Children love to move, sing, draw, sculpt, and pretend. And these fun activities are also an engaging way to promote development and learning. Art to Heart offers parents and teachers of young children insight into how involvement in visual arts, dance, drama, and music from the earliest years contributes to children’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development—as well as ideas and inspiration for activities to do together.

The series’ eight engaging programs visit schools, child care centers, museums, and community centers across the country to explore a wide array of innovative hands-on arts programs. Researchers, artists, teachers, and parents offer examples of enjoyable and beneficial arts activities for both home and educational settings. Meanwhile, the delighted responses of the children participating in the featured projects illustrate the sheer joy of creating.

Visit the Art to Heart web site for complete program outlines with discussion questions and additional information about featured sites, programs, and research. The site also includes activity sheets, teacher materials, a glossary, and downloadable viewer's guide. A 2006 KET production.

Program of Studies
All Arts and Humanities disciplines: Structure in the Arts, Humanity in the Arts, Purposes for Creating the Arts, Processes in the Arts, Interrelationships Among the Arts

This professional development series for elementary teachers shows teachers from around the country using the arts in a variety of successful ways. The 14 programs provide new ideas for integrating the arts into the curriculum and feature specialists in dance, music, theater, and visual art as well as classroom teachers from kindergarten through 5th grade.

The Arts in Every Classroom: A Video Library, K-5 is part of the Annenberg Media collection. It is a companion to the Arts in Every Classroom workshop series, illustrating the principles outlined in that series through additional classroom examples.

In this professional development series from Annenberg Media, workshop leaders from the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts work with teams of elementary teachers, principals, and arts specialists to develop and implement new ideas about working with the arts in K-5 classrooms. As the learner teams work through a curriculum unit based on a multi-arts performance piece by Cirque du Soleil, classroom segments show children engaged in the same lessons. The team members begin to design their own arts-based units, then return to their schools to put what they have learned into practice.

This series, aimed at adult learners, features programs on the elements and principles of three art forms assessed in Kentucky schools: dance, drama, and music. Rather than focusing on teaching strategies, the programs are designed to enhance teachers’ content knowledge in the arts. Rich in hands-on activities and entertaining video segments, they feature practicing artists and arts educators at all levels. The series was produced in collaboration with the Institute for Arts in Education sponsored by the Kentucky Center.

Length: 3 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: teachers, all levels

The Arts II: West African Dance is a 60-minute professional development seminar designed to deepen teachers’ general knowledge of dance, an assessed art form, as well as their knowledge of West African dance. Professional artists Harlina Churn-Diallo and Yaya Diallo introduce the elements of dance while providing step-by-step instructions for the Mouwa dance. Other topics include warm-ups for dancers, connecting music and movement, choreography, and the cultural meaning of dance as a celebration of unity.

Audience: teachers, all levels

Choreographer, dancer, and teacher Katherine Kramer presents an overview of Latin dance for educators. Working in a dance studio, Katherine and participating dancers and drummers demonstrate some of the dance traditions of Cuba; how the dances and music are related; and the vital role of the claves, simple percussion sticks, in organizing both the music and the dance. Basic exercises that can be incorporated in the classroom are also included.

Audience: teachers, all levels

Elizabeth Jewell, KET Distance Learning humanities instructor, presents professional development seminars designed to deepen teachers’ own understanding of two topics in the humanities: the neoclassical era of the 1780s and the development of modern dance.

Length: 2 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: arts and humanities teachers, all levels

Classroom footage and interviews with principals, teachers, and specialists in the arts and humanities explore how three Kentucky schools have built successful instructional programs in these areas. Topics include professional development, instructional leadership, consolidated planning, community partnerships, and integration of materials and specialists into the arts/humanities curriculum. The featured schools are Broadhead Elementary in Rockcastle County, Deer Park Elementary in Daviess County, and Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary in Jefferson County.

Length: 3 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: elementary teachers

Interviews and extensive classroom footage illustrate how teachers are integrating the arts into middle school classrooms around the country. This 12-part professional development series from Annenberg Media is designed for middle-level arts specialists as well as subject-area teachers who want to incorporate arts instruction into their own teaching.

This eight-part professional development workshop shows middle school teachers why and how to integrate the arts (dance, music, theater, and visual art) into other subjects such as language arts, social studies, science, and math. Extensive classroom examples present teachers working together to create rich integrated learning experiences for their students, and a panel of arts educators responds to and discusses each example.

Connecting with the Arts is part of the Annenberg/CPB collection.

In this eight-part professional development series for high school dance, music, theater, and visual art teachers, fellow teachers from arts magnet high schools and comprehensive high schools across the country demonstrate their practices and discuss their goals, methods, and experiences. The programs examine how general principles of good teaching are carried out in teaching the arts at the high school level, exploring seven specific principles in depth.

The Art of Teaching the Arts is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

In this seven-part professional development series, interviews with principals and teachers as well as classroom footage explore the standards for school leadership set forth in Leading Learning Communities: Standards for What Principals Should Know and Be Able To Do, published by the National Association of Elementary School Principals. The series features K-8 principals, teachers, and students in 12 different schools demonstrating what the standards look like in practice.

In this two-part KET professional development seminar, education consultant Gary Phillips provides advice for teachers and school administrators on how to help students facing economic or personal obstacles to learning.

Length: 2 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: teachers and administrators, all levels

A 60-minute interview with Dr. Asa Hilliard III, professor of urban education at Georgia State University, on the topics of multicultural education, valid assessment, teacher training, and the interactions between teacher expectations and student achievement. Hilliard provides valuable information for teachers and administrators who are committed to finding ways to close achievement gaps between groups of students and shares examples of classroom strategies that have been effective in helping at-risk students achieve.

Well known for his work in assessment, multicultural teaching strategies, child development, and teacher training, Hilliard is the author of more than 200 articles, books, and research reports.

Audience: teachers and administrators, all levels

Kati Haycock, executive director of the Education Trust, uses national data to show that, on average, low-income and minority students receive less effective teachers and are placed into low-level classes. Her 90-minute presentation charts the drastic effects of low expectations on student achievement and demonstrates how to evaluate data measuring student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

Audience: teachers and administrators, all levels

Kentucky Principals, Leading by Example showcases the outstanding work of the Kentucky Department of Education in partnership with Kentucky Colleges of Education and the Educational Professional Standards Board to reform principal preparation programs and create environments for principals to be the instructional leader in their schools. This panel discussion with noted practitioners and higher education representatives explains the relationship between student achievement and principals as instructional leaders. In addition, authentic classroom video features Kentucky principals using the School Administration Manager (SAM) program, implementing schoolwide reform in literacy instruction, and distributing leadership so teachers also are empowered to serve as instructional leaders.

This project is part of The Principal Story outreach campaign, which is made possible by a grant from The Wallace Foundation, a source of ideas for improving school leadership.

This professional development series for school principals on improving student achievement in mathematics and science addresses the specific issues faced by administrators. Taped in schools from Maine to California, the programs explain recent research on math and science education practices, describe the impact of state and national standards, discuss varied teaching approaches, show new curricula in use, and compare effective models of staff development.

Principles for Principals is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

By the age of 18, one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused. And teachers—along with other school personnel and mental health workers—are required by law to report suspected child abuse. Promise Not To Tell?, a three-part series produced by KET in partnership with Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky, the Kentucky Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation Services, provides vital information for teachers about this difficult and important issue.

Promise Not To Tell? features teachers, counselors, administrators, mental health and law enforcement professionals, and adult survivors sharing insight and advice on dealing with child sexual abuse, from the first suspicions through reporting, the legal process, and the aftermath of reporting the abuse. The three 20-minute programs can be viewed as part of a faculty-wide training on the issue of child sexual abuse or used as a self-study by individual teachers.

The monthly USDOE Satellite Town Meeting brings officials from the U.S. Department of Education together with teachers, administrators, and parents to discuss national issues in education, from provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act to the latest research on effective teaching practices. The programs emphasize how parents and schools can work together to help every student achieve his or her full potential.

Why has excessive weight gain reached epidemic status among Kentucky children? And what can each of us do to help in our families, our communities, and our schools? This one-hour KET panel discussion on childhood obesity prevention shows how parents and children can adopt healthier eating and exercise habits and describes how schools can make school lunches more nutritious and attractive.

Dr. Wayne Tuckson, a practicing physician in Louisville and host of the Kentucky Health series, moderates the discussion. The panel members are Janet Tietyen, Ph.D., R.D., an associate professor in the University of Kentucky Department of Nutrition and Food Science; Janey Thornton, director of child nutrition for the Hardin County Schools; Anita Courtney, a registered dietitian with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department and coordinator of the VERB program; and Dr. Joan Griffith, a pediatrician and director of TEAMS (Teens Enjoying Active Management Systems) at the Kentucky Clinic in Lexington. Also featured are Megan Pollack, a 5th grader at Central Elementary School in Wingo; her mother, Tracy Pollack; and members of the Graves Elementary cross-country team and their coach, Noel Coplen. Noel is also the director of the Graves County Health Department.

Topics covered in the discussion include

• the scope and impact of the problem of childhood obesity in Kentucky
• the effects of obesity on children’s overall health and academic performance
• changes in our culture that have affected how children play and eat meals
• the role of the media in the problem and in potential solutions
• the role of physical education in schools
• school lunches
• how parents, communities, and schools can address the problem

In addition, the compelling, personal stories shared by Kasey Roberts and Megan Pollack show how each child’s decision to change her lifestyle has affected her family’s choices on meals and physical activities—and how those choices have led to success.

These KET-produced programs address topics related to physical and mental health and development in children and teenagers. They combine advice from expert panelists, roundtable discussion, and question-and-answer sessions with audience members. Many were originally produced as live call-in programs.

Links to resources related to each topic, along with a complete list of past programs, are available at the series web site.

These professional development videos from classrooms around the country illustrate effective instruction and assessment strategies for teaching foreign languages. The featured teachers model interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational modes of communication while integrating concepts of culture, comparisons, connections to students’ lives, and the importance of community into their lessons. The language classes featured include Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Chinese. All videos are subtitled in English and are appropriate for teachers of any language.

Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

This Annenberg Media professional development course for elementary and middle school teachers examines the three main categories in the Number and Operations strand of the NCTM’s Principles and Standards of School Mathematics: understanding numbers, representations, relationships, and number systems; the meanings of operations and relationships among those operations; and reasonable estimation and fluent computation. The programs are designed both to deepen teachers’ own understanding of such topics as the real number system, place value, zero and infinity, percentages, modeling operations with fractions, factors and multiples, and divisibility tests and to suggest ways to improve classroom instruction in these areas.

This professional development workshop from Annenberg Media is designed to help middle and high school mathematics teachers improve the way they teach 16 topics found in most Algebra I programs.

This four-part KET professional development series explores the environment and instruction that support the literacy development of preschool children and how they differ from those used in the primary classroom. Successful strategies are modeled by outstanding preschool teachers at the University of Kentucky Early Childhood Lab and at a combined preschool/Head Start program at Mercer County Elementary School.

Length: 4 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: preschool teachers

This professional development series features a diverse cross-section of kindergarten through 2nd-grade teachers from across the country introducing their students to reading through a variety of methods. The series includes nine classroom videos with teachers and students, plus three longitudinal videos that show individual students developing reading skills over time.

Teaching Reading K-2 is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

Dr. Ellen McIntyre, associate professor at the University of Louisville School of Education, demonstrates how to administer and interpret a variety of assessment tools in order to more accurately assess early elementary students’ reading strengths and needs. Classroom teachers from the Jefferson and Bullitt county public schools then show how to apply the data gathered in developing and refining teaching practices.

Length: 3 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: K-3 teachers, reading specialists, guidance counselors, administrators

Expert writing teachers and consultants join Kentucky Department of Education Associate Commissioner Starr Lewis for a discussion of the elements of quality teacher/student writing conferences. The panelists respond to videotape footage of writing conferences at all grade levels and discuss the strategies teachers use to make the most of them. The examples illustrate that writing conferences do not have to be time-consuming, planned events that occur only after a student has written a draft. Rather, effective conferences can be spontaneous and quick, can occur at any stage of the writing process, and can even be whole-class or small-group activities.

Length: 4 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: classroom and English/language arts teachers, all levels

A KET professional development series offering strategies that early elementary teachers can use to help their students develop as writers. The programs model how to use the writing workshop in the classroom and offer specific techniques for teaching personal and informative writing. Extensive classroom footage taped over the course of a school year follows a group of young writers as they develop over time.

Length: 3 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: primary teachers

Moving students toward independence in reading and writing is a major instructional goal during the primary school years. This eight-part KET professional development series, produced in partnership with the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development, provides practical advice on how primary teachers can design, organize, and manage a classroom environment that supports a balanced literacy approach. Rich classroom footage, shot at four schools around Kentucky over the course of a school year, illustrates four major topics: preparing the classroom, teaching routines, implementing strategies, and evaluating classroom structure.

Length: 8 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: P-5 teachers

Donna Vincent, writing consultant for the Muhlenberg County schools, presents a professional development series on encouraging student writing for elementary classroom and language arts teachers. Focusing on three main topics—personal, literary, and transactive writing—the programs illustrate how to maintain authentic audience and purpose while tying student writing to the Core Content and allowing student choice. Each program also features a teacher giving a mini-lesson.

Length: 9 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: P-6 classroom and language arts teachers

Donna Vincent, writing consultant for the Muhlenberg County schools, hosts three programs for teachers on how to develop a balanced reading/writing program in primary through 8th grades. The series presents strategies such as literature circles and writing in response to reading as well as mini-lessons for teaching skills such as phonics and grammar. Classroom visits show the ideas at work in elementary and middle schools.

Length: 3 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: P-8 classroom and language arts teachers

This professional development series is designed to show intermediate elementary teachers how to help their students transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” In eight half-hour workshop videos, leading experts discuss current research on learning to read and teaching a diverse range of students. The concepts are illustrated by clips from real classroom lessons. The entire classroom lessons are included in eight additional video programs for further exploration of each topic.

Teaching Reading 3-5 Workshop is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

A KET professional development series designed to help middle-level content-area teachers improve their students’ ability to read and understand informational texts. The first program provides an overview of the components of the reading process, factors that affect reading success, and how metacognition impacts reading comprehension, while the remaining five programs visit classrooms around Kentucky to focus on various aspects of reading and comprehension. Topics include teaching vocabulary, addressing prior knowledge in the content-area classroom, using explicit strategies during the reading process to help students comprehend and remember, questioning students during and after reading, and using technology appropriately.

Length: 6 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: middle-level teachers, all content areas

This eight-part video workshop introduces middle school teachers to ethnically diverse American writers and offers dynamic instructional strategies and resources to make their works meaningful for students. Teachers model effective approaches—based on reader response, critical inquiry, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy—for using multicultural works in the classroom and, in units that unfold over time, demonstrate activities and practices that engage students in critical discussions of race, class, and social justice. The featured authors also share information on their works and about their lives in interviews and classroom visits.

Teaching Multicultural Literature is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

This Annenberg/CPB professional development series offers advice for high school teachers on teaching writing, including issues such as preparing students for high-stakes assessments and dealing with differently abled students. Classroom video from around the country shows teachers helping their students grow as skilled and effective writers and teachers and students working together to create writing communities. Professional writers share their work processes, from initial concept to publication, and comments from researchers, theorists, students, and teachers provide additional real-world context.

What can you do when the mere mention of poetry elicits groans from students? This 90-minute KET professional development workshop provides positive strategies that help students (even the reluctant ones) develop poems while promoting a better understanding of the characteristics and types of poetry. Featuring Starr Lewis of the Kentucky Writing Program and high school teacher Dewey Hensley, the seminar explores such topics as teaching students to distinguish between concrete and abstract language and to use precise descriptive words, comparing the process of revising poetry with the process of revising prose, and assessing poems written by students.

Audience: secondary English/language arts teachers

Presenter Dewey Hensley, a teacher at South Oldham High School, offers a detailed approach to teaching secondary students to write short stories in this 90-minute KET seminar. He explores methods for generating ideas and characters, developing characters, setting up conflicts, plotting, creating leads, establishing point of view, and revising. Other topics include the components of short stories, keeping a writer’s notebook, descriptive writing, and crafting dialogue.

Audience: secondary English/language arts teachers

A professional development series designed to refresh elementary school teachers’ own knowledge of basic principles of physical science and demonstrate effective strategies for teaching those principles. Real-world examples, demonstrations, animations, and interviews with scientists illustrate and explain concepts; comments from children uncover their ideas about the topics; and classroom footage shows elementary school teachers and their students exploring the same topics using exemplary science curricula.

This series is part of the Annenberg Media collection.

In this three-part KET professional development series for science teachers, University of Kentucky geology professor Dr. Frank Ettensohn explores how the diverse geology of Kentucky’s many regions influenced each area’s history, geography, and culture—particularly people’s ability or inability to use the land. From the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River beds, the series looks at each region of the state from the perspective of geology. Ettensohn is joined by Terri Koontz, a science teacher at Lexington Traditional Magnet School.

Length: 3 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: science teachers, all levels

Ken Rosenbaum demonstrates classroom activities in the areas of physical, life, and earth sciences using supplies found in neighborhood grocery or hardware stores. Extensive classroom footage of students doing the suggested activities also explores how teachers can embed inquiry and scientific process skills in their instruction. Programs 1 and 2 are for primary teachers; Programs 3 and 4 are for intermediate-level teachers.

Length: 4 programs; 90 minutes each
Audience: science teachers, P-5

Middle school science teachers explain and illustrate how the use of the learning cycle, an inquiry-based approach to instruction rooted in constructivism, can weave together engaging hands-on activities, the science Core Content, and deeper student understanding. The learning cycle model provides an environment and structure in which students can develop conceptual understanding and process skills. These KET seminars lead participants through each of the three phases of the cycle—exploration, conceptual development, and application—and provide a real-life example of how to apply it in the classroom.

Length: 4 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: middle school science teachers

Three KET professional development programs for high school science teachers explore the natural resources found in Kentucky through visits to geological points of interest around the state.

Length: 3 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: secondary science teachers

A 13-part professional development series from Annenberg/CPB designed to update teachers of high school biology on recent advances in the field and on the current research methods and tools that are leading to new discoveries. The programs feature interviews with scientists involved in ground-breaking research as well as detailed animations that provide a micro-level view of techniques such as mass spectrometry and microarray analysis.

A four-part KET professional development series designed to give teachers a deeper understanding of Kentucky history before the Civil War and the quest for freedom of enslaved African Americans. In each 30-minute program, a noted scholar leads teachers to a deeper understanding of this topic and its relationship to Kentucky’s Core Content in four areas: Kentucky history, Kentucky geography, culture and society, and arts and humanities. Extensions for further inquiry tied directly to the Core Content are provided for each program, and Kentucky social studies teachers model extensive use of technology.

These seminars are designed to complement and enhance classroom use of the 60-minute KET documentary Kentucky’s Underground Railroad—Passage to Freedom.

Length: 4 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: social studies and history teachers, intermediate and secondary levels

Given the critical shortage of certified special education teachers, the special education paraprofessional—whether known as a classroom aide, an instructional assistant, or a paraeducator—plays an increasing critical role in serving the needs of both special education students and their schools. This six-part KET professional development series, produced in partnership with the Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky, defines and explore the various roles of the paraeducator working with special-needs students: as a member of the instructional team, as an instructor who teaches new skills and collects progress data, as a connector to other students and to the community, and as a personal-needs assistant responsible for the student’s physical well-being.

Length: 6 programs; 30 minutes each
Audience: Programs 1-5: special education paraeducators, all levels; Program 6: special education teachers and administrators, all levels

The number of children with autism has increased dramatically in recent years. These two programs examine the issues surrounding autism—signs to look for in early development, effective early intervention programs, and strategies to help children with autism achieve in school. Renee Shaw hosts.

About Autism is a 2005 KET production.

This two-part KET series brings together Kentucky experts, service providers, educators, and parents to discuss such topics as entering the special education system, the legal rights of students with special needs, and planning for the transition from high school to the real world. The programs provide information valuable to both parents and teachers of students with disabilities.

The first program, which addresses special education resources in public schools, is for educators at all levels as well as parents of special-needs children. The second program, on helping these students make the transition to life after high school, is designed for high school juniors and seniors who are facing this challenge as well as their parents and teachers.

Your Child with Special Needs is a 2004 KET production. Renee Shaw hosts.