1993. RMS supports Patterns of Thinking research from Project Zero. Research explores the affective side of thinking -- students’ attitudes and habits of mind and motivations about thinking

Fall 1995. Chris Ashley, Jim DellaCioppa, and Linda Tilden begin working on developing a project-based curriculum that connects the core concepts in art, music, and language arts. Teachers discover, through a series of activities, that the transfer of student learning across the disciplines is surprisingly poor.

Spring 1996. Chris, Jim, and Linda present their ideas and instructional plan to the Rochester School Committee. School Committee responds favorably to the proposal with a small award to help keep the work moving through the Spring.

Summer 1996. Chris, Jim, and Linda begin development of a full-scale, interdisciplinary project to cultivate transfer across art, music, and language arts.

Fall 1996. Chris, Jim, and Linda gear instruction to specifically teach for transfer. Work begins on the interdisciplinary project. Students become highly interested in the work. Jim and his students decide to focus on poetry as the context from which to cull discipline specific themes (e.g. mood, tone, rhythm, organization, etc.) Teachers videotape interviews with students as part of the evaluation process.

December 1996. 1st TTAAP project completed! 10 weeks in all! Students take their projects home. Project includes a class presentation in a bound booklet and attached cassette tape containing student poems, music compositions, and visual art works.

Winter 1997. TTAAP teachers and students present their work and projects to the parents, the school committee, superintendent and the school principal. Formal feedback collected, and response from parents and administrators is overwhelmingly positive. Parents ask how the project can expand and move into other areas such as math and science.

Summer 1997. TTAAP team submits proposal to Spencer Foundation to support the TTAAP initiative.

January 1997. TTAAP and RMS receive Spencer grant! TTAAP initiative grows by two teachers. Danni Kleiman and Joyce Bourdon join the TTAAP team. Formal investigation into how classroom teachers grow to become teacher/researchers in school settings begins.

September 1997. Jim and Danni meet with teachers and program officers from Spencer Foundation . Jim and Danni introduce and co-present reports on the TTAAP project. Presentation is well received.

October 1997. TTAAP team inserts teaching for transfer interventions into curriculum. Data collection begins. Team invited to submit a letter to Spencer to extend the project into 1999.

Read about the research.

© Rochester Memorial Elementary School. Old Rochester Regional School Department. Rochester, MA 1999.
 

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