PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Training and Support
Two-way Communication
Process Skills and Practice
Real Men/Real Women
Integration Works!
Evolution
Progress
Increased Understanding
Reflection

"It's one thing to have theories, educational frameworks, and new ways of teaching," says CML President and CEO Tessa Jolls, "but it's another thing to make it work in the classroom. The first thing to recognize is that success rests on professional development."

During the three-year Project, forty-two teachers from Leo Politi Elementary School and 10 artist/educators from the Los Angeles Music Center Education Division (MCED) participated in CML's media literacy training. [Graphic: Organizational Chart] The majority of teachers have been part of the SMARTArt teaching team for at least two years, and half of the artists participated all three years. "Those who were not interested are gone," says artist Alvaro Asturias. "We are the die-hards. We feel this is valuable."

Training and Support

CML supports the teaching team with learning objectives, activity plans, vocabulary lists, and resource materials, as well as pedagogy about best practices. Media literacy coach Jeff Share, supported by Jolls, models best practices as he leads CML's large-group training workshops. In Year 3, Share also held small-group coaching sessions and conducted in-class demonstration lessons.

"All MCED artists participate in a specific training process when they begin teaching for the organization," explains Denise Grande, MCED Director of Strategic Initiatives. Artists and teachers also receive technology training from AnimAction. However, the majority of SMARTArt's schoolteachers and artists had little or no prior knowledge of either animation or media literacy.

"I knew nothing about media literacy," admits artist Andrew Grueschow. Teacher Lorena Mendoza says, "I had never heard of a media literacy program." So the challenge was not only to train adults in using media literacy inquiry to develop the four process skills of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating information, but also to show them how to teach these skills to children.

Two-way Communication

Kicking-off Year 3's professional development workshops, coach Share involves teachers and artists in a one-way and two-way communication activity. As participants chose their partners, Share projects a geometric diagram on the overhead screen in front of the room. One partner sits facing the screen. The other sits behind them facing back, holding a paper and pencil so they can draw the diagram as described to them...without asking any questions.

When the drawings are complete, Share asks people to talk about what they experienced. One of the 'senders' of the message said, "I had to repeat a lot." Another remarked, "It was frustrating. To make it clear I had to describe it in many different ways." Those 'receiving' the message complained "I missed details," or "he used terminology I didn't understand." Heads nodded in agreement when someone said, "It made me feel like a student who doesn't know what the teacher is talking about." When the exercise was repeated with questions allowed, however, the receivers' comments changed to, "it clarified everything," and "I felt I got it on the first try."

Share sums up the lesson: "If people ask questions it helps them solve problems more easily." Understanding this concept is fundamental to media literacy's instructional model. When educators move away from being the traditional information provider to becoming a facilitator, "the more kids get experiences in asking questions; the more we're moving to two-way communication in classes," says Share.

Process Skills and Practice

Because media literacy is about learning process skills rather than content, "it's not facts you cover in one session and move on," Jolls says. "It's like learning how to swim; it's something that has to be practiced again and again over time." Both the large-group workshops and direct coaching sessions are rigorous, giving the teaching team plenty of practice in thinking critically about media messages and in planning standards-based, integrated activities for their classrooms.

Real Men/Real Women

All of the professional development workshop activities can be replicated in the classroom. For instance, when discussing Key Concept #4 Media have embedded values and points of view, Share talks about the way mass media "normalizes the invisible dominant culture." Then he asks the teaching team, "What images of men and women do mainstream media most often show?" From stacks of magazines and newspapers, the educators cut out male and female images and pin them onto two large poster boards.

The class looks at and discusses the photographic techniques (lighting, camera angles, and more) that alter the perceived "reality." They compare the magazine images to real men and women they know, and engage in a conversation about what certain images represent and how they make them feel. Emotions influenced by mass media "are not irrelevant," Share says. "When images of beautiful men and women make people feel inadequate those feelings can be internalized."

"With the CML MediaLit Kit™ we try to push it beyond just cognitive skills, and ask questions that also have social implications, like asking about values, asking about point of view," says Share. "The whole point of those questions is to get students to reflect on things that most people in society today don't think about."

Integration Works!

In the series of Year 3 workshops, activities such as Real Men/Real Women are followed by one of the MCED artists conducting a teacher in-service. For instance, Grueschow demonstrated a media literacy lesson he uses in the classroom to teach how music affects moods. By the final workshop session, artists have shared lessons in each of the four visual and performing arts disciplines: dance, theatre (storytelling), music, and visual art.

After each artist in-service, Project educators form small teams, grouped by grade level, and brainstorm ways to integrate instructional standards. They tie in the media literacy standards specified in the McRel K-12 Language Arts Benchmarks for "Viewing" and "Media" with California State Standards in the Visual and Performing Arts. Connections to other academic subjects also are considered. In Year 3, the state English Language Development standards were included in the mix. It sounds complex, but as artist Danzig points out, "we've been in training for so long we have a lot of ideas on how to incorporate it."

"We see the ability of the teachers and teaching artists to be able to integrate these standards into a lesson plan within about 30 minutes as the culmination of the training they received. It was really exciting to know that this task was indeed possible," Jeff Share noted. Even so, Asturias says, "it was amazing to me how easy it was for everyone to weave in all these things together and realize all that they have in common. It's a big jump that everybody as a group has made, but it's taken a lot of work over the past three years," he says. "Even last year, we were still figuring out what we needed to do."

Evolution

It took time to determine the amount of training teachers would need to learn and reinforce new skills. After the first year, it was clear two days wasn't enough. "It was tough," remembers teacher Steve Schullo, "because you really have to stretch your style to think of alternate ways of teaching." Teacher Ralph Sanders recalls, "it felt disjointed." Jolls admits, "In the first year we didn't have a consistent framework. We had the five concepts but we hadn't articulated it into our expression of what questions to ask." [Graphic: Evolution Chart]

In Year 2, the CML MediaLit Kit™, co-developed by CML Founder and Chair Elizabeth Thoman and Jolls, was introduced. Coach Share thinks the development of the five key questions and core concepts is "a great stepping stone, a framework letting the teachers see, 'I can do this.'"

"The framework provides the key integration piece for pulling together the different curricular areas as well as the arts," Jolls says. "It's the intellectual glue that holds it all together."

The number of large-group workshops in Year 2 increased to three days, with a one-day coaching session. Because of the school's alternating track schedules [Graphic: Muti-Track Scheduling Chart], a one-day New Teacher/Artist Workshop was added for people joining the group later. Monthly meetings among artists and teachers also were established to allow more time for them to collaborate on classroom activities. At the end of the second year, two days were set aside for the teaching team to plan Project curricula for the following year.

By Year 3, SMARTArt's professional development workshops increased to four days, with six coaching sessions and monthly after-school meetings. Additionally, coach Share provided targeted professional development by visiting individual classrooms two days a month to demonstrate media literacy lessons. He feels the in-class coaching "helps teachers see what media literacy looks like in action, and gives them ideas and direction to see how they can integrate it with the curricula."

Jolls notes that Project educators "said it was so helpful to have Jeff come and demonstrate lessons, to show them and work with them. I think the level of support they got this year made a tremendous difference."

Progress

At the beginning of Year 3, teacher Ralph Sanders says, "now that I have a better understanding I feel it will be more cohesive and I'll get things to flow a lot better." Teacher Lorenza Yarnes, who works on a different track session and was already well into the academic year relates, "now I am using the media literacy questions and concepts more intuitively in all instruction."

Across the board, artists and teachers acknowledge that media literacy training has benefited them both personally and professionally. Artist Grueschow says, "it helped me grow a lot," and artist Asturias asserts, "it adds an essential layer to what I do." Bonnie Blitzstein says, "as a teacher it has really helped me. I have been able to give my students things I wouldn't have before because I didn't even know about it." Teacher Mendoza agrees. "Learning how to apply this and put it into work with the kids made me develop." Mendoza also admits it made her more aware that "with the current focus only on traditional academic subjects, we're forgetting all the other subjects children can benefit from if we learn to integrate it."

Increased Understanding

The SMARTArt professional development sessions also raised awareness among school and District administrators. Luiz Sampaio, Arts Education Advisor for LAUSD Local District 4, explains how the workshops helped him understand media literacy. "When I saw it on paper it gave me a sense of it," but he didn't fully comprehend it he says, "until I actually attended some of the trainings and had the hands-on experiences with the activities that you can replicate in the classroom. I think that's really powerful and an essential integration piece when pulling various curricular areas together."

Increased understanding among administrators has led to presentations about SMARTArt at a faculty meeting and at two professional development "Buy Back" days at Leo Politi Elementary School. Other efforts have been undertaken, as well, to help sustain the program. Representatives from Leo Politi Elementary School, Berendo Middle School, and Belmont High School met to discuss establishing a K-12 media literacy strand, since these schools reach many of the same children through their academic careers. Also, administrators who report directly to Richard Alonzo, Superintendent of Subdistrict 4, received a one-day training in media literacy, and the LAUSD Arts Branch has now established media arts as a separate discipline to be addressed throughout the district. These efforts all reinforce the use of a common framework, which allows for a common vocabulary and approach for teaching and learning.

Reflection

Reflecting on the rich learning that takes place when teachers and artists work together to develop and deliver instruction, artist/educator Amy Santo admits, "it takes a lot of planning time with teachers. This Project is really asking everyone to stretch," she says. "It's been a real collaboration."

The students benefit in more ways than one. According to Asturias, an artist/educator who worked on the Project all three years, the children "are becoming more inquisitive and more intelligent when they look at media." He also points out that "it's really good for them to see all these different people working together to achieve some kind of goal. That it's not just their teachers but also media literacy professionals who come and do different things with them, and artists who come, and we all work on this Project.

"It sets an example," says Asturias. "You know we say many things but it's what we do that really counts."