ISEEK Solutions
Minnesota Learning Innovations Council
Project Proposal Form
All proposals to the Minnesota Learning Innovations Council should provide clear evidence that they meet
the following principles:
1. They have an educational focus.
2. They serve a well-defined need in the state and have a potential statewide impact.
3. Applicants are part of a partner organization.
4. Two or more partner organizations or members of partner organizations must collaborate on the
proposal.
5. Specific deliverables that can be achieved within the requested budget are clearly defined.
Proposals will not be considered that do not use the project proposal form below, which was approved by
the Minnesota Learning Innovations Council.
Please submit your proposal using this template (font, size etc.):
iSeek Solutions
Minnesota Learning Innovations Council
Project Name
Artful Online Learning Object Development and Dissemination Project (Phase I - Dance and
Reflective Practice)
Project Description
Project scope/description/executive summary:
Artful Online, a partnership between the Perpich Center for Arts Education (Perpich Center) and Minneapolis
Public Schools Online Professional Development (MPS OPD), seeks to retrofit existing arts professional
development learning objects for a P-16 audience and then disseminate this work through the Minnesota
Digital Commons—resulting in a unique and dynamic resource of professional development material directly
linked to corresponding student curriculum in dance, a discipline not widely available in many K-12 schools
around Minnesota.
For years the Perpich Center has been at the forefront in shaping collaborative work in arts education,
providing continuous funding, visibility, and strategic support for arts-based education reform efforts in
Minnesota. With federal, state and private foundation funding, the Perpich Center has engaged in research
and development of three specific technology-based projects: 1) Artful Online, 2) long distance learning
courses and workshops utilizing the Desire2Learn (D2L) online learning platform, and 3) video conferencing.
Artful Online proposes retrofitting these three technology-based resources to provide content and guided
practice in reflective/assessment tools in a way that provides direct access for both students and teachers.
Under the leadership of Barbara Cox, Arts Education Partnership Coordinator at the Perpich Center, Artful
Online currently offers blended online access to a unique collection of arts education resources that support
teaching, learning, and facilitating with a variety of components, including research-based tools and
strategies, and real world video and audio clips. These resources have a particular emphasis on reflective
practice in and through the arts. While Artful Online works in a number of arts education contexts, the
Perpich Center has taken advantage of it to develop a growing repository of dance curriculum and tools.
A partnership between the Southern Theater in Minneapolis and the Perpich Center has grown under the
leadership of Diane Aldis, Dance Education Coordinator at the Perpich Center. Video exemplars of dance
work in the current Artful Online “Elements of Dance” module feature work by outstanding Minnesota
choreographers and dancers recognized through the McKnight Foundation Fellowships, as well as work by
dance artists affiliated with the Southern Theater. Through the Perpich Center’s partnership with Bemidji
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State University, online arts courses for educators are being piloted throughout the state using the D2L
platform such as Diane Aldis’ “The Elements of Dance” course.
There is an identifiable need to broaden the audience for this existing work in dance content and in reflective
practice—both for Minnesota students and teachers who do not have access to dance instruction in their
schools and for educators who often do not have the opportunity to engage in meaningful, job-embedded
professional development that can be directly tied to student learning in the classroom. Research supports
reflective practice as being hugely beneficial to educators, but finding the time to do so is difficult. Guided
practice in a project like this is integral in developing teacher expertise in new areas such as reflective
practice and dance.
The proposed project takes advantage of an emerging partnership with two teachers and a classroom of
seventh grade students at Ellis Middle School in Austin, MN. Together with staff at the Perpich Center and
MPS OPD, teachers and students would interact with specific dance learning objects (including short video
clips of professional dancers to be further developed in partnership with the Southern Theater) and various
reflective tools that are located on Artful Online. Project staff will organize this material using both D2L and
Pachyderm, and they will video conference to reinforce and augment their work together.
Seventh graders at Ellis Middle School in Austin study global cultures through the fine arts in a semesterlong Art Ex (Art Experience) course. Until now, the course has focused on music and visual art. The class is
jointly taught by Lisa Tollef-Larson and Connie Nelson who have both been involved in past Perpich Center
programs such as Comprehensive Arts Planning Program (CAPP). Both teachers have accessed other
resources at the Perpich Center such as the Multi-Cultural Voices (MCV) library resources, and they recently
asked for help in developing a dance component for their Art Ex course. In preliminary discussion, Perpich
Center staff and Austin educators have agreed that this would be an excellent pilot model for distance
learning in both dance and guided reflective practice. Barbara Cox and Diane Aldis will continue planning
with the teachers in person, via phone, email, and video conferencing. A key common goal is to demonstrate
that seventh graders can meet part of the dance standard through a blended distance learning project using
synchronous and asynchronous delivery. The proposed project presents a potentially more cost-effective
way to support educators in greater Minnesota as they work to align their curriculum with the Minnesota
Academic Standards.
The course also provides a vehicle for teaching and learning multicultural curriculum in an intentional way at
a Middle School level. Teaching in the arts engages students in other content areas such as social studies
and the development of a more inclusive curriculum. Cultural understanding is a key component of
understanding dance as a discipline and as a practice. In the proposed model, teachers and students learn
alongside each other, developing their own reflective practices as a means to develop their critical thinking
skills and deepen their understanding of the content.
Benefits and risks to the institution:
Benefits:
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Meets the need of professionals who request student curriculum that corresponds to the rich adult
education curriculum they are currently accessing through Artful Online.
Offers the opportunity for the Perpich and MPS OPD to better understand how to deliver effective
job-embedded professional development to its many educators. What works? What is replicable
and scalable?
Artful Online has a long solid history beginning in 2002 with LessonLab, a proprietary software
platform for lesson analysis. Artful Online is well underway in figuring out a plan around
metatagging, attribution, and permissions. Retrofitting is merely adding to what already exists and
documenting alignment to the standards.
Artful Online’s “Elements of Dance” is a strong example of curriculum focused on analysis and
interpretation of the state arts standards. This new opportunity will allow the Perpich to develop
additional artifacts and tools for student work in the around creating and performing in dance.
Offers the opportunity for two educational institutions to expand and develop partnerships with a
community arts organization, the Southern Theater. This broadens the number of stakeholders who
understand what it takes to improve student achievement in and through the arts in Minnesota.
Risks:
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No one will use the resource.
Technology barriers or inadequate/uneven infrastructure may impede online access and
videoconferencing.
Under-qualified people will teach the proposed course or not understand what kind of support
learners need.
Misunderstandings about the arts standards could result in gaps in student learning.
Benefits and risks to state:
Benefits:
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The proposed project contributes towards the common good by making readily available statewide
effective tools and strategies for reflective practice via a delivery system that shows what these
tools actually look like in action.
Proposed pilot course offers dance, a discipline to which many K-12 students and teachers do not
have access. This makes it possible for people working in many different disciplines to make
interdisciplinary connections to dance.
Risks:
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No one will use the resource.
Technology barriers or inadequate/uneven infrastructure may impede online access and
videoconferencing.
Misunderstandings about the arts standards could result in gaps in student learning
Affected constituent group(s) and departments (number, type)
Southern Theater; Minneapolis, Minnesota
Ellis Middle School; Austin, Minnesota
Bemidji State University; Bemidji, Minnesota
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities; Statewide, Minnesota
Additional Independent Teaching Artists; Statewide, Minnesota
Institutional policy and/or political implications:
Perpich Center’s mission is to improve K–12 education for all Minnesota students and educators through
innovative programs and partnerships centered in the arts. The Professional Development and Research
division is a statewide network of teachers, teaching artists and administrators in schools and arts
organizations throughout Minnesota focused on the improvement of teaching and learning in and through
the arts. It is anticipated that additional Perpich Center and MPS OPD work in subsequent years will benefit
the Minnesota Digital Commons.
Identify related dependences on systems:
Artful Online is dependent on funding from the Perpich Center and leadership, expertise and guidance from
Perpich Center staff. The Perpich Center is a state agency funded through an allocation from the Minnesota
State Legislature. Technical support, expertise, and infrastructure come from the MPS OPD department.
The dance learning objects are dependent on the online video library of the Southern Theater and Artful
Online.
Project Timeline
Current status of project:
Artful Online, D2L, and the video conferencing projects are current initiatives of the Perpich Center, funded
annually on a project-by-project basis. Artful Online has a funded work period in effect through June 2008.
Many of the learning objects are currently housed in Artful Online. Perpich Center has committed staff time
(Diane Aldis and Barbara Cox) and contracted consultants (Lisa Maren Thompson, Becca Barniskis) for
additional expertise and support for these initiatives. Barbara Cox and Renee Jesness work specifically in
collaboration on the Artful Online project. Delivery of professional development is currently distributed
through Artful Online and 3 D2L courses. We have just begun testing our video conferencing and have used
it for multi-state planning meetings.
Proposed timeframe to begin and/or complete implementation of project:
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Work to begin when funding is in place.
February – April: building, development, documentation of teachers testing the work
May – July: Panel reviews, revisions
All work to be completed by August 1, 2008.
Financial Description
Estimated cost to purchase/implement project
$5,900 - Builders' contracted services through MPS
$4,000 - D2L/Pachyderm specialist time
$1250 - Travel, mileage, tangible supplies such as mini-dvd's
$4,200 - Southern Theater and Teaching Artists (limited licensing fees and contracted services)
$2,000 - 8% Administration fee
$1,400 - Extended Time for Panel Review participants
$1,500 - Videographer services
$1750 - Videoconferencing Technical Support (PCAE)
$3,000 - Project Management (Barbara Cox and Diane Aldis)
Total: $25,000
Proposed funding sources
ISEEK Grant from Council of Innovations
(Secured: Perpich Center Artful Online Encumbered Funding FY08)
ROI
Estimated cost savings or return on investment:
This collaborative work between the Perpich and MPS OPD is online, transparent, testable. Collaborating
up front and online allows for the ability for broad input, scalability and the ability to revise. Because Artful
Online has already created curriculum for adult learners, there is a substantial cost savings for retrofitting
instead of reinventing.
Locus of savings (department, college, institution-wide, state government, individual citizens):
This proposal makes responsible use of state government allocations in a cost-efficient manner. Learning objects can
be used in multiple ways for many different audiences – classroom teachers, pre-service teachers, K-16 students,
college faculty, and administrators, for example. The learning objects would remain available for new use in future
projects, such as the cross-institutional dance licensure currently in development by Diane Aldis and Mankato State
University, Saint Olaf College, the University of Minnesota, and Hamline University,
Other non-financial returns:
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Broad accessibility: parity of access to dance curriculum (professional development tied to student
curriculum) across the state
Dynamic, transparent, real-world model of how to conduct job-embedded professional development for
educators
This work will affect the many other standards based professional development programs that the Perpich
Center offers to teachers and students across the state
Strengthening existing partnerships and creating new ones
Level of confidence in funding and savings estimates
Based on our prior work together: planning, building, and reflecting on a regular basis over the past two
years, we are very confident about the work ahead. We have a schedule for regular meetings and a timeline
for the work with Ellis Middle School. Through our past collaboration, we have developed the skills
necessary to facilitate productive meetings and work sessions. This project offers content for a portion of
the Minnesota Digital Commons with the potential to generate additional content as Perpich Center and
MPS OPD continue to develop content for professional development.
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Factors that might influence accuracy of estimates
Content already exists and has been used with adult teacher professional learners. Retrofitting to a P-16
learner and any complications arising from this will affect the accuracy. The commitment from partners to
work collaboratively could lead to mid-course adjustments of budgets and/or duties so as to more
successfully complete the project.
How will ongoing funding/maintenance be funded?
The Perpich is in the process of researching potential funders including a federal Department of Education
grant opportunity, for example. The Perpich is also investigating the possibility of creating a full-time
position to continue this work. This initiative will be part of other grants for which Minneapolis Public Schools
has applied. MPS Online has built an online digital arts course and an arts history course.
Identify marketing plans
Minnesota Digital Commons and peer coaches and program staff of the Perpich Center for Arts Education
Description of Outcomes
What are the expected results?
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A specific school community (Ellis Middle School) will have access to more resources and
strategies for its students and its teachers to learn and think critically in and through the arts.
PCAE and MPS OPD will have more data on how to retrofit other existing resources—how can we
apply what we know to other learning objects.
Learning Objects for students retrofitted from existing exemplars for adult learners.
Expanded work with contributing partners like the Southern Theater, which means stronger links
between Minnesota’s arts community and its arts education institutions.
What will ISEEK have in the end?
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ISEEK will have dance learning objects for students that are tied with parallel learning objects for
educators.
ISEEK will have a model for developing existing learning objects from Artful Online in both D2L and
Pachyderm.
And a model for partnerships and licensing fees between educational institutions and arts
organizations.
Key Leaders/Drivers
Sponsors: Dr. Renee Jesness, Director of Online Professional Development department of the Minneapolis
Public Schools
Requestors: Artful Online
Project managers: Barbara Cox and Diane Aldis (PCAE)
Business contacts: Michael Hiatt, Director of Professional Development (PCAE)
Debra Ambright, Finance Director (PCAE)
Expectations from ISEEK
Endorsement – And Promotion of Content Contributions
Coordination – N/A
Staff time – N/A
Cash - $25,000
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Other Factors to Be Considered
Expertise in creating objects in Pachyderm, D2L, and potentially LodeStar is included in the request above. $4,000
for professional consultant services.
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Project Proposal Process for the Minnesota Learning Innovations
Council
1) ISEEK Solutions allocates annual budget to the Minnesota Learning Innovations Council
2) Complete the “Project Proposal Description Form” and submit to the Minnesota Learning
Innovations Council. The project description will define the scope, projected costs,
resources, timelines, milestones, deliverables, and suggested project leaders.
3) Minnesota Learning Innovations Council approves proposals.
4) Project Manager (identified in the approved proposal) and their team develops the project
plan under the direction of the Minnesota Learning Innovations Council. Timelines,
including milestones, development, deliverables, and resource allocation are reported to
the Minnesota Learning Innovations Council.
5) Regular monthly updates are given to the Council on project status.
6) Council informs the ISEEK Solutions Board on the status of project implementation
quarterly.
7) Final report showing timelines, including milestones, development, deliverables, and
resource allocation is presented to the Executive ISEEK Solutions Board within one
month of completion.
3/10/05 Approved
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