{"id":32574,"date":"2020-08-18T14:30:18","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T18:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/?p=32574"},"modified":"2020-09-25T09:18:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T13:18:00","slug":"summer-residency-gets-teachers-singing-dancing-onscreen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/2020\/08\/summer-residency-gets-teachers-singing-dancing-onscreen\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer residency gets teachers singing, dancing onscreen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Clockwise from upper left, teacher Krista Pruett, musicians Staci Spring and Rick Rushing and teacher Nedra Moody participated in a summer residency program through UTC\u2019s Arts-Based Collaborative and the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

UTC\u2019s Arts-Based Collaborative (ABC), made history last year<\/a> when it became the first higher-education program to collaborate with the national Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts<\/a>, bringing arts-based teaching and learning to early childhood classrooms in the Chattanooga region.<\/p>\n

As a Wolf Trap affiliate, ABC\u2014formerly Southeast Center for Education in the Arts\u2014hosts residencies for local early childhood teachers. Through the residencies, local artists work in the classroom alongside teachers to introduce new ways of integrating the arts into their curriculum and help children develop a love of learning and the performing arts as well as the skills to pursue both.<\/p>\n

This summer\u2019s residency has a new look in response to COVID-19. Supported with a grant from the Weldon F. Osborne Foundation<\/a>, the summer residency went online to partner with the Chattanooga Head Start and Early Head Start program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Artists working with teachers from the Early Head Start locations include five musicians and one drama artist. They are paired with teachers from four classrooms, all at different Chattanooga Early Head Start locations: Avondale, Cedar Hill, Youth and Family Development Center and Daisy Early Head Start.<\/p>\n

Engaging children with multiple sensory activities sets them up for a stronger future, explained Angela Dittmar<\/a>, director of teaching artists residencies for ABC.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are nuanced and there\u2019s multiple forms of intelligence that blossom as a child grows. Children learn in different styles and the arts help infuse a curriculum with multiple ways of engaging, especially the children who might get misunderstood, those who need tactile engagement, those who need to move more,\u201d Dittmar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of dancers, who we celebrate. Those people are kinetic learners. They need to move and as children they probably showed that. We need to be able to engage children through multiple sensory engagements and strategy so that those skills are strengthened and nurtured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping in touch<\/h4>\n

Nedra Moody and Krista Pruett share a classroom of students at Chattanooga Head Start\u2019s Avondale location. They\u2019ve been with the same group of two-year-old students since the toddlers were nine months old.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re supposed to have them for three years, just to get that family connection. We\u2019ve definitely connected and love those kids,\u201d Pruett said.<\/p>\n

Since their center closed for in-person care in mid-March due to the coronavirus, Moody and Pruett have maintained those connections online. Through Facetime and over Zoom, they\u2019ve read books, sang songs and talked with their kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so excited when they see us. They want \u2018Pruett and Moody,\u2019\u201d Pruett laughed. \u201cEven at the beginning, they were holding their phone and walking around their house showing us stuff. I had one who went all of the way outside to the garden to show me what they were growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For their summer residency, Moody and Pruett started working with local musicians Staci Spring and Rick Rushing with sessions over Zoom, learning new ways to implement music in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Spring, a bassoonist, and Rushing, a blues musician, introduced new songs for welcoming students to class, songs to ease transitions to new activities throughout the day and, with a nod to current times, a new handwashing song.<\/p>\n

They took it a step further and helped the teachers create music videos to use when connecting with their students virtually for now as well as \u00a0back in the classroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artists have helped us a lot to just not worry about being in front of the camera,\u201d Pruett added. \u201cIt\u2019s for the kids. It doesn\u2019t matter what I sound like. They love it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fun & Learning<\/h4>\n

In one video, the teachers and musicians make use of the Brady Bunch-style squares of their Zoom session to perform an introduction song. They pretend to pass an instrument through the squares to tap as they introduce themselves.<\/p>\n

In another, they perform \u201cOld McDonald Had a Farm\u201d with Spring on bassoon, Rushing on guitar and even a pet dog making an appearance. The words \u201cdog,\u201d \u201ccat\u201d and \u201ccow\u201d display on the screen with their corresponding animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the word \u2018cat\u2019 on the screen. So you\u2019re getting to see the words. You\u2019re getting to see your teacher. You\u2019re getting to hear the melody. You\u2019re getting to sing along yourself,\u201d Rushing said.<\/p>\n

With those \u201cingredients,\u201d Rushing explained, \u201cserotonin levels in the frontal lobes are all firing, and everybody is smiling. That\u2019s when you\u2019re going to be more receptive to learn and have connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing songs and making videos were tools used by all teacher-artist partnerships this summer. Using the term \u201clanguage bathing,\u201d singing those songs to help early learners transition to different activities or wash their hands, plants new words in their minds, Dittmar said.<\/p>\n

She noted that UTC Education Professor Sarah Sandefur<\/a> has shown that children growing up in poverty may understand\u00a0 three million less words less than other children. “That means just hearing words is triggering their mind and building up their synapses,” Dittmar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have families who are experiencing hardships or working multiple jobs, they\u2019re just not able to spend the day talking to their child, labeling things or giving words to expressions. I think that\u2019s a pretty profound statement and has a huge impact on their literacy development as they move up through Head Start and into kindergarten.\u201d<\/p>\n