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FAST FACTS
Location
[Graphic: Muti-Track
Scheduling]
Leo Politi Elementary School, Los Angeles, CA (a multi-track, year-round
school) Local District 4, Los Angeles Unified School District
Duration [Graphic:
Evolution Chart]
Three years (FY2001-2004)
Grade Levels Served
K-5
Student Population Served
- 96.4% Hispanic;
0.2% Al/Alsk; 2.5% Asian; 0.6% Black; 0.3% White
- 83% qualify for
Title I funding
- 95% enrolled
in the Free or Reduced Lunch Program
- 80% Limited English
Proficient. The majority of students' parents are recent immigrants
to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America.
- Total # of Students:
850
- Total # of Teachers
Participating: 25 (of 60 total teachers at Leo Politi)
- Total # of Artist/Educators:
10 (6-7 each year)
Content Areas
- Media Literacy
(critical thinking, viewing and creating media) integrated into other
subjects,
with emphasis on Language Arts (reading, writing, speaking,
listening).
- Four Visual and
Performing Arts Disciplines: Dance, Theatre (storytelling), Music,
and Visual Art
- Technology:
Animation
Instructional Standards
- McRel K-12 Language
Arts with Benchmarks for "Viewing" and "Media"
- California Visual
and Performing Arts (VAPA)
- California History-Social
Science
- California English
Language Development (added Year 3)
Professional Development
The SMARTArt teaching team, comprised of participating
K-5 teachers at Leo Politi Elementary School and MCED artist/educators,
received in-service training and coaching in:
- Media Literacy
- Cross-curricular
integration of standards-based Media Literacy, Visual and Performing
Arts, and Language Arts. Year 3 included English Language Development
standards.
- Animation techniques
and production
Underlying Educational
Pedagogy
Project SMARTArt's media literacy instruction for teachers, artists, and
students is based on developing and strengthening the thinking process
abilities to access, analyze, evaluate, and create information. These
basic process skills are derived from the four steps of awareness, analyses,
reflection, and action, outlined in The Empowerment Spiral. The Spiral
model, also called "action learning," incorporates such theoretical approaches
as experiential education, constructivist learning, critical thinking,
and communication pedagogy.
SMARTArt's integrated
media literacy, arts, and technology curriculum is taught simultaneously
with traditional academic content. Structured on a framework comprised
of the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions in the
CML MediaLit Kit™,[4] the Project uses an "inquiry
process" teaching approach. (Key Questions to Guide Young Children,
based on the Five Key Questions, were used to reach these elementary
school students.) The process involves students in media analysis and
production to help them build and apply critical thinking competencies.
Described in Bloom's Taxonomy, such competencies include: knowledge,
analysis, comprehension, application, synthesis and evaluation (outlined
at http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/guides/bloom1.html).
Learning objectives also include the thinking standards of California
State University at Sonoma's Critical Thinking Consortium, described
at http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/ourConceptCT.shtml.
Project activities in the classroom encourage children to learn and
express themselves through multiple intelligences, as defined in Howard
Gardner's Frames of Mind. Classroom teaching strategies, modeled in
the SMARTArt professional development workshops, are based on the "best
practices" defined in Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and
Learning in America's Schools, Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde; and in "The
Foxfire Approach: Perspectives and Core Practices, Spring/Summer 1990
(http://www.foxfire.org).
Participating Partners [Graphic:
Organizational Chart]
- Leo Politi Elementary
School, Los Angeles, CA
- Los Angeles Unified
School District (LAUSD), Local District 4 (lead education agency)
- Center for Media
Literacy, Santa Monica, CA (CML)
- Los Angeles Music
Center Education Division (MCED)
- AnimAction, Inc.,
Hollywood, CA
Funding Mechanisms
- One of 17 media
literacy demonstration grants funded in FY2001 by: U.S. Department
of Education, and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
- In-kind contributions
from Participating Partners
Budget:
- FY2001: $127,000
- FY2002: $147,000
- FY2003: $162,000
- In-kind Contributions:
$639,000
* * * * * * * *
[4] Core Concepts
and Key Questions, CML MediaLit Kit™ Orientation Guide, pp. 9 to 14.
"Questions to Guide Young Children" and "Expanded Questions" for deeper
inquiry, p. 22-23. Free download at www.medialit.org/pdf/mlk_orientationguide.pdf.
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