Core Student programs:
Write-On Arts (Language Arts/Visual Art/Theater)
Math in a Basket (Math/Basketry/History)
InCreasing Math (Math/Origami/Science integrated program)

Working with a diverse staff representing seven ethnicities, four languages, and ranging in age from 23 to 67, Dramatic Results focuses our efforts on creating diversity and equity in Title I classrooms by using art as the “common language” with migrant, special education, English language learners, gifted and mainstream students. 

All of Dramatic Results’ programs are based on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and Blooms’ Taxonomy, align with California’s Visual Arts, Language Arts and Math standards, the National Educators Association’s best practice recommendations for responding to new standards and expectations and delivered using SDAIE (Specially-Designed Academic-Instruction in English) techniques.  During each residency session in small groups the students and teachers participate in "check-in" (one positive thing, one challenging thing), "compliments" (One thing I like about you is...).

Professional Development:
Dramatic Results brings the richness of our community-based collaborations to further enhance our professional development by providing classroom teachers with personal connections and resources to enrich their classroom environment and enhance their outreach efforts to parents.Participating classroom teachers, in our Math in a Basket program, experience arts integration and Dramatic Results' specialized techniques with: 

1. 40-hours of training in our arts-integrated techniques in their first year with us
2. 24+ hours of an in-class residency allowing mentoring in arts integration weekly over several months to ensure teachers develop a level of comfort and confidence in arts integration
3. A second year of training specially designed to help individual teachers expand their competency in integrating art with other core subjects of their own choosing, e.g., History/Social Science or Science.

Goals: 

• Integrating craft (basketry, origami) into the core academic curriculum to help make learning "real and meaningful", particularly for hard to reach learners

• Strengthening teachers' comfort and skill with arts integration 

• Improving students’ academic performance including skills in creating, exhibiting and responding to traditional arts (basketry, origami, mask making)

• Student achievement in math, as measured on the California Standards Test (CST), will increase significantly compared to a control group.

The following quote from Geraldine Walkup, VAPA Leader for LACOE, reflects districts’ opinion of Dramatic Results' professional development and classroom residencies:

"We firmly believe in strong community partnerships that provide opportunities for students and teachers, which include professional development.  Dramatic Results is an exemplary program because it includes all the above components.  The program is strong because it offers students and teachers the resources to be successful.  The staff is dedicated to helping students learn to express themselves through art while at the same time learning grade level math.  They have developed on-going assessments in the form of vocabulary quizzes, performance tasks, and pre/post-evaluation instruments.  Students are actively involved in every step of the design and production of their baskets.  The students are exposed to several cultural artists throughout the program.  Teachers receive on-going assistance and meet regularly with the staff to address needs and concerns of the program. They work as a team with the arts organization provider.

Strategies Include:

• In-class residency approach working in partnership with teachers to customize programs to meet individual teacher's goals

• Hands-on training in arts integration and lesson plan development for teachers

• Advanced training for teachers in arts integration to meet strategic goals set by Arts for All Districts 

 Partnerships: Dramatic Results partners with many other cultural institutions including the Long Beach Museum of Art, Autry National Center and the Mingei International Museum in San Diego to cross-train artists, classroom teachers and docents as well as feature exhibitions of student work and participates in cultural festivals and art camps.

As testament to the value educators place on Dramatic Results’ programs, LBUSD and CUSD have provided more than $1.4 million in fee-for-service contracts to DR over 16 years. Dramatic Results received a $1 million grant in 2003 and again in 2006 from the U.S. Dept. of Ed. under the “Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination” program to test the longitudinal impact of Math in a Basket (MIAB) on students and teachers. Dramatic Results is one of only seven U.S. Dept. of Ed. grantees to receive a continuation grant for the same project (and the ONLY agency in So. CA). 

 Dissemination:  Dramatic Results has disseminated our program design and results to such professional organizations as the NAEA (National Art Education Association), CAEA (CA Art Education Association), NPIEN (National Pacific Islander Educators Network), AEP (Arts Education Partnership), ACSA (Assoc. of CA School Admin.) and Americans for the Arts.  Dramatic Results’ management excellence is featured with a full chapter in the management book entitled Vital Factors.  In 2004, Dramatic Results received the Professional Designation in Arts Education from the L.A. County Arts Commission and also became an approved provider listed on their LAARTSED website.

Professional Development:  Dramatic Results’ professional development program has been in place since 2004.  In addition to utilizing our own talented staff, we bring in experts in our art forms to further enrich our trainings.  For example, in our Math in a Basket program, we bring in a Gabrieleno-Tongva basket maker to talk about local historic and contemporary basketry to tie into Social Studies standards and an A+ School Fellow (and master basket maker from N. Carolina) with a special interest in integrating basketry with math and science.  We bringing in experts from LACOE to share the latest information on assessments and integrated lesson plan development. 

Please see: www.dramaticresults.org/mathinabasket for more information.

Methods:
Teacher and student surveys, observations, focus groups, quizzes, teacher art logs (how often did they use art in the classroom), and examination of student grades and CST (California Standards Test) Scores. By following these scores in two groups: a treatment (n=2) and control (n=2) group of schools, evaluators find: 

Impact on Teachers 

• Self-reported time spent using art in the classroom increased 40% among participating teachers, 4% among control teachers. 

• Comfort level in teaching math increased from 35 to 55% of participating teachers, over project. Comfort levels teaching math declined in control. 

Academic Impact 

• During the project year, treatment students (n=412) experienced statistically significant improvement in scores on the California Standards Test (CST) in math. Control group (n=387) math scores decreased. Comparisons were made between the 2004 and 2005 CSTs (for an easy-to-read graph of the Math CST score improvement, please see  www.dramaticresults.org/mathinabasket)

• Fall to spring, treatment students made significant gains in grades in math achievement, math effort and art effort. The control group had increases in math achievement and art effort. Math effort grades for the control group declined. 

• On a pre/post project knowledge-based quiz testing students on art and math issues, treatment students more than doubled the math improvement of control students. In art, gains for treatment students were more than 10-times those of control students. 

Impact on Students 

• Participating students experienced a huge increase in their understanding of perimeter and area, with the percentage feeling confident of their ability increasing from 18% pre-project to 43% post-project. The percentage confident of their ability to deal with fractions rose from 34% to 48%. 

• Liking for art and knowledge about it increased significantly among participating students. By the end of the project year, participating students felt more creative and confident. The percentage knowing the color wheel increased from 10% to 78% (self-reported). 

• Participating students believed that teachers significantly improved their ability to use art to teach both reading and math. 

• Students reported that the amount of time spent using art in the participating classrooms significantly increased. Results do not separate the professional development impact from the direct services.

Teacher Growth.
The single greatest lesson Dramatic Results has learned from its professional development efforts is to treat classroom teachers in the same way we would “ideally” have every student treated. This means providing the necessary time, encouragement, environment, small teaching ratio and positive recognition for their work to get the desired results.

Time.
It is incredibly important to provide teachers with the TIME to EXPERIENCE art, including time to contemplate, design and push past the frustrating times in creating art to experience success with their creativity, and develop confidence in the art content and process they are being asked to teach. The level of heightened or renewed empathy and sensitivity for the learning process gained by teachers from experiencing this fully art integrated curriculum in the same experience their students will have.

For instance, in the first year of the training institute, teachers expressed real doubt that their students could do the Math in a Basket curriculum. “This will be too hard for them.” By Year Two of our training institute, teachers were asking for additional training in the principles and elements of art to “keep up with my kids, ‘cause they’ve really taken to this curriculum and I want to stay one step ahead of them.”

Teachers describe the institute experiences from Math in a Basket with phrases like, “I feel like I spent a week at an art camp – and they paid me to be here!” Another said, “In 31 years of teaching, this is the first time that there has been formal instruction on the elements of art and integrating it with math.”

Environment.
By partnering with Long Beach Museum of Art for the 40-hour training, teachers had an aesthetic environment in a sculpture garden overlooking the Pacific. Teachers were more able to “buy-into” participation in the arts-integration training, being surrounded by art and gardens.  This inspired teachers to contemplate and produce abstract art, sculpture, portraiture and basketry illustrating examples of California Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Standards. The environment held insights into each element and principle being taught, which helped “make real” the arts learning process.

Small Teaching Ratio.
All of Dramatic Results’ teacher training and student programs are provided in small groups with one teaching artists for every 5 to 8 students/teachers  to encourage individual expression, support teachers and students through the tough parts of art making, and accommodate different learning styles. This small group ratio is critical to our success with professional development – both during the 40-hour summer teacher training institutes and during the in-class mentoring throughout the 24-week residency. This small ratio, combined with the personal bonding that occurs, made it possible to forge a true team to deliver our measurably effective Math in a Basket program.

Recognition.
Just as with their students, teachers were hungry for reassurance and praise for their artwork and creativity. Dramatic Results provides recognition for teachers in five ways: 

1. Peer to Peer. During the training institute, teachers see each other progress and create. Time and protocol is built into each training day to give specific feedback and encouragement peer to peer, building confidence and camaraderie to further enhance the impact of the training. 

2. From their Students: At the start of the school year following the training, teachers displayed their own artwork in the classroom for students and families to see and referenced these works of art during the entire 24-week in-class program.

3. Site Administration: Teacher artwork from the summer training was displayed in the front office of each campus for everyone to see. The principals became so enchanted with the beautiful reed baskets, they went into classrooms and worked side-by-side with the teachers and students to create their own - turning upside down the usual hierarchy on the campus and delighting both the teacher and students because they were teaching the principal something.

4. District Administration: To further recognize teachers’ accomplishments during the training, we arranged with the district to have teacher artwork displayed in the district’s administrative offices throughout the school year. We also made a formal presentation to the district’s board of education members, demonstrating the creativity and artistic skill of teachers. 

5. Community: Teachers received further encouragement and recognition for their artwork and efforts to integrate art into their classrooms from families during Back to School Night and Open House when parents walked into the classroom and saw not only student artwork, but teacher artwork hanging from the ceiling and walls and displayed on desks for all to see. Our culminating community recognition of teachers’ work came with a 5-week exhibition of Math in a Basket student and teacher artwork at the Long Beach Museum of Art, professionally curated by Museum staff and opened with a community celebration event attended by several hundred families, district administrators, funders, elected officials and community leaders.

District Communication:
As an outside agency working in collaboration with school districts, we initially entered this partnership with naïve enthusiasm and expectation that everyone would be as excited as we were about Math in a Basket. It didn’t take us long to learn about the power of protocol, multiple agendas and old established power struggles within different district departments and how we needed to carefully, openly and honestly craft our communication to each department, keeping in mind their protocols, agendas and internal struggles. 

Teacher Confidence:
When we started our professional development component, we anticipated it would take us only 40 hours to have teachers able to produce an integrated lesson plan. We were wrong. We found it took closer to 18 months to reach this goal and we only achieved this goal after the 2nd summer training institute when we provided teachers with intensive hands-on training in the elements and principles of art and seven months of in-class demonstration of the process of integration. 

Reward Success:
We put much energy into touting each success – whether by a teacher, student, teaching artist or evaluation results. We also continued to remind each party of their earlier successes – especially when they hit frustration points – to ensure a continuum of effort and buy-in. 

Constant Monitoring and Modification:
We put great energy and effort into collecting information, observations and feedback from all our partners in Math in a Basket on a regular and informal basis and constructing tools to quickly integrate those improvements into our program delivery. We found that by using anecdotal surveys, debrief lunches and one-on-one drop-in sessions with teachers, administrators and artists, we gathered invaluable information quickly. We reviewed this data EACH WEEK at our program meetings and made changes on the spot. Teachers then experienced these changes in their classrooms the very next week, were solicited for more feedback and encouraged to continue to give insight. In this way, we built a high level of trust and enthusiasm from all partners and told, “it’s clear you really took our feedback and used it to improve the program. I felt my opinion mattered and that you cared.” We found this imbued more confidence in the concept of teamwork and in each teacher’s own abilities to attempt content integration and trust their own knowledge and instincts. 

Further explanation of each of Dramatic Results’ residencies and professional development programs, including video presentations:  http://www.dramaticresults.org/programs.html

Dramatic Results | Programs. 2008. Web Page. URL: http://www.dramaticresults.org/programs.html   07 Oct 2008.

Dramatic Results | Professional Development. 2008. Web Page. URL: http://www.dramaticresults.org/professionaldevelopment.html   07 Oct. 08

Dramatic Results | Write-On Arts. 2008. Web Page. URL: http://www.dramaticresults.org/writeonarts.html  07 Oct 2008.

Dramatic Results | Math in a Basket. 2008. Web Page. URL: http://www.dramaticresults.org/mathinabasket.html  07 Oct 2008. 

Dramatic Results | InCreasing Math. 2008. Web Page. URL: http://www.dramaticresults.org/increasingmath.html  07 Oct 2008.