Collaborative Receives $10,000 NEA Grant to Disseminate Its Work

The Innovation Collaborative has received an additional National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant of $10,000 during the 2019-20 school year. With this grant, it will study dissemination methods for sharing its effective practices in K-12 STEAM teacher professional development and classroom practices with the arts, STEM, and humanities fields.

With NEA support, the Collaborative has studied these effective practices for the previous 2 years. Also, with NEA support, the Collaborative, in partnership with the National Writing Project, was able to convene its Research Thought Leaders in DC to initially strategize the underpinning for this work. The Collaborative is now ready to implement these practices on a broader scale. 

To do that, it developed a model for gaining school administrative support and dissemination. It convened in Houston, TX, its Innovation Fellows, the top teachers identified in its first round of research, and partner administrators. The Fellows, who have been developed as teacher leaders, will train their administrators in the Collaborative’s Rubrics, strategies, and thinking skills. Both Fellows and administrators will then help develop strategies to study models of all virtual vs. a hybrid of in-person and virtual professional development dissemination. Fellows and administrators, along with selected other administrators, will begin dissemination on their campuses or in their districts, recruiting other teachers to participate. Through this, the Collaborative will study the most effective methods and strategies for dissemination. In the process, the Collaborative’s research-based Rubrics and strategies will be made available for the arts, STEM, and humanities fields.
​
In reflecting on this NEA grant, Collaborative Board Chair Lucinda Presley commented, “We continue to be especially grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for its support of the Collaborative’s work. It is through NEA support that the Collaborative is able to develop a strong, research-based foundation for the rapidly-growing STEAM movement.” 
​

---