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2020 Books Challenge

May 31, 2020

Update

I think this is a great project! I’ve had the opportunity to help support this effort and it is so wonderful to get books into the hands of many children who simply don’t have any or very few books at home. I invite you to participate! If everyone gives a little there will certainly be a lot!
Educate Maine launched the 2,020 Books Challenge on March 27 with the goal of getting 2,020 books into students’ hands while supporting our local bookstores.

As of mid-May, we’ve raised $6,575 for local booksellers statewide. The challenge has also spurred book donations from other nonprofit organizations, individuals, and publishers and at least 8,000 books have been donated directly, and counting!

In addition, we are excited to announce a generous $5,000 MATCHING GRANT from the Law Offices of Joe Bornstein. Every donation of a gift card for the next $5,000 will be DOUBLED thanks to this donation!
Will you help us reach 2,020 books – that’s $20,200 to bookstores – before the end of the school year in just a few weeks? You can contribute by purchasing a gift card to your favorite bookstore and notifying us of it through THIS FORM.

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Call for MALI Teacher Leaders

May 29, 2020

Deadline – June 1

Interested in taking on a leadership role in education – the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative (MALI) might be the right match for you. Click on the images below to make them larger! Don’t hesitate, apply today. Deadline: June 1!

 

Posted in Communication, Community, Creativity, Curriculum and Instruction, Food for thought, Opportunity, Professional Development, Research, Resources, Standards Based Education, VPA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Gray-New Gloucester High School

May 22, 2020

Zoom connection

Carol Clark, Instrumental Music Director at Gray-New Gloucester High School, recently shared a wonderful story about a zoom meeting that she arranged with someone many of you music educators may know. Below is the exciting story in Carol’s own words. Thank you Carol for sharing!

World renown composer, conductor and lecturer, Dr. Bruce Pearson, joined the Gray-New Gloucester High School Concert Band via Zoom. Although he lives in Minnesota, Dr. Pearson has had considerable impact on our students’ musical development, as many learned from his instrumental music methods. In our high school band, we typically began our class sessions with his Technique & Musicianship exercises and chorales. Now, during remote learning, they continue to work with this method at home. Dr. Pearson spent an hour talking to our students, answering questions about his life, music and the creative processes of composing and arranging. We all had a great time learning from such a kind, knowledgeable and creative teacher!

Here is a link to his website:  http://brucepearsonmusic.com/about-bruce/

From our students:
*  It was good to be able to hear Dr. Pearson’s answers to our questions. I think hearing his story and a bit of his composing process was helpful. It was also just really cool to be able to hear what he had to say, since he wrote the books that we’ve been using in band since 5th grade. Thank you.
*  I found this class interesting and informative, and I’m so glad we could do it! It was fun to hear from someone on the other side of the music we play in band, and to have some ideas and direction for approaching composing, which is something I have been interested in recently. Thank you for the opportunity!

Posted in Leadership, Music, Opportunity, Resources | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

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Call for MALI Teacher Leaders

May 21, 2020

You’re invited!

Visual, Performing and Literary Arts Teacher/

Teaching Artist Leader SEARCH: MALI – Phase 20-21

APPLICATION DEADLINE: MONDAY, JUNE 1Join us for a GREAT opportunity! The Maine Arts Leadership Initiative invites YOU, with other selected Maine teachers and teaching artists, to be part of a year-long exploration in leading your school communities and the profession in effective teaching and learning in the arts.  If you are selected, you will be expected to attend the 2020 Summer Institute, taking place virtually June 15, July 24, and in-person August 5, pending state policy.   

This year’s Institute will explore Leading with Resilience; Embedding Social and Emotional Learning in our Teaching, Ourselves, and Our Communities; and Arts Advocacy.  

If you are selected, there is no cost to attend the Institute; however the expectation is that you integrate your learnings in your classroom, your school community, and share with other educators in your region of Maine and beyond.  Full participants will receive documentation of up to 35 contact hours.   

If interested, please complete the online application form, linked here and below, by June 1.

Questions? Contact Martha Piscuskas, Director of Arts Education at the Maine Arts Commission, Martha.Piscuskas@maine.gov  207-287-2750

Year-long Expectations for Teaching Artist/Teacher leaders (TA/TAL):

  • Attend New Teacher/TA introduction cohort zoom on Monday June 15
  • Complete pre-reading/viewing and participate in online discussion (on google classroom) 
  • Attend and participate in 2 virtual discussion meetings on Wednesdays – June 24 & July 15 – (w/mixed cohorts and breakout rooms)
  • Attend August 5, Wednesday in-person day in Waterville (tbd) if possible
  • Commit to two reflection sessions as a MALI TA/TAL one with cohort, one with “thought partner”
  • Develop a personalized Growth Plan for the coming year, and practice/learn ways to share it with others
  • Engage in Fall “thought partner” one-on-one check in 
  • Attend winter retreat – tentatively February 28, 2021.  Will include update on personal goal and/or action plan 
  • Author a guest blog post on the Maine Arts Ed daily blog

JOIN US!  Become a Teacher Leader and Change Lives 

APPLY TODAY!

Questions on the Application:

Name/contact information

Administrator Name/contact information (if classroom teacher)

Paragraph of Interest — Selected individuals will be expected to be active leaders in helping to develop and support excellence in teaching and learning in Maine. A full commitment to the Institute timeline is expected as seen in the online information sheet.  Please attach a brief overview of your interest and current/past experience (if any) in Leadership. Include your experience collaborating with other arts educators and experiences relevant to the initiative.  (Please no more than ~ 500 words, about 1 page.) 

Resume/CV —  If you are a Teaching Artist, please also include websites or documentation of your teaching work.  

Letter of Reference – CLASSROOM TEACHERS: This should be from your administrator.  TEACHING ARTISTS: This should be from a school or community  organization with whom you have worked.   Please attach a Letter of Recommendation in which the person includes comments and/or examples reflecting your leadership potential and your ability to work collaboratively.  Selected individuals will be responsible for sharing their newly developed expertise and related classroom experiences with other arts educators.

Maine Arts Leadership Initiative 

Background Information

MALI MISSION

MALI’s OVERALL OBJECTIVES 

  • Create and implement a statewide plan for teacher leadership in arts education. This includes professional development opportunities, locally, regionally and statewide, which will expand on the knowledge and skills of teachers to better prepare them to teach in a student-centered and proficiency-based learning environment.
  • Develop and implement standards-based high quality teaching and learning statewide for Visual and Performing Arts 
  • Continue to build on expanding the team of arts educators and teaching artists representing all regions of Maine
  • Provide workshops and other professional development opportunities for educators 
  • Founded in 2011
  • 108 teacher leaders and teaching artists leaders have attended summer institutes on assessment, leadership, technology, creativity, proficiency-based standards-based and student-centered teaching and learning
  • Teacher leaders have presented workshops at three statewide arts education conferences, with over 600 educators attending
  • Teacher leaders facilitated regional workshops across Maine and 15 mega-regional sites across Maine
  • Maine Arts Ed Blog — 78 teachers profiled in Another Arts Teacher’s Story series 
  • Arts assessment graduate courses offered by New England Institute for
    Teacher Education
  • Nine arts education assessment webinars for Maine educators facilitated by Rob Westerberg and Catherine Ring – archived
  • Video stories of seven teacher leaders that demonstrate a standards-based arts education classroom located on Maine ARTSEducation YouTube channel
  • Teacher Leader Resource Team development of items for resource bank
  • Maine Arts Assessment Resources website
  • Partners have included MDOE, USM, MAEA, MMEA, University of Maine Performing Arts, and New England Institute for Teacher Education, Bates College

For More Information

APPLY TODAY TO BECOME A MALI TEACHER LEADER

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Music Teachers Going Above and Beyond in RSU#35

May 6, 2020

Putting student needs first 

The following four teachers are going above and beyond teaching and reaching their learners in the RSU#35 school district. I am grateful for the work that David, Kate, Bryan and Kris are doing in music education, ‘schooling away from school’. All very humble, missing their students, below are some of their stories including ideas and resources. Thank you all for sharing!

David Graichen

DAVID GRAICHEN teaches Instrumental Music at Marshwood High School in South Berwick

Before school went digital my band students were working on pieces in small ensembles. We were doing this as a “Music in Our Schools Month” project and we were close to completion. I decided that despite articles warning of the difficulty we would try to make separate recordings and edit them together. I want to give my students a sense of working in an ensemble even when we cannot be together. There are many youtube videos showing you how to use programs by adobe, apple, a cappella, and others to complete this task. Each student got a metronome track for their piece and recorded their part and submitted it through google classroom. Thanks to the support of our RSU#35 Superintendent Mr. Caverly and Brian Carroll (our driver) we loaded the district trailer and delivered everything from a piccolo to a 4.3 octave marimba to students at their homes so they could play again.  With the help of a parent, student, and my student teacher Christopher Ciaglo we are working to edit the recordings together and hope to able to post them at the beginning of May. Normalcy and recognizing the connection music has for my students is very important.
David created THIS VIDEO so students would be reminded of school and to communicate how much he misses them.

David and Brian moving the marimba in to the student’s home.

Kate Smith

KATE SMITH teaches at Central School in South Berwick

I teach 389 PreK through third-grade students and I miss every single one. If there is anything I’ve learned from this pandemic, it is that there is no one, easy way to stay connected with students. I needed offline, synchronous and asynchronous opportunities in order to reach as many kids as possible. In addition to sending home Bingo cards with musical activities, I also record and upload videos on my website and send singing telegrams/musical messages to the teachers to forward to their students. Sometimes these musical messages are sung, other times I  dance (like when I taped glowsticks to myself and danced in the dark to “I’ve Got to Move It”), or lip sync with puppets. During vacation, the Physical Education teacher and I hosted a virtual dance party that had 75 families and 12 staff. Starting this week, we will co-teach 30-minute zoom classes with themes like Minute to Win It, Playground Games and Handclaps, and Beat in My Feet.
Kate created THIS SINGING TELEGRAM for her five first grade classes and this very fun lip sync singing telegram below.

BRYAN KILLOUGH (aka Mr. K) teaches Pre-K through 3 at Eliot Elementary School

Bryan has a YouTube channel where he posts amazing teaching videos that he has created for his students. Videos called PATIENCE which teaches the importance of patience, The Beat Song which teaches the concept of Tempo, JS Bach since Eliot Elementary School’s musician of the month of May is JS Bach, and one of my favorites is May is the Month of Maying which is about, you guessed it May – embedded below.
KRIS BISSON teaches music at Marshwood Middle School
This has been a very unique experience for all, but learning prevails. My hope is that my students know how much I care about their learning and their well-being and that we are all in this together. Classroom walls or other walls, we are still connected and creating.

Kris Bisson

Below are some of the learning platforms that she has found successful.

  • FLIPGRID : With Chorus and Guitar/Ukulele Class being performance-based work, I have been using this with great success!
  • Students create videos of themselves (I’ve been doing both “public” and “private” for every assignment) and I can grade and comment (Typed is my preference, or you can video respond). Students can see each other and respond to videos – always positive, and a large part of our Chorus Family Support.
  • PADLET : a chance for students to share personal reflections/responses and for others to share conversation with them. Precise, helps keep thoughts focused.
  • ZOOM and MEET : of course, such a great resource!!!!!!!!!
  • HANGOUTS : for students to ask a question quickly and briefly. So handy. Sometimes starts the need to ZOOM / MEET.
  • GOOGLE CLASSROOM : My organizational tool for sharing all classroom needs, responsibilities, videos, pdfs, you name it!
  • LOOM : I can video and share my picture and voice while sharing my screen to teach the lesson. SO user-friendly, and students are accustomed to the teacher teaching the lesson before completing it for themselves. LOVE this!

Posted in Community, Creativity, Curriculum and Instruction, Dance, Food for thought, Leadership, Music, Opportunity, Resources, Uncategorized, YAHOO | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Performing Arts at Home

April 10, 2020

All kinds of opportunities 

Portland Ovations is providing arts integration resources on their website during the pandemic for students and their families. Please take time and check it out – there are outstanding resources including. Thank you to Portland Ovations for sharing the information below of shows that are available at this time. I especially love the last two!

DANCE PICK – Ovations’ RAISE THE BARRE dance series faves (they’ve been here at least three times during my tenure alone, most recently in our 2018-19 season), the ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER is rolling out full-length videos of their repertoire. From April 9 – 12, Judith Jamison’s Divining (1984) will be available on their website. CLICK HERE!

BROADWAY PICK – Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Universal Music Group are making full-length videos of his classics available on Youtube every Friday for 48 hours. This week, on April 10th, will be JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. While it won’t feature the OG JC Ted Neeley (like our last presentation of JCS back in 2007), this stage version stars multi-hyphenate Australian superstar, Tim Minchin (who wrote the music and lyrics for the hit musical Matilda, in addition to a thriving comedy career) in the role of Judas Iscariot. CLICK HERE!

CLASSICAL PICK – You may remember the METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE for their immersive concert experience BROWNSTONE, which Ovations sited in various rooms of Victoria Mansion back in 2014. The innovative ensemble – led by Maine native Andrew Cyr – has always supported contemporary composers and musicians in the creation and amplification of new work, even now. They’ve just launched an online series called HOUSE MUSIC, which features bite-sized performances of newly commissioned, classical, and contemporary works from musicians sheltering around the country. New content is released Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10 AM ET. CLICK HERE!

MUSIC PICK – Husband and wife bluegrass phenoms, BELA FLECK and ABIGAIL WASHBURN (alums from both our 14-15 and 17-18 seasons), host a BANJO HOUSE LOCKDOWN live on Facebook every Friday night at 7 pm ET. If you can’t make it for the Facebook Live, archived lockdown performances can be accessed. CLICK HERE!

Something from the past at Ovations

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC – Members of the NY PHIL — whose string quartet was to have joined us in Portland last weekend — come together to salute NYC’s medical professionals with this incredible social-distance rendition of Bolero. CLICK HERE!

HAMILTON – The original cast of HAMILTON serenades a young fan on John Krasinski’s new online show “Some Good News”. (Hamilton starts at the 11:39 mark, but since we could all use some good news, you might as well watch the whole thing). CLICK HERE!

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Met Opera Streams

April 3, 2020

Live in Schools

Screen shot from the Met Opera website

For over a decade, the Met Opera’s landmark HD Live in Schools initiative has brought live opera broadcasts to students across the United States. To supplement these broadcasts, the Met crafts a series of educational materials that encourage and empower students, teachers, and community members to engage with and enjoy this art form. All of these materials are available online, free of charge. Taken individually or together, they offer an excellent supplement to online teaching and arts curricula, as well as an entertaining way to learn more about both specific operas and opera in general. Please feel free to share them with your community and colleagues, as well as with any other arts or education administrators who may be interested in these resources.

  • HD Live in Schools Educator Guides: Our flagship product. Find in-depth guides to more than 50 operas by clicking here. This “archive” has all the guides we’ve produced since 2008, including the six guides for the 2019-20 season. Guides offer an interdisciplinary introduction to opera, with historical background on the opera and its source, a timeline of the composer’s life, synopses for young readers, fun facts, and four classroom-ready student activities.
  • Educator Guides en Español: 26 educator guides in Spanish translation. These translations include all sections that may be distributed as student handouts, including synopses, timelines, “who’s who” charts, sidebar articles, essential musical terms, and reproducibles.
  • Illustrated Synopses: An HD Live in Schools favorite. These original illustrations tell the stories of 14 different operas in the style of a graphic novel, making them a fun and accessible introduction to the art form.
  • Opera Arrangements: Opera’s greatest hits, arranged for middle-school and high-school band and orchestra
  • Educational Videos: Short videos that take you backstage at the Met, introduce you to Met singers and designers, and offer insights into some of the inspiring ways our HD Live in Schools partners are bringing opera into the classroom
  • PBS LearningMedia resources: Met Education has partnered with PBS to curate two educational opera collections. The first collection focuses on operatic adaptations of Shakespeare and includes Verdi’s Macbeth, Verdi’s Otello, and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. The second collection considers how opera composers have interpreted real-life historical events and features John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. Each of these six operas can be streamed in its entirety from the PBS website and comes equipped with a ready-to-use educational activity.
We also recommend you tune into the Nightly Met Opera Streams, available each evening from 7:30 PM ET at https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/.
 
For more information, please contact the Met’s education manager Dan Marshall (dmarshall@metopera.org), or educational content manager Kamala Schelling (kschelling@metopera.org).

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Right Here in Maine

March 30, 2020

Maine’s digital galleries

The Tides Institute & Museum of Art

How wonderful is this – to know that Maine’s own arts institutions provide online resources featuring Maine artists and others from the past and present shows. The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) even has a three-dimensional tour of all of its exhibits including it’s present show that was only up for two days before CMCA closed due to the virus. And, the Farnsworth has a 3-D tour of the Olson House. The institutions and links to them are listed below. Please note: this alphabetical list does not include all the institutions in Maine.

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The Art of Education

December 9, 2019

Photo booth in the classroom

Informative blog post put out by The Art of Education. Seven Reasons You Need a Photo Booth in the Art Room. A Lightbox is one and a studio photo setup is another. The ARTICLE expands on these two topics providing you with useful information.

The Art of Ed University provides resources in a variety of ways. Check out the WEBSITE to learn more.

Posted in assessment, Community, Creativity, Curriculum and Instruction, Food for thought, Leadership, Opportunity, Professional Development, Research, Resources, Technology, Visual Arts | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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NH Arts Ed Conference

November 27, 2019

Culturally Responsive Leadership

Martha Piscuskas

Recently Martha Piscuskas, Interim Director of Arts Education at the Maine Arts Commission attuned the New Hampshire Arts Education conference. The theme was Culturally Responsive Leadership. There were great discussions and learnings on how to create more inclusive  creative spaces, for educators and the young artists we mentor.

Martha returned with several resources to share – some listed below with Martha’s comments included. Martha suggests that you take a look and consider how to use them in your classroom and/or with policy makers.

If you have any questions please contact Martha at martha.piscuskas@maine.gov.

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