Cultural institutional database/Teacher hub

 Plan #1

  • An introductory descriptive paragraph, which should include a problem statement, and say *what* your tool/thing will do. This is your abstract, or elevator pitch. This should not have the full theoretical framing of the project. That will come in the final.

 

There is a decrease in the ability of New York City to write and understand the mechanics of curriculum design often leading to test prep as a mode of instruction as well as a misunderstanding of the use and purposes of the Common Core. Embedded within this struggle is a de-valuing of the link between the arts and the humanities as well as the arts and sciences.

 

School trips have long been understood as a tool of exposure, universalizing the opportunities for students who use public schooling as transformative experience to gain the social and cultural capital needed to provide fluency within the social class system. As the present time, museum educators complain that teachers come ill prepared to take advantage of the knowledge, history and social context behind collections and exhibitions that make school trips and their jobs worthwhile. In addition, many museums offer professional development and learning institute opportunities and teaching enhancements that teachers either don’t know about or don’t take advantage of. Teachers, especially on the secondary education level, often struggle to link existing curriculum filled with standardized testing benchmarks to the experiential learning that their students can gain from cultural institutions.

 

One way to remedy this issue is an online database/archive of New York’s cultural and community institutions that contain details such as the name of each institution’s educational director, Information about collections and upcoming exhibits, and professional developments and institutes. In this way, schools with limited resources can have access to the arts as part of an integrated curriculum as opposed to seeing this access as ancillary.

 

I propose an open source archive that can serve educators from k-12 Department of Education who are looking to add experiential and project based education opportunities to their curriculum. The archive will list the names, locations and websites of each institution as well as the contact information/contacts and the services offered. Each website will be linked to the archive and will take the user to the institution website. The website can also include blogs and information about their experiences of certain collections and exhibits at various museums.

 

  • A set of personas

Ms. Test prep: Has spent each year preparing her third grade students for state exams since the Common Core rolled out in 2012. She feels that her teaching has suffered as a result. Her students are stressed, tired and not performing in the ways she would like. She wishes that there was a way to re-inforce what she is trying to teach other than the “drill and kill” method she feels tied to.

Mr. Wants to expose his students to everything: Is a high school teacher who loves to take trips and feels his students should get out of the classroom as often as possible. He takes them to any cool exhibit that he hears about, ignoring the students’ questions about the relevance of his trips to what they learn in class thinking only that “they need exposure.”

Ms. Expert Teacher: Has been a veteran teacher for 12 years who writes her own curriculum into which she successfully infuses her links to a few cultural institutions. She is looking for a summer intensive to enhance her use of the tools that museums have to offer. She is also looking for some meaningful professional development that will help perfect her process but is unsure of where to find them or which ones might be best suited for her needs.

  • A use case scenario (where would someone find your tool/thing and how would they use it). Keep it short.

My thought is that the platform to use would be the Omeka platform as it allows for archiving with the addition of other tools for screen casts, plug-ins and discussions. I hope that links would be attached to teacher education resource programs such as those for Teachers College and New Visions through Hunter, CUNY. There has also been interest expressed by The Teaching and Learning center for Professors teaching in those programs, which means that the link may be available through the CUNY Commons.

  • How you will make the full-fledged version. This is your “ideal world” version that fulfills all of your visions and fantasies (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc.)

In my perfect world this would be a stand-alone website funded by the National Endowment of the Arts. It would have a paid administrator (not me) who would update the database, but also helm the blog and archive standout activities, projects and lesson plans. I believe the Omeka site could make that possible. With a committed administrator and enough money, I think the site is needed and will be successful.

  • Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

At this point, I have a lot of resources already archived but the archiving alone takes some time. Putting together a database is a bit painstaking. In the short term I think the database could begin to take form by the begining of May. The total project should be researched by the begining of June. The database should be built out by September 2016.

 

  • How you will make the stripped down version. The stripped down version is the minimally viable product. It is the most *bare bones* version to prove that what you are trying to get at is viable. (What tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc.)

I am beginning conversations with CUNY about using the Teaching and Learning Center’s archive platform for the short term since they have expressed interest. As stated earlier, Teacher’s College has also expressed interest. At it’s bare bones version, I think it will work and be utilized as a database of information.

  • Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

I think I could take the three month time frame of Summer to find the most suitable platform and finish what I have started archiving and filling the database.

Here is an example of the type of information that would be included in the database:

http://www.metmuseum.org/

Education Director: Maria Rhor

Phone: 212-570-3711, email:teachers@metmuseum.org.

Offerings:

Workshops for K–12 educators, schedule workshops by Request, Summer Educator Institutes, Educator Institute: Connecting Collections, online educator resources, online resources for children and families, programs, advisory and internships for teens,

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/

Education Director: Radiah Harper

Phone:718-638-5000 ex 232

Offerings:

Custom-designed professional development workshops for principals and teachers, including ArtXchange for K–8 art teachers, free monthly Teacher Leadership Program

Evenings for Educators, Six-dayTeacher Institutes (K-12), On line teacher resources. Gallery student program for children, Teen Resources, Teen Night, Teen night planning committee, LGTBQ Teen Night planning Committee, Gallery Studio Program, Teen resources.

 

Plan #2

  • An introductory descriptive paragraph, which should include a problem statement, and say *what* your tool/thing will do. This is your abstract, or elevator pitch. This should not have the full theoretical framing of the project. That will come in the final.

Many of the top induction programs support their teaching residents for the duration of the program which can last anywhere from 18 months to two full years. Induction programs are marked as preparing residents for placements in schools in underserved communities.

The attrition rate for novice teachers in New York City is high with those coming from the top induction programs experience the highest numbers of burnout, the average being between 2 and 5 years. Teachers have cited isolation, lack of on-going mentorship and unstable foundations in theory, and classroom practices as impediments

to longevity in teaching as a career. It is my observation that and online community space may be an antidote for teaching residents and novice teacher who are over burdened during their first years in the classroom, especially for those who are without ongoing mentorship. This hub will allow for teachers to trade lesson plans, curriculum and best practices with each other. It will feature information about the teachers’ union, NYcore and educator conferences, etc. Teachers will be able to do everything from tweeting about teacher forums and meet ups to blogging about articles and writing them.

  • A set of personas

Mr. Induction Resident: His teaching placement feels like a nightmare! His teaching mentor is rarely available to answer questions and when he tries to book time to get answers or discuss planning, his mentor seems annoyed and is as harried as he is. He wants to meet with other induction residents that he went to school with but none of them has time either. He wishes there was another place that he could get information.that would fit his tight schedule and allow him to vent his frustration.

Ms. Year Two: She is nearing the end of her residency and has done quite well managing her studies and her time. She will no longer have a mentor and wonders where she will be able to go to learn about things that weren’t taught in class like how to talk to her union representative about maternity leave as she is planning to start a family soon. She is also thinking about learning grant writing and wants to know where she might get that information.

Mr. Teacher Activist: He is firmly entrenched in his teaching community and has done a lot to build his cool and surrounding community. He wants to share information about what he has learned and help other teachers to achieve some of the same things he has.

  • A use case scenario (where would someone find your tool/thing and how would they use it). Keep it short.

I am playing with the ideas of using Commons in a Box for the hub. I started playing a bit with Google + and I am still unsure that it is not a good platform for it because of the social media connections. The social media connections of Google make it very attractive and I am unsure of how to recreate that at this point from another platform. I see teachers using it to blog about their experiences, attaching relevant articles to read and discuss, and to find and pass on information.

  • How you will make the full-fledged version. This is your “ideal world” version that fulfills all of your visions and fantasies (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc.)

In my ideal world, the hub DOES live on Google + if for no other reason than that everyone uses Google and it is easy to navigate and work with. Although the ‘teacher hub’ wouldn’t be mine, the facility that comes with that particular platform used as a hub would be great. I will continue investigating and play around with Commons in a box.

  • Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

I am in the beginning stages, and am meeting with induction residents and novice teachers to discuss whether they would be interested in such a hub, as well as where that hub should exist to make it accessible. This phase should be done by the end of April. With visioning and research and implementation included I am projecting the end of the 2016 year.

  • How you will make the stripped down version. The stripped down version is the minimally viable product. It is the most *bare bones* version to prove that what you are trying to get at is viable. (What tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc.)

In the stripped down version, the users will probably just blog and post information for each other. The Commons in a box platform will allow for blogging and uploads etc., so I think I could go with that. It’s free and accessible to both myself as a working tool and to those who would use the platform.

  • Your assessment of how much time this will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

I am thinking that the striped down version could be created in about 5-6 months from brainstorming to implementation.

Here is an example of content shared on the Induction Resident’s social hub on Google +

IMG_2597

 

 

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