The Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE)’s Teacher Action Research Institute was awarded two grants, $278K from the U.S. Department of Education, and $35K from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund Professional Development for Arts Educators.

ACOE’s Teacher Action Research Institute (TARI) was awarded one of 14 awards out of 91 national programs competing for the coveted US Department of Education’s Professional Development for Arts Educators’ grant award.  TARI was also a distinguished finalist for a National Endowment for the Arts award.  The two grants will further the ground-breaking and pioneering work of Arts Integration curriculum in education--a first of its kind in the country.

The US Department of Education’s three-year grant award of $278,679 will implement Teacher Action Research Institute (TARI) professional development for arts integrated science and language arts at Muir and Bancroft middle schools in the San Leandro Unified School District.  The program will build on the successful strategies and practices implemented in the Teacher Action Research Institute (TARI) pilot in San Leandro. Teaching teams of science teachers and teaching artists will collaborate to design and teach integrated lesson plans aligned with core content standards for grades 6-8.  This is ACOE’s fourth Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) grant.

This work has re-engaged students that we have been working very, very hard to reach and for whatever reason haven’t been successful.  What the Teacher Action Research Institute has done is allow us to reach those students, and then they get engaged, and they get inspired, and they’re problem solving and reflecting on their own work, and evaluating their own work, and they are able to make the transference to other content areas. -- Superintendent Cindy Cathey, San Leandro Unified School District, Teacher Action Research Institute pilot program participating school.

The National Endowment for the Arts one-year grant of $35K will support teaching artist and teacher professional development for whole school arts integration at two Title I elementary schools in Alameda County, Peralta Elementary (Oakland USD) and Jefferson Elementary (San Leandro USD). The project will provide professional development anchored in Alameda County Office of Education’s Arts Integration Specialist Program.

About the Arts Integration Specialist Program
The first of its kind in the United States, the Arts Integration Specialist Program provides K-12 teachers and teaching artists the insight, understanding and skills required to plan and deliver arts and arts-integrated instruction for deeper student learning across all subject areas. In a series of three core courses, teachers and teaching artists gain practical knowledge in multiple arts disciplines as well as teaching frames to plan and implement culturally relevant curriculum, differentiate instruction, and make student learning visible.

About TARI
The Alameda County Office of Education’s Teacher Action Research Instituteis a professional development system that supports inquiry-based action research for more responsive teaching and deeper student learning for every level of teacher and every style of learner. This system establishes school-based professional learning communities that enhance teachers’ skills in differentiating instruction to respond to every student’s diverse learning needs. The Teacher Action Research Institute, grounded in nine years of applying research-based, educational theory in classroom practice, helps districts develop professional communities of educators to effectively engage students in rigorous and relevant learning, and to demonstrate their mastery of the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary for a successful future through formative and summative performance based assessments.
 

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