Mark Degarmo

HOW TO PARTNER WITH US
Q: How does my school develop an arts and dance education partnership with you?
A: Please make an appointment with our Schools Partnership Program Manager to complete an Application for Partnership together. Review the MDDF Partnership Toolkit for School Partners that follows the application below.
email us

APPLICATION FOR PARTNERSHIP
1) Send us a copy of your organizational chart, Comprehensive Education Plan, and Quality Review Report.

2) Send written responses to the following questions:

a) What is your school's current arts-education philosophy, history, scope and sequence?

b) What is the name and background of your arts-education coordinator?

c) What are the names, backgrounds, and roles of the members of your arts-education steering committee?

d) What are the number, names, and arts disciplines of the certified arts teachers on faculty?

e) What is your professional development plan, including arts-based learning and teaching for your whole faculty?

f) How do parents currently participate in your school's arts-education program?

g) What physical spaces are available for conducting dance-studio classes?

h) What are your learning-teaching successes and challenges?

i) What are your goals and objectives for developing an arts-and-dance-education partnership with us?

j) How do you currently assess and evaluate arts-based learning and teaching?

k) What is your current total annual budget and its break-out for arts education personnel, programs, and services?

MDDF PARTNERSHIP TOOLKIT FOR SCHOOL PARTNERS

Mark DeGarmo & Dancers/Dynamic Forms Inc.'s Schools Partnership Program for NYC Department of Education Partnerships

Mark DeGarmo & Dancers/Dynamic Forms Inc.
107 Suffolk Street, Suite 310
New York, NY 10002
t: 212-375-9214
f: 212-375-9216
markdegarmodance@aol.com

NYC DOE Vendor Code #DYN041000
NYC DOE Contract #6142388

CORE BELIEFS
We are committed to a comprehensive arts and dance education that is learner-centered and inquiry-based.

We believe that a Comprehensive Arts and Dance Education includes:

Skills-based Learning in the arts and dance

Arts- and Dance-integrated Connections to other areas of the curriculum

Aesthetic Education to develop core competencies of imagination, reflection, description, analysis, and interpretation.

CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
We are co-learners in and with your learning community.

The Content and Process of Curriculum and Instruction are:

Grounded in the National and New York State Learning Standards for: Dance; English Language Arts; Social Studies; Mathematics, Science, and Technology; Health, Physical Education and Family and Consumer Sciences; Music, Theater, and Visual Arts.

Designed through collaborative backward-planning processes. We begin by asking: What do we want students to know, understand, and be able to do by the end of the program? How do we know (what is our "eloquent evidence") that students are learning?

Supported by research recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Lifelong learning is an integral part of reflective professional practice.

Professional Development for teachers, educational paraprofessionals, administrators, and staff includes:

Participating in planning, reflection, assessment, and evaluation sessions with experienced MDD/DF teaching artists and supervisors.

Co-teaching arts and dance lessons.

Transferring skills learned while working with teaching artists to other curricula areas and classroom contexts.

Understanding the New York City Department of Education's Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts: Dance, Grades PreK-12. This document provides a framework for organizing further professional development in the arts and dance for school personnel.

Developing a series of in-house professional development workshops to deepen the peer-to-peer learning and mentoring processes embedded within our partnership.

PARENTS AS ARTS PARTNERS
We co-facilitate partnership participation and leadership opportunities for the parent community.

Parent Participation includes:

Volunteering

Participating in workshops

Serving on the partnership's steering committee and project team

Attending as active and informed audience members for their children's culminating Sharing events

Advocating for their children's subsequent engagement in the arts.

ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
We integrate assessment and evaluation theory, design, methods, and practice into all of our partnership programs.

Assessment and Evaluation include:

Self-reflection demonstrated through students' arts and dance portfolios, including dance journals with written and visual arts entries. Other portfolio elements include rubrics, drafts, published writing, poetry, graphic organizers, mind maps, word notation, critical essays, press releases, and thank you letters.

Self-assessment of participation in movement experiences which provides students with on-going opportunities to deepen self-awareness and understand how individual actions affect group experiences and outcomes.

Video assessment of dance lesson process, content, and culminating events to provide students and teachers with multiple perspectives on accomplishment of behavioral and skills-based goals and objectives for the arts and dance program.

Preprogram planning, midprogram assessment, and postprogram evaluation meetings are 2-hour meetings involving the entire project team.

PARTNERSHIP ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Differentiated and distributed roles and responsibilities develop leadership capacities for all members of a partnership learning community.

MDDF Administrative and Artistic Staff Members will:

Plan

Implement

Assess, Evaluate, and Sustain our partnership in collaboration with you.

STUDENTS will:

Learn academic standards through arts and dance activities

Connect what they learn and understand in arts and dance to other content areas

Apply knowledge to successfully participate in teaching artist-facilitated activities

Discuss the elements of dance: time, space, energy, and relationship;

Show understanding of dance and creativity by participating and contributing to positive dynamics of small group creativity

Demonstrate learning, citizenship, and civic responsibility in a community of learners by collaboratively planning and participating in culminating events for the school community

Reflect on experiences to broaden and deepen knowledge and understanding

Create meaning for themselves through reflection on their experiences

Become skilled in using different learning modalities

Learn how to learn

Gain knowledge about self and peers through positive, interactive, creative, and fun activities in the arts and dance.

TEACHERS will:

Co-plan and Participate in the curriculum, specially designed for their students, with our teaching artists

Model co-learning in the dance lessons

Reflect with students, after each session, on what they did and how they felt through class discussion and by modeling creative writing process in dance journals

Maintain arts and dance word walls

Display student work on bulletin boards and in other published forums

Integrate arts and dance content and process into their curriculum

Assess and Evaluate students' and their own learning

Record preliminary and on-going student reflective responses

Discuss with students that the creative process is not achieved alone, but as part of a group and social context.

SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS will:

Establish a Partnership Co-Director to act as liaison.

Support teachers by scheduling curriculum development meetings. We recommend a 2-hour curriculum development meeting (minimum), including all teachers, educational paraprofessionals, and teaching artists before the teaching artists' lessons with students begin.

Encourage partnership between teaching artists and teachers by arranging teaching artist "office hours" on each day the teaching artist is at school.

Insure adequate space as established by The National Arts Standards for Teaching and Learning in Dance and the New York City Department of Education Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in The Arts: Dance, PreK-12.

Provide a CD player with adequate sound quality and volume for use by teaching artists while at school and for teachers and students when working on dance assignments.

Invite parents to be arts partners by sending home invitations to volunteer, attend culminating events, and develop Parents as Arts Partners programs with us.

Participate in partnership planning, implementation, assessment, and evaluation.

SCHOOL STAFF will:

Participate fully as part of the partnership.

Support, Facilitate, and Attend partnership activities.

Encourage student, teacher, and parent participation in all aspects of the partnership.

CHECKLIST OF MATERIALS & SUPPLIES FOR SCHOOLS TO PROVIDE:
Arts and dance-based partnership processes stimulate new ideas for how to use and reuse materials and resources.

PLANNING PROCESS:

Curriculum Overview and Outline of Annual Scheduled Activities in other curricular areas to share with teaching artists.

School Calendar and Teachers' Prep Schedules

Sign-up Sheets to reserve the auditorium or other common spaces for teaching artist workshops

Class Lists of students in each class

Letter Sent Home announcing the program, requesting parent volunteers, and attendance at sharing events and culminating programs

PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION:

Arts and Dance Journals that are bound with each entry dated.

Word Walls including glossary with word definitions in each classroom for students to use in their writing process.

Flip Chart and Markers

CD-tape Player and CDs-tapes of a variety of musical forms and genres for follow-up activities for each class.

Assessment and Evaluation Rubrics, Questionnaires, and Checklists co-developed or adapted, as needed to assess student learning.

Portfolios (file folders) to collect each student's work in various stages of editing, revision, and final version in order to document student learning and progress.

LIBRARY RESOURCES:

Dance Videos of dance and cultural masterworks for students and teachers to use in their program of study and research.

Dance-based Literature for age-appropriate resources, research projects, and further studies (refer to the NYC DOE Dance Blueprint for recommended list).

ARTIFACTS AND SKILLS RESULTING FROM PARTNERSHIP (partial list; see "Evaluation Findings")
Teachers can continue to apply the arts-based content and process of the partnership in other curriculum areas.

Word Walls and Arts and Dance Resource Centers in each classroom can include: vocabulary; glossary with definitions; websites; movement and dance photos, forms, and images; videos; articles; books; CDs and audio tapes; and visual art.

Mind Maps, Graphic Organizers, and Videotaped Documentation which track student ideas, insight, and dance-skill development over the course of the residency and beyond.

Bulletin Boards changed during the program to display each class's published writing, visual arts, and other interdisciplinary connections.

Student Achievement Rubric in large, poster board format as defined by teachers and teaching artists and developed for each unit of study.

Student Portfolios of Writing Process which provide evaluative data, including double-entry journals. Other data include: drafts, published writing, poetry, graphic organizers, mind maps, word notation, critical essays, press releases, and thank you letters.

Arts and Dance Resources in the Library, which students and teachers can use as resources and inspiration.

Backward Interdisciplinary Planning for a unit that is centered around arts and dance experiences, and could be applied to other areas of curriculum.

Small Group Work is part of developing interpersonal skills and is supported by action and activity-based constructivist learning theory. Cooperative learning is central to dance and creative movement skills, content area, and creative processes.