TUSD Fine Arts / OMA
Instructional Design for the Arts:
where integration meets inspiration
The IDeA summer session institutes will be May 28-31 and provides some exceptional professional development choices. The two day OMA (Opening Minds through the Arts) Exploratory Residency Institutes, May 28-39 and May 30-31, give participants the chance to work with Tucson sculptor Mykl Wells in exploring lessons that integrate science, math, and visual arts. Mykl's iconic sculpture, Chimera, is shown to the left. Mykl's sculpture, Snowdrop, won first prize at the Cartasia 2012 exhibit in Lucca, Italy. You can read about it in Mykl's own words on RecycleArt. The two day OMA Mentor School Institute (May 30-31) is for teachers and teacher teams who have already had either the OMA ER Institute or an OMA Institute in a previous summer session. The Mentor School session includes a trip to the fabulous Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale. There is more information here and in the Essential Summer School Professional Development Catalog. Registration for the Institutes are through the True North portal.
There is still space available May 2, 2013 (Chad Michael Hall Dance) UApresents Student Matinees. To reserve, e-mail carole.marlowe@tusd1.org or call 225-4911.
There IS a Free Lunch!
Saturday, April 27 is Teacher Appreciation Day at the University of Arizona. Teacher Day offers professional development focused on the Common Core, STEM and the various resources available for Tucson teachers. And the price is right. (It's FREE!) Sign up with Tucson Values Teachers before April 22 to reserve your space and lunch. Registration is not required for the professional development sessions that preceed the luncheon.
There is still space available for the May 2, 2013 (Chad Michael Hall Dance) UApresents Student Matinees. To reserve, e-mail carole.marlowe@tusd1.org or call 225-4911.
eSchool News had a very thought provoking article about the coming assessments for the Common Core State Standards including a sample problem. The article covers two different multi-state consortia currently working on developing assessment tools for the Common Core State Standards. Arizona is a governing state in Partnership for Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). There are also sample assessment questions on the PARCC website. You can read more about Arizona's involvement with PARCC on the Arizona Department of Education site. As you can see by the graphic to the left, this next generation of tests is being planned for online administration. States including Arizona are currently working on a technology inventory to make that possible. Arizona Department of Education also has a page covering the transition from AIMS to PARCC. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is the other organization involved with developed assessments for their member states.
There is still space available for the May 2, 2013 (Chad Michael Hall Dance) UApresents Student Matinees. To reserve, e-mail carole.marlowe@tusd1.org or call 225-4911.
This will soon be a familiar sight in TUSD schools as whole schools prepare for moving on. The buildings themselves will be mothballed to save money on maintenance and utilities, but the people and the resources in the schools will be relocated. The TUSD School Consolidation page is the source for general information. Fine Arts / OMA is dealing with the musical instruments, musical supplies, artifacts and art prints.
Musical instruments, sheet music, method books, arrangements, and supplies will be picked up by Sean Randel and Joel Dunst, Instrumental Repair Technicians. The equipment will be inventoried, repaired, and redistributed for the next school year. Please do not move any equipment out of these schools. Instrumental Repair: 225-4629.
Artifacts and the Fine Arts print collection will be coordinated by Jeanne de la Garza of Education Materials Center and Ruth Winslow, curator of the Fine Arts Artifact Collection. These items will be processed and reviewed to circulate through EMC allowing teachers continued access. EMC: 225-4783, Fine Arts 225-4687.
There is still space available for the May 2, 2013 (Chad Michael Hall Dance) UApresents Student Matinees. To reserve, e-mail carole.marlowe@tusd1.org or call 225-4911.
Warning! Minds at work!
A mind thinking about itself is called metacognition or knowing about knowing. At the preliminary session for the OMA Colloquium, there was a lot of metacognition on display as presenting teachers and Fine Arts / OMA staff got together to review and fine tune presentations. At the Colloquium OMA teachers will be presenting their students via videotaped interviews, class sessions, and displays of student work. Some of the videotaped interviews are extraordinary. For example in one interview, a fifth grade student was reviewing the process involved in making a TV commercial. She described the amount of time her group spent discussing a problem and then the much smaller amount of time needed to come up with a solution. Offhandedly, she remarked "Solutions are easy". That bit of insight puts this fifth grader ahead of a lot of college students in STEM subjects where instructors are always emphasizing the importance of "defining the problem". The Colloquium is tomorrow, it's free, and it's a great opportunity for parents and community members to actually see classroom AHA! moments captured on videotape. There's more information the Colloquium on the Save the Date Flyer here.
Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) & Tucson Unified School District announces:
OMA Colloquium: making learning visible
March 13, 2013 – 8:00 am to 1:00 pm
at
The University of Arizona School of Music
1017 Olive Road Tucson, AZ
;
Fifteen of the leading schools from Opening Minds through the Arts will present dynamic demonstrations of integrating creativity with curriculum at the OMA Colloquium. Students will explain, through videotaped interviews, how they learn the core content of reading, writing, and math through arts integration. The impact of OMA on their critical thinking and creative problem solving skills will be evident as they explain their personal artistic process. The morning will culminate with a live performance by OMA students. This great event is open to everyone interested in how OMA works. For further information, call TUSD Fine Arts/OMA at 225-4900.
In the Curriculum Connection of 2/12/2013 we told you about STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and STEAM, which adds Arts to the mix. Here are some additional STEM resources. The University of Arizona has added a STEM Learning Center. Science Foundation of Arizona has a major STEM initiative. You can look over their programs for teachers and for students. SFAz also has a STEM Immersion Matrix, a roadmap to help school communities plan for integrating STEM education. Cox Cable TV has just launched a new series, STEM Journals, devoted to exploring STEM subjects. The series is on Cox channel 7 and 1007 Tuesday at 8pm and Sunday at 7pm. You can read more about and watch full online episodes here. To top it all off there's the National STEM Video Game Challenge . This is a challenge to design a learning game. The challenge is open to middle and high school students. The deadline for game submission is April 24 so if you have students that might be interested get this information to them now!
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