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MEET LSG
LilySarahGrace challenges and empowers teachers in underfunded public elementary schools to deliver best-practice instruction via Arts-Infused Inquiry-Based Learning (AIIBL). LSG awards grants to teachers to implement AIIBL projects in their classrooms.
LSG seeks to transform our public elementary schools into child-centered learning environments that meet the needs of all learners while preparing creative 21st century global citizens.
LSG is also building teacher-to-teacher professional development. We recognize teaching for the art form it truly is. We acknowledge the mastery that teachers have already achieved while inspiring them to push their craft further.
How
We do it
Grants: LSG offers two distinct funding opportunities to teachers in underfunded public elementary schools nationwide. Our grants challenge and empower teachers to deliver best-practice instruction via Arts-Infused Inquiry-Based Learning.
Information about the LSG Stepping Stone grant and Full AIIBL grant can be fund under the “Our Grants” tab.
Professional Development: The LSG PD team works directly with school leaders and teachers in planning and implementing AIIBL through custom-designed coaching and modeling in classrooms, co-planning with teams, half-day and full-day seminars, as well as multi-day institutes. Our staff tailors our curriculum to meet teachers’ needs and helps to guide them through AIIBL planning and practice through hands-on arts-integrated, inquiry-based learning experiences. Participants will leave armed with activities which can be immediately implemented in all subject areas in their classrooms.
Teachers participating in LSG PD will leave each session feeling empowered, inspired, and challenged to reach and help every learner find the success they deserve.
For inquiries on how LSG’s PD can work with you or your school, please e-mail us at PD@lsgfund.org
University Partnerships: LSG has partnered with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) to bring an introductory Arts-Infused Inquiry-Based Learning course to college freshmen. This course is unique in that it pairs UNCC students with mentor elementary school teachers to learn about AIIBL and teaching, then allows the student teachers to facilitate, plan, and implement AIIBL in the classroom.
The
Importance
Of The Arts In Education
When The Arts are used to teach a discipline, research shows children grasp a deeper understanding. For some children, the arts are absolutely essential for this is how they learn best.
Sunflowers and Starry Nights
Arts
Infused
Inquiry Based Learning
Arts-Infused Inquiry Based Learning (AIIBL) empowers all students to achieve via intellectually challenging, inquiry-based, integrated experiences, which are fun, exciting, relevant, and engaging.
Inquiry-based Learning (IBL) seeks to develop life-long learners while adhering to the philosophy that teachers are facilitators of children’s learning. This style of deep learning is student-centered. It is a fluid and evolving approach to how knowledge is learned and transmitted. Using state or Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as the guidelines to the content of learning, IBL adds depth, complexity, and novelty to those standards.
AIIBL
All Kids
Learn Differently
To create meaningful, child-centered learning experiences for their students, teachers must design instruction that accounts for the different ways that children learn.
Key elements to consider are children’s learning modalities and the multiple intelligences as described by Howard Gardner (1993). Learning Modalities are the ways in which students take in information:
Visual learners learn best by seeing information. Auditory learners learn best by listening and talking. Kinesthetic learners learn best through bodily movement.
AIIBL strongly supports challenged literacy learners, second language learners, gifted and talented students, and students with special needs. It provides all children with an opportunity to learn and express themselves through multiple modalities. AIIBL is simply best practice for all students in the 21st Century.
Traditional
education
education
Arts Infused Inquiry Based
Learning reaches 20 out of 20
Learning reaches 20 out of 20
Our View
Of The Common Core
Arts-Infused Inquiry Based Learning is the perfect vehicle for supporting students in achieving the goals of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This instructional approach facilitates depth and complexity in curricula while fostering the 5 C’s (Community, Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Creativity) of 21st Century Learning. Both LSG and CCSS articulate the need for using pedagogy that both creates a culture of high expectations for all students, including those with disabilities, and provides all learners with the opportunity to meaningfully access and interact with curricula.
Our View
Of Educational Assessment
We believe assessment and data-driven instruction are an integral part of quality education; however it must be noted that not all aspects of a child’s growth and development can be measured by traditional means. It is our belief that students should be provided with multiple avenues in which they can demonstrate mastery of a standard including academic, performance, and social/emotional.
Within our educational system children should be given the opportunity to shine in a variety of manners. We believe that the unique talents and skill sets of children can only be fully demonstrated though an integration of project and performance-based assessments as well as more traditional and standardized assessments. It is through this integration of measures that the ability to recognize true depth of knowledge, growth and overall achievement can be attained.