Professional Development Through Ordway Education

School may be out for the summer, but Ordway Education has been busy collaborating with local organizations and national entities to provide great professional development opportunities for educators.

SUMMER ARTS INTEGRATION INSTITUTE WITH MISSISSIPPI CREATIVE ARTS MAGNET SCHOOL

Nirmala Rajasekar leading the Mississippi Creative Arts Magnet School Staff in a vocal music lesson.

In mid-June (June 12 -14, 2012) Saint Paul Public Schools, the Perpich Center for Arts Education and Ordway Education facilitated a three-day Summer Arts Integration Institute with Mississippi Creative Arts Magnet school staff to provide art experiences and lessons for educators as learners, opportunities for the educators to take away meaning from the art form experienced, and help the educators envision how their own classroom curriculum could connect to what they had experienced during the three-day intensive.

The Summer Arts Integration Institute began with a dance performance by choreographer, dancer and Dance to Learn Teaching Artist, Leah Nelson. Critical response was then used to unpack the performance that was just experienced. Leah then led the group in a movement mini-lesson that dealt with history, tradition, culture and the legacy of racial oppression. After the mini-lesson, the group was asked to pick an arts session: dance with Leah Nelson, poetry with teaching artist, Becca Barniskis, or a critical response lesson using visual art with Perpich Center’s Barbara Cox.

The second day included a vocal music lesson with Nirmala Rajasekar, a world renowned Carnatic veena virtuoso and educator of South Indian Music. The group of educators then had a session of how to align the Minnesota Academic Standards in Arts with common core anchor standards, and a session led by ELL educators to experience first-hand what a classroom setting is like for an ELL student. The educators also had the choice to experience a music lesson with Nirmala Rajasekar or a Tableau Lesson with Miriam Must Theater.

The third and final day of the Summer Arts Integration Institute began with viewing a piece by Chimamanda Adichie titled, “Danger of a Single Story” with a facilitated discussion following the piece. The rest of the day was then spent to find connections between arts lessons and classroom curriculum and develop lesson plans.

For further information and resources regarding this three-day institute, please visit: http://opd.mpls.k12.mn.us/mississippi_creative_arts_magnet_summer_arts_integration_institute.html

TEACHING ARTIST JOURNAL RESOURCE EXCHANGE DESIGN TEAM MEETING

From left to right: TAJ meeting panel members Abdo Sayegh Rodriguez, Mary Anne Quiroz, Marciano Silva dos Santos, Karla Nweje

On June 18^th, 2012 the Ordway collaborated with Perpich Center for Arts Education to host a Teaching Artist Journal (TAJ) Resource Exchange Design Team Meeting that was coordinated by the TAJ editorial staff.

This meeting consisted of reviewing a clip from Delfos Danza Contemporánea’s performance they will be presenting during Ordway’s upcoming 2012-2013 season and responding to it using the Critical Response Protocol. The attendees of this meeting also took a critical look at the Understanding Dance section that is included in all the Ordway study guides involving a dance performance using Tuning Protocol. Both of these provided great feedback and ideas surrounding questions such as how to gauge age-appropriateness in dance performances and the assumptions that surround dance.

This discussion was then followed with a panel of Minnesota dancers and choreographers who continued the conversation with how they work with assumptions and questions surrounding dance in their own work.

For further information and resources regarding what was discussed during this session, please visit: http://opd.mpls.k12.mn.us/june_18_2012_taj_design_team_meeting.html

ARTIST TO ARTIST NETWORK MEETING

From left to right: Debra Leigh, professor at St. Cloud State; Brenda Butler, K-12 Arts Teacher on Special Assignment for Minneapolis Public Schools; Debra Hunt, independent arts education consultant and dancer; Mary Anne Quiroz, artist with Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli.

After the Teaching Artist Journal (TAJ) Resource Exchange Design Team Meeting, the Ordway and the Perpich Center welcomed Teaching Artist Journal, state organizations, local arts organizations, regional arts education partners, arts educators, and teaching artists to participate in an Artist to Artist Network Meeting. This meeting was organized and planned by Perpich Center’s Barbara Cox and hosted by the Ordway. This meeting focused on how to connect arts learning with professional practice through the case study of how Epic Enterprise, a social services organization for adult individuals with developmental disabilities, incorporated the arts into their programming.

For more information and resources regarding this meeting, please visit: http://opd.mpls.k12.mn.us/artist_to_artist_network_june18_2012.html

UNIVERSITY OF SAINT THOMAS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

On July 11^th, 2012 Ordway Education presented a workshop for the K-12 educators participating in the University of Saint Thomas’s professional development program. This workshop focused on a movement lesson led by choreographer, dancer and Dance to Learn teaching artist, Karla Nweje. This gave the educators a chance to experience a Dance to Learn lesson as learners. This also gave them insight into the Ordway and Perpich Center for Arts Education’s Dance to Learn in-depth arts residency program. After the movement lesson with Karla, the participants unpacked what they had experienced through a Descriptive Review led by Ordway Education Manager, Erin Matteson. The educators then discussed ways in which they could bring what they experienced to their own classrooms.

For more information on Ordway Education’s Teacher Programs and Resources, please visit: http://www.ordway.org/education/resources/