A page for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) team...

 

Barnard, Paitra, Ashley, Tirzah

 

 

Conference Call #1, April 15

Notes

 

People on the Call:

Gary Wood: CEO

Andrea: Project Leader

Matt Hasselbrock: Librarian

 

INTRODUCTIONS

Matt: librarian, 11th year at NOCCA, 8th year in NOCCA, inheriting it from someone who hasn’t worked in a library

 

Gary: huge fan of the library, but always felt it was underutilized (it might be because of its design)

 

Gary says he's in interested in how a library needs to serve the learner of this new century of technology; it’s a place where people drop in and out; not necessarily something where people congregate

 

Andrea: Project Manager of “Arts Expanded” Initiative

 

And the conversation begins...

 

Gary: NOCCA has begun the process of trying to think of itself in ways other than a traditional school; it has never been a traditional school; part of the process of finding Stanford was part of efforts to think differently about how to manage themselves, how students could learn, how the calendar could ok differently. Not thinking in traditional ways.

 

Vision for Arts Expanded: Today, NOCCA is a half-day. Students to go to another school and then come to NOCCA in afternoon for arts training. NOCCA has always talked about an all-day, all-learning campus. Evolved into a thought that rather than just adding academic courses, begin to think about how to service people in an entirely new and different way…build upon some of the innovative things that some places are doing already. But, also charter own path to look at the entire learning process inn a different way.

 

Arts Expanded: expanding NOCCA into the entire day. Students would then graduate from high school with NOCCA. He thinks they’d get much more out of this.

 

The only thing holding it up: 1) appropriate planning and preparation, which is underway. They haven’t succeeded in getting the sate to create legislation/financial support to actually implement. IT is their belief that in the next 2-3 legislative sessions (=2-3 years), it will happen. The planning and the intentions to get the legislation are both on the fast track. The soonest we would implement this, would be Fall of 2011. There is so much discovery to do; they don’t want to fall back.

 

Andrea: NOCCA called a tema of consultants: Collective Invention? Wrappnig up internal discovery phase. Soon, going to enter into the external discovery phase (faculty will look at art schools, places in industry…basically looking at different models that integrate academics, art, and 21st century skills. The process has started in full force, but they’ll make sure to do the planning/discovery process first.

 

Then, they’ll undergo an iterative process: test out the different models.

 

Tirzah: How does the community fit into this?

 

Gary: That’s a question that is open-ended. Gary doesn’t have an answer…partly because so much of the focus has been strengthening some of the internal process. This process has been more of an objective. The only thing: NOCCA draws from such a wide region (and hopefully to the full state, if they add residential in this process), that they can’t become insular or disconnected. The state has made a great investment in this. It is a center where so much of the future of not just our city, but state culture derives from. Answer would be great question and this process needs to really come to terms with what that means and make it real.

 

Andrea: This is something that NOCCA is thinking about. There is currently a movement to do more outreach.

 

Dan: Opportunity to open library to the community?

 

Matt: There is a public library that is located 10-12 blocks away from NOCCA…

 

We have allowed some community members before. However, library is in the middle of campus (no entrance from the street). “Guests” would have to enter through the building. Keep the question going and test the boundaries?

 

The reason they don’t get to know each other, is because there isn’t enough time. NOCCA is intended to get students prepared for a career in this art form. This is a little different than other art schools. “We treat them as if this is what they’re going to do.” These kids are working hard…they don’t have time. A great thought to conceive the library as a potential instigator to bring students together.

 

Dan: How is the library used now?

 

Matt: Students come in before or during class…primarily to use the 6 internet stations. They come to print out a paper that is do the next day in class. Students also check media out (check the media out the most: DVDS/CDS, especially jazz and musical theater). Sometimes classes come down. Mostly in and out. NO great space for groups, using the internet. Not a lot of computer space. 24 chairs around 4 tables.

 

Material-wise, library has what they need. There’s a lot of coming in and out. Not a classroom setting.

 

Tirzah: Have you gotten feedback from faculty or students about what is working for them and what they wish they could have there?

 

Matt: Great to survey the faculty and students to get an idea of what they want from the faculty.

 

Media Arts expanded and uses listening lab for their work. Hopefully in the summer, construction will take place to give media arts their own classroom…and free up their learning space.

 

Dimensions of the space: 60x100 (guesstimation)

 

Hours of the Library:

10am-6:30pm & Saturday: 8:45am-3:15pm

 

Matt:

“The library is going to change a lot.”

“I’ll be providing everything now…if we expand to a full-day library.”

Started initial conversations with the public library about the sharing of resources.

Agreement with Loyola University to share resources (another backup, if they don’t have what they’re looking for). But, public library is much closer.

 

Paitra: what is the distance that students travel to get to the school?

A few minutes to 2.5-3 hours.

 

Tirzah: Elaborate on your potential residential program

 

Gary: NOCCA’s mission was to serve a certain number of parishes in this region, but it has always been the quest of NOCCA to serve the entire state. There’s more to it. It’s not just erving the whole state, eprsay, the thought is also that perhaps there could be a small number of students from a national and international base…to expose (not only as a benefit to those young people), if just as much or more of benefit to expose them to the students in their students. It’s not clear if this will be part of the Arts Expansion (because of financial reasons), or even may come first.

 

Dan: Any models that you look to that our team can research?

 

1) Henry Ford Learning Academy in Deerborn, Michigan. School without walls. They have the school in the museum and a campus. Generally, it’s a school that does not think of itself. It was influenced in part/designed. Designed to help young people learn in that specific environment as opposed to the square wall environment. There’s a lot we can learn from them. NOCCA has been utilized in an inclusive/silo-sort of way. Henry Ford Learning Center: use rehab train cars as learning spaces. They can utilize the physical to influence learning. Designed by Concordia (New Orleans firm)?

 

Matt has been exploring high school and college libraries.

 

Dan’s overview of some of the library projects underway here:

1) Engineering School: book-less library (books stored in a wherehouse in a lower rent area in the East Bay; books can be shipped to students the next day)

2) More collaboration space

 

Dan: Who are the students?

 

Since the audition into the campus is strictly based on artistic inclinations. You could imagine then the mix of students of all demographics/socioeconomic statuses. Every mix you could think of. Yet, they don’t separate them while they’re there…other than raw ability. You have students who mirror diversity of larger community in one class. Challenge for artist-teacher, but it has proven to be a great asset, regardless of who they are and how they learn. We’re not a school where all the students are similar; all the students are dissimilar. Something magical happens when they come together…and that is something they want to hang on to when they go to full-day. They don’t want this to change when this expands to full-day. We offer programs mostly 9-12. They offer opportunities for students in middle school and younger. Classical piano program that is gathering young ones…we have k-12 students in this program. It’s started to happen in violin. If they don’t start early, they can’t compete on a national level.

 

Paitra: Student involvement in processes of change?

They haven’t been involved. They’ve been doing internal discovery. They will be involved in designing the school; they will be asking students “What would be the ideal way for you to learn?” As of right now, because they’re not there yet, it’s going to be on Friday.

 

Gary: engaging student perspectives/tapping their innovative ideas is absolutely vital…but differences in opinion about to what extent to engage them? Gary tries to get them to think about what a future learner would want to see. It takes away the personal angst about what whether they would want to attend full day, etc. It’s a question of who and when….to maximize that level of knowledge and creativity…

 

Barnard: Besides the arts skills themselves, what other goals for the students?

 

Andrea: life skills, resilience, critique (big part of the curriculum!)…students learn how to take criticism and give it, developing individualities/personalities (you need to understand who you are)

 

Barnard: student body size?

 

Gary: 550 is the overall number (on campus at any one time: 1pm-4pm is busiest 300). The rest come later on that day or on Saturday. You would never come here and say campus is sort of full. You don’t get that sense.

 

Assessing the full-day numbers are difficult to assess. 600 is the number being bounced around. Size is still is driven by audition.

 

Send any follow-up emails to Matt.

 

 

Next Steps:

1) Schedule conference call the week before our trip. Brainstorm agenda for NOCCA trip (i.e. food focus groups)

2) Interview 4 of the people who have a role in this place (Dan, Stigg, Adelaide, and Bob Smith). Ashley will also interview Christine Alfano.

3) We should also look to speak with language instructors.

 

Debriefing with Dan:

Potential sites to check out on campus: Mitchell Earth Sciences building (cool stuff! no people!), Meyer, Green

Potential sites to check out off-campus: Zeum (SF, by Barnard's house), SOTA (School of the Arts)-sota.org, DeYong Museum (children's center)

 

 

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Pictures from NOCCA Library

 

 

 

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Just found this as I was exploring ERIC for some other resources for this class

 

Link to Article about NOCCA:

 

ERIC #: EJ547263

 

Title: Practice Makes Perfect.

 

Authors: Vail, Kathleen

 

Publication Date: 1997-00-00

 

Pub Types: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive

 

Journal Name: American School Board Journal

 

Journal Citation: v184 n6 p28-31 Jun 1997

 

Descriptors: Art Education; Creative Development; Creative Writing; Dance Education; Educational Innovation; Fine Arts; High Schools; Music Education; Nontraditional Education; Public Schools; Talent Development; Theater Arts

 

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Team Notes (Class 4/25/2008)

-Students are going to be the biggest resources! It's a creative arts school!

-We need to ask the various students in different "departments" about what they want from the space and how they can contribute!

-Possibly design the space so that it could accomodate "interdisciplinary" events/performances

 

-The space doesn't need to be quite!

-Create NOCCA WIKI page for students/faculty at NOCCA (www.pbwiki.com)

 

COOL LIBRARIES AROUND THE WORLD-

-Duke Library: it's okay to eat in the library, comfortable chairs

-Japanese library: books in the room, but hard to access (on tall shelves); this frees up a lot of space (and the books aren't being used anyways); be sure to communicate why this is going to promote interdisciplinary work/community

 

PLACES TO VISIT:

-Trip to Ikea??? Great place for ideas.

 

LOGISTICS:

-Get in contact with Wallenberg people, so that we can become experts in the concepts/lessons learned in this particular space BEFORE we go to NOCCA.

-Keep every receipt!!! As much as they can cover, they'll cover.

 

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Assessment Notes (Class 4/25/2008):

-You can't assess everything nor everyone who you have targeted for you learning goal, you'll be lucky to get one thing. Make sure that one thing is important! As the designer and the advocate for the learer and learning organization you get to lead the discussion for "what" i'mportant is...

 

Assessment triangle: cognition (do they understand?); interpretation (what claims can assessors make?); observation (do learners demonstrate or perform their knowledge?)

 

-metacognition: how can your projects help people recognize that they are learning? how can they encourage reflection?

-formative/summative assessment and transfer: how can space support learners and organizations to carry out these activities?

 

Recommendation: Are there tools that you could propose for staff at your sites that they could use to help measure the impact of the space? It might be something that you could GIVE your partner.

Recommendation: How can your spaces leverage both formative and summative assessments?

Recommendation: A challenge for all learning projects: How can you communicate what you have found to a larger audience?

 

******Interesting article on the impact of technology on library space (it's outdated, but still has relevant points)

http://libres.curtin.edu.au/libre6n1/barney.htm

 

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Let's fill out this agenda with what we want to be sure to mention:

* Overview of our project timeline

* Our wiki page

* Plan agenda for NOCCA visit (what'd we'd like to do and what NOCCA would like us to do)

* Next steps

-emailing 3 NOCCA students

 

NYTimes Article about New Orleans Schools more broadly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/us/nationalspecial/30orleans.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

 

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Dan - Clever way to present these personas, thanks for exploring this path. Yours is definitely a different case since you will be meeting the students for the first time after this was due, nice idea to look at the video clips on the site. I think to grow these you could look at their attitudes in more depth, this might help you organize thoughts around how to promote interdisciplinary work at NOCCA or other activities that the leadership team is trying to promote.

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NOCCA Library SCENARIOS

 

SCENARIO 1

Elizabeth, 14

NOCCA Creative Writing Student

 

Elizabeth takes her headphones off, slips her IPOD and writing journal back into her bag, and steps off the yellow school bus that has pulled up to the front of NOCCA. She is tired after a long day of school, but anxious to use the library resources to help her start a new piece for her creative writing class. Waving a few hellos to her creative writing buddies mingling with each other outside The Canteen, Elizabeth heads to the library for the 35 minutes she has before class starts.

 

As she walks into the library, she hears smooth jazz playing softly over the speaker system. "I guess it was a jazz student's turn to pick the music today," she thinks to herself. After saying a quick hello to Matt, the librarian, who is busy pouring over some art books with a few visual arts students, she moves towards the computer kiosk closest to the creative writing bookshelves and searches for books with “creative writing prompts.” The search points her to a few books. She chooses one that looks good and heads to an empty cubicle by the window and claims it for herself by spreading her new book, her journal, and a few sharpened pencils across the table. The cubicle gives her some separation from the activities going on elsewhere in the library, not to mention the window looking out upon the courtyard gives her inspiration--she can watch the interactions of her peers, observe the way the wind moves the plants, study nuances of color in the environment, etc. Here, in her own quiet space, with the help of a valuable creative writing resource and the inspiration of observation, she is able to churn out a many quality pages of writing for 30 minutes before class. Satisfied with her productivity, she packs up all of her materials and takes the book back to its shelf.

 

On her way out the door of the library, Elizabeth notices a flyer on the bulletin board near the exit, advertising an upcoming Friday night ice cream social to be held in the library. Even though she spends most of her time interacting with fellow creative writing students, she knows this event will not only give her an excuse to stay at NOCCA longer on a Friday night, but will enable her to spend time with students from other disciplines. In fact, she made two new friends from the music department at the “Jazz Appreciation Night” in the library last week. Elizabeth senses a few other students reading the flyer over her shoulder. She turns around and smiles. They all leave the library together in a hurry to get to their classes.

 

 

 

SCENARIO 2

Ronald, 18

4^th year NOCCA studen

Jazz Pianist

 

After Ronald and a couple of friends grab a cup of coffee from next door to school, they all walk in to NOCCA together.  Ronald is always pressed for time and on top of his studies but has an even busier day than normal.  He has a U. S. History paper due in 2 days, and he needs to finish editing part of his composition that will be used in the spring musical.

 

As part of his daily routine, he stops to chat outside the Marsalis Theater, but today he cuts the conversation short so he can go over his listening homework one more time.  He cruises over to the library, and makes no stops until getting to the listening station.  Because Harry Connick, Jr. is an alumnus, he doesn’t need to find any additional materials before listening.  He knows that Connick’s album Star Turtle is already in the permanent listening station collection.  Ronald grabs a set of headphones, scrolls through titles, and finds “Hear Me in the Harmony.”  After clicking play, he takes out his homework sheet.  “Focus on the key change at the bridge,” he thinks.

 

After Jazz composition class, Ronald stops by the Canteen to grab a soda, and rushes back to the library to get some homework done.  His composition “Thomas Jefferson, a Man before His Time” still needs references.  He opens his laptop, searches the library catalog and finds 2 books that seem to fit the bill.  With wi-fi and their online book reservation system, he can save a couple of minutes by not having to ask the librarian (who is currently giving a presentation on Ballet in 20^th century France) if the books are in.  In a couple of hours, he can proceed to the reserved for students station, grab the books, and head to the self-checkout on his way out the door.

 

Now that his references have been located, the young jazz artist looks to squeeze in 30 minutes reviewing his composition before practice with the cast.  He forgot to reserve one of the multimedia rooms ahead of time, but one happens to be available.    He commences as he normally does by watching video of the 2 main actors.  His teacher had recommended watching their mannerisms in past performances to get a feel for their personalities.  After a moment, he gets an inspiration.  On the computer, he pulls up his score for the song in the 3^rd act he is composing.  As he starts the playback on the sound system integrated into the walls of the room, he notices something he hadn’t before: the alto lines could be raised a third to add a more resonant and airy harmony with the sopranos.  “Simple,” he thinks to himself.  And before heading to jazz ensemble class, he signs up for one of the practice rooms with audiovisual capabilities to make sure he has space after class.

 

The ensemble didn’t come together as well as normally, but as usual Ronald heads back to the practice room in the library.  He brings with him a smaller keyboard and the video of this last class’s practice.  Pulling up the video on the DVD player, he plays along and finds a riff where he took a track that left him waiting for the key change in opposition to the group.  “They just couldn’t tell what I was doing or where I was going!”  he thought.  “How do the masters communicate what they are doing and when?”  As was suggested by a different teacher, he needed to study the best.  And what better way than to watch Herbie Hancock’s head, eye, and arm cues as he worked through songs.  Ronald then stepped out of the room and asked the librarian for the video of the Miles Davis Quartet (which included Herbie at the time, of course).

 

After 45 minutes of analysis and practice of Sir Hancock, Ronald’s day would end at the library.  He packed up his things, stopped by to pick up the history books he had reserved, checked himself out at the self-checkout station, and found his friends walking out to the car.  Another productive day at the NOCCA library.

 

Dan - Nice scenarios here, I like how two different students got value out of the same space.  I also like how each one did multiple activities in the same space.  This is a nice balance of giving us insight to the operations of the space as well as the activities of the learner.  For your final product, be sure to include some of the "learningish" language for why both of these students' interactions helped them with the content, with specific skills, or with being better prepared for future learning.  A scenario is not the right place for that kind of formal discussion, but a written papoer and formal presentation are definitely the avenues for it.

 

PROPOSAL

Here is our proposal.  There is a little mark on the bottom due to how I converted it, and it also forced on diagram onto it's own page.  We will correct these things before we turn it into NOCCA>

 

NOCCA proposal 6_6_08.pdf

 

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