Winter 2021
The Innovation Collaborative is a national transdisciplinary forum to foster creativity, innovation, and equity in teaching and learning.
INNOVATION COLLABORATIVE NEWS AND NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Research Thought Leader
In our previous newsletters, we brought you interviews with each of our Thought Leaders. This new series will consider how you might apply some of their most important ideas in your STEAM work. To do so, we’ll use examples of the Collaborative’s successful application of these ideas in K-12 classroom implementation and teacher professional development.
Innovation Collaborative News
In its position as a national STEAM education trailblazer, the Innovation Collaborative has adopted its position on STEAM education.

This position was thoughtfully developed by a team of Collaborative leaders representing arts, science, and humanities institutions, with continuous input by all Collaborative members across disciplines and learning settings. Read more...
From the Field: COVID
In the last newsletter we summarized just a few of the ways in which educators and guides have innovated to provide effective COVID learning environments when traditional methods were not possible. Over the past year, this process has progressed with additional thoughtful approaches and also research-based analyses of where we are and how we might move forward.

Featuring:
  • Coping through Literature and the Arts
  • Arts for an Anxious World
​The Educational Theatre Association’s (EdTA) August survey, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Theatre Education,” has confirmed the profound effect of the pandemic on school theatre throughout the United States, leaving many programs at significant risk in the coming years.

The survey queried more than 11,000 middle and high school theatre educators about the status of their programs in the pandemic environment. Nearly 2,400 teachers responded, offering a snapshot of how COVID-19 has reshaped both their teaching methods and student learning opportunities. More...
Notes From the Field
The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) has launched Arts ARE Education, a national campaign encouraging school districts to continue to fund and support K-12 arts education programs in the 2021-22 school year. Given expected state and district budget cuts, calls for remedial education in tested subject areas, and the continued need for PPE equipment, NCCAS expects that arts programs across all disciplines will be at risk. More...
The Smithsonian has announced the 2021 Innovative Lives series. Over the past 25 years, the Institution’s Lemelson Center has hosted the Innovative Lives program series featuring more than 85 inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. 

Attendees can participate in informal chats. This year, Lemelson programs focus on diversity and inclusion in the invention ecosystem. The webinars in the series are open for free registration.
In parallel with her work as a Collaborative Innovation Fellow, New Hampshire elementary art teacher Kimberly Olson was recently accepted as Elementary Division representative for the National Art Education Association’s (NAEA) Cultural Competency in Teaching Certificate Program.

This pilot program was developed in conjunction with NAEA’s dedicated focus on examining and supporting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (E,D, & I) in all contexts of art education. It gives participants the opportunity to articulate and address their own experience, understanding, and capacity in the broad and deeply embedded areas of E,D, & I. More...
Lucinda Presley, Chair and Executive Director | Jonathan Katz, Strategic Advisor |
Amanda Upton, Secretary | Kathi Levin, Treasurer

Jeff Allen | Donna DiBartolomeo | Deborah Gaston | Wendy Hancock | Michael Jay |
Kathi Levin | Roger Malina | Lucinda Presley | Juliana Texley | Amanda Upton |
Andrew D. Watson | Hope E. Wilson