BOOST Video Series
Try these in your classrooms!
From the beginning, The Castle was designed to support teachers in their efforts to create energizing, meaningful, authentic and productive learning spaces for their students. We know how stressful and chaotic the pandemic has been, for you and your students. We wanted to find a way to make it a little less so, so we contracted three teaching artists to develop the BOOST: Energizing the COVID classroom video series just for you. Each video is designed to be as adaptable as possible to your individual teaching needs (even as we, fingers crossed!, start to see the light at the end of the tunnel) and include concrete strategies and moments of reflection for teachers as well as mini-lessons that can be shared directly with students. Our hope, in making this series, is that you’ll find a few quick takeaways that you can try out in your classrooms (or virtually) to boost student morale, engagement and enthusiasm. We send our deepest thanks to the Indiana Arts Commission/Arts Illiana for their generous funding that has made this series possible.
The series includes:
Arts Integration and Creative Movement (grades K-2)
Arts Integration and Creative Movement (grades 3-6)
Arts Integration and Creative Movement (grades 7-12)
Created by Jessica DiLorenzo, who has been working with our teacher cohort this year. Everyone loved her joyful energy so much that we wanted to bring it to all teachers in Putnam County. These videos—targeted specifically to the given grade levels—model sample activities and help teachers consider how to frame them as both stand-alone energy boosters and science curriculum enhancers.
Integrating Art into your Math Course
Created by Geoff Krall, this video is aimed at math teachers K-12. Lucid and dynamic, Geoff briefly describes the benefits of integrating art into math courses, then dives into several sample projects to make it all come to life.
Engaging Student Voice in the Classroom through Music and Arts
Created by Martin Urbach, who we discovered through a recent feature piece on NPR, this video delves into the theory of participatory learning and describes a number of strategies that can be used with students K-12 to open up spaces for student voice, particularly in these tumultuous times. It is slightly more geared towards older students.
We hope you will enjoy these videos! We would love to hear your feedback, and have created a survey that can be used towards PGP points in the form of a certificate of completion.
Bios of teaching artists:
Jessica DiLorenzo holds a Masters in Elementary Education as well as a Bachelors in Psychology and Theater Arts from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Additionally, Jessica has been a creative mover her whole life, and she has dedicated over 500 hours to mindfulness and yoga training. She has been joyfully integrating the arts and facilitating project based learning in elementary school classrooms since 2006, and she’s led professional development workshops for teachers and school leaders since 2013. In 2019, she received an award for Leadership in Arts Education from The Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County. She is the Arts Integration and Social Emotional Learning Specialist for Any Given Child Sarasota, a national consultant, and a coach and mentor to educators, teaching artists and leaders across the nation. Visit www.wholehearted.education to learn more.
Geoff Krall is an experienced educator, blogger, author, speaker, professional developer, student, and mathematician. He taught math in Texas for eight years before moving to Colorado to obtain a masters degree. After that, he joined the New Tech Network of schools as a Math Coach, delivering coaching, training, and professional development to teachers across the country. While there he pioneered Problem-Based Learning as the primary mode of instruction at NTN schools, training hundreds of teachers and dozens of colleagues along the way. Currently, Geoff is a PhD student at University of Wyoming for Math Education. He lives in Fort Collins with his wife, two kids, three cats, and four chickens. His first book, Necessary Conditions: Teaching Secondary Math with Academic Safety, Quality Tasks, and Effective Facilitation was published in 2018 and is currently available from Stenhouse Publishers.
Martin, pronounced mar-TEEN, Urbach is a White Latino Jewish immigrant from Bolivia. He lives in New York City and teaches music as well as coordinates the youth led restorative justice program at Harvest Collegiate High School. He has a BA in Jazz performance from the University of New Orleans, an MM in Jazz performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a teaching certificate from Brooklyn College and is currently a doctoral candidate in music education at Teachers College, Columbia University. When not teaching or playing music, Martin roasts his own coffee and looks for the best ramen in the city.