CoTA’s core work involves professional development over a three-year period with every teacher in our partner schools. Each teacher is strategically paired with one of our highly-trained teaching artists. CoTA works incrementally with each classroom teacher by providing differentiated one-on-one lesson design and co-teaching over an annual ten-week period. Students receive 60 minutes per week of direct artist instruction (10 hours). Teachers receive an additional 30-45 minutes per week of training/coaching from Teaching Artists (project planning, reflections, and lesson study). CoTA’s design is built around a model of gradual release of responsibility that incrementally shifts the classroom teacher into a leadership role in the arts integration process. This individual work with teachers is complemented by whole school workshops and lesson study involving the entire staff at key points during the school year.
CoTA’s additional programming includes: Workshops, Teacher Institutes, Artist Training, and our partnership with Turnaround Arts. CoTA’s three- to five-day Teacher Institutes provide educators an opportunity to experience arts-integrated learning first hand. CoTA’s two-hour Exploratory Workshops provide training in specific art strategies that can be used in the classroom to deepen student comprehension of academic content. CoTA’s serves as a partner organization to Turnaround Arts: California, providing arts integrated learning coaching.