements do you have for your residency? Please be as specific as
possible and let us know where you can and cannot be flexible in your
requirements.
- What materials or supplies
do you need for the residency? Again, please be specific.
- Describe in detail any
specialized equipment you need for the residency?
- What are the dates you will
be available to come to our campus for this residency? It is best to agree
on specific dates rather than general time periods, such as spring.
- How many weeks will the
residency last?
- How many hours per week will
you spend with our students?
Design
In the delivery of your arts learning programs we
suggest you consider a three-part design.
- What fundamental
understandings do you want participants (of all ages) to develop through
their engagement with your programs?
- How will you be able to tell
if they have understood what you wanted them to? (…aspects of technical
theatre, aspects of characterization, similarities and differences between
brass, wind and string instruments, the significance of tradition within
contemporary design techniques, etc)
- What arts learning
experiences (e.g. performances, lecture - demonstrations, exhibits, docent
led tours, pre or post performance talk backs, mentoring opportunities) will
you present in order to help build understanding for participants (of all
ages) related to your goal(s)?
Timing
Be sure to give yourself and
your planning partners enough time to develop a thoughtful project.
Planning 6 to 12 months ahead allows time to ensure project success. Once
you have decided, along with your planning partners, that you would like
to implement a residency project with an artist, you should contact the
artist(s) directly to discuss your mutual goals and to brainstorm creative
approaches.
Planning
Residencies often involve
multiple activities and workshops at one or more sites, and involve
diverse groups of people in planning and participation. Involve as many
stakeholders as possible in laying the plans for the residency project,
and think creatively about who you might invite to the planning meetings.
For example, invite students, principals, social service organization
representatives, parents, local artists and community members. This will
ensure that the artist touches as many people as possible and is well
integrated into the community. In addition, this ensures that the project
lives on after the artist has completed the residency. Make sure that the
artist is involved each step of the way and knows what is motivating your
planning.
Teaching for Understanding
Our goal is to support the arts and the
vital, substantive impact they can have on student learning. Students are
constructors of knowledge. They interpret information, integrate it with
their previous understandings and construct new understandings of the
world. Students as "learning-artists" should be given problems to solve
that share features with those that intrigue professional artists. This
enables students to engage in and identify with artistic processes central
to creative thinking.
Backward
Mapping
A useful process for curriculum planning is
called Backward Mapping. In this process you begin by defining your
understanding goals and work backward to identify the activities and
experiences that will help to build understanding.
- What is your goal in detail?
- What are the key questions derived from
this goal? What is the content? What skills are needed? Materials,
time?
- How will you assess that you have
reached your goal? What is the evidence of the understanding?
- Then, and only then, develop activities.
Arts
Standards
The
Arizona Arts Standards set the goals that all students will achieve at the
essentials level in the four arts disciplines (music, visual arts, theatre and
dance) and at the proficiency level in at least one art form on or before
graduation.
Scheduling
When designing the project, be
sure to take into consideration how many activities can reasonably be
accomplished each day. For instance, you may not want to schedule artists
for more than four activities per day in order to maintain a high-quality
residency. Check with the artists if they are willing to do performances
on a day when they have had to travel a long distance. Check if they are
able to do a performance on the same day as they have a rehearsal, or on a
day when they have had a full load of community activities. Allow for
enough time for an artist to set up and break down in between activities.
Allow the artist to be your guide in determining how much time is needed.
Ensure that there are volunteers or staff available to assist artists in
moving equipment, and ensure that the volunteers and staff assist the
artist in finding their way around in your community, and being present to
make introductions to participants. Help the artist to find lodgings that
are affordable and allow for peaceful rest. Make sure that the facilities
where the artist will work are adequate.
Project
Costs
Based on a mutually agreeable
residency project design you will want to discuss how much the project
will cost. The artist will have a set
fee which may or may not be
negotiable, and will have additional expenses such as travel, lodging and
per diem. You should negotiate these costs directly with the artist. Fees
listed in the Arts Roster are not all-inclusive. The artists will
calculate what it will cost them to be in your community, and that will be
added to their fees. There may be other costs involved including
materials, publicity, rent, etc.
Contracting
Once you have negotiated and
agreed upon the services and fees, a
contract must be drawn up and signed.
Either party can generate the contract, but it must be signed by both
parties and then becomes legally binding. Don't add activities to the
agreement that have not been discussed, and do not add activities to the
residency project once the contract has been signed, unless the artist
agrees. Similarly, the artist will not alter fees or services promised
once the contract has been signed.
Additional
Funds
If you are looking for
additional funds to supplement those you are able to commit, the Arizona
Commission on the Arts may be one among many resources available to you.
Funds for artist fee support are available through the Commission's
Arts Learning Project
Grants, which are awarded on an annual basis. If you are an
Arizona nonprofit organization or a school, you may apply to the Arts
Commission for a grant to pay a portion of the guest artist(s)' fee and
travel-related costs. See the Commission's
Guide to Grants: Organizations
and Schools for more details and application information, available
through the website or call (602) 255-5882 for more information.
Applications are due March each year for projects which take place
July 1 through June 30. You are welcome to discuss your project plans with
an appropriate Arts Commission staff member.
Ongoing Assessment
How can we assess accurately and fairly
what our students have learned? This is a question every teacher and
teaching artist wrestles with. When understanding is the purpose of
instruction, the process of assessment is more than just one of
evaluation, it is a substantive contribution to learning.
Assessment needs
to inform students, teachers and teaching artists about what students
currently understand and about how to proceed with subsequent teaching and
learning.
Evaluation methods should include a range
of techniques to address important questions. When quality arts teaching
and ongoing assessment of understanding is aligned the students’ thinking
and learning is made visible.
Students demonstrate understanding when
they are able to apply their learning in new ways, to think flexibly.
Understanding performances help learners to build and express their
understanding. The understanding performances are activities in which
students reshape, expand upon, extrapolate from, apply and build upon what
they already know.
Think of a director's work as (s)he
prepares actors and crew for a stage production. Each rehearsal is a
continuous cycle of performance and feedback as the actors work through
the scenes. The director gives initial instructions, offers advice and
further direction while each scene is in progress, and convenes more
formal feedback sessions at various points during the rehearsal. This
integration of performance and feedback is exactly what students need as
they work to develop their understanding of a particular topic or concept.
Ongoing assessment is the process of providing students with clear
responses to their performances of understanding in a way that will help
them develop and improve that understanding. This integration of
performance and feedback is exactly what students need as they work to
develop their understanding of a particular topic or concept. In this way
the understanding goals -- what you want your students to understand --
and ongoing assessment -- the evidence that they understand it -- are tied
together.
Teaching with and about the arts, you have
the opportunity to design learning through experiences that:
- Engage students and motivate them to
learn
- Assure that students acquire knowledge
and skills
- Encourage students to extend and refine
what they know and are able to do
- Prompt students to reflect upon and
synthesize what they have learned
- Provide meaningful opportunities for
students to use what they have learned.
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Resources
The New York State
Alliance for Arts Education (NYSAAE) Toolkit for
Teaching Artists
http://nysaae.org/toolkit/index.html
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