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Introduction and Competitive Priorities. Dramatic Results, in partnership with teams
of public libraries, school districts, and teacher preparation programs in three communities —
Long Beach, California, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and Prince Frederick, Maryland—propose the
STEAM Ecosystem Expansion Demonstration (SEED) Project. The short-term goal of SEED is
to develop communities’ capacity to create and sustain high-quality, engaging, and equitable
STEAM programs for underrepresented students. The long-term goal is to build arts-integrated
educational pathways for a more creative and diverse workforce, which begins by fostering self
and social awareness among educators and students through STEAM activities and design
thinking. SEED has four guiding strategies: Partnerships among community and educational
institutions that share a vision of using art and creativity to engage and deepen student learning;
Pillars of Professional Development that address challenges around cross-sector collaboration,
working with underrepresented students, and engaging students with STEAM-integrated
instructional materials; Programs that demonstrate how to engage students and educators with
various arts-based modalities to foster self and social awareness; and Public Outreach to
disseminate the educational and professional development resources created by SEED in ways
that can be used to launch STEAM ecosystems in yet more communities. Through this multipronged
strategy, SEED is estimated to reach, on average, 213 educators (classroom teachers,
STEAM educators, and pre-service teachers), 765 underrepresented students, and 132
community collaborators (administrators and staff from partnering institutions) each year for five
years. Public outreach via schools, libraries, community festivals, and national dissemination
will reach approximately 35,000 people per year.
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The lead applicant, Dramatic Results, a seasoned AAE grantee, is partnering with
communities across three states to support this SEED replication project. Each STEAM
ecosystem consists of three lead institutions: a public library, a public school district, and a
college of education. The lead institutions in California include Long Beach Public Library,
Long Beach Unified School District, and CSU-Long Beach. In Maryland: Calvert Public
Library, Calvert County Public Schools, and Bowie State University. In Wisconsin: Fond du Lac
Public Library, Fond du Lac School District, and Marian University. Of these lead institutions,
two include pre-service teacher programs that historically serve students of color: California
State University at Long Beach and Bowie State University.
Addressing the Competitive Priority for national nonprofit organizations, Dramatic Results has
created a national presence in two ways: (1) The lead institutions for this grant are distributed
throughout the country. Additionally, the nonprofit has replicated projects previously awarded by
AAE (Math in a Basket, 2012-2016) to serve Tlingit, Haida, Hoonah, and Warms Springs tribal
students in Alaska and Oregon, as well as (ABC Project, 2018-2022) to deliver virtual STEAM
workshops in Maryland, and (2) Dramatic Results contracts with virtual arts educators and
STEAM professionals nationwide. These include, for example, Dr. Nettrice Gaskins of Lesley
University in Massachusetts and the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York City. Finally,
Dramatic Results addresses the Invitational Priority for Art Therapy with a 29-year track
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record in integrating art therapy practices designed to strengthen self-reflection and cultivate self
and social awareness for both educators and students through professional development and
program delivery. In addition to Dramatic Results in-house expertise, the organization will
include external experts in Trauma-Informed Teaching as a part of their professional
development program, including Guud Soup, a nonprofit that bridges the gap between
underserved communities and mental health support through art and wellness practices.
The SEED Project will replicate many of the successful elements of Dramatic Results’
2018-2022 AAEDD-funded Art of Building a City STEAM Ecosystem Project (ABC Project) in
Long Beach, California. The ABC Project is developing and testing instructional resources and
collaborative systems for STEAM professionals, educators, universities, libraries, and
community-based organizations to work together to build a replicable ecosystem model for other
communities. Dramatic Results’ STEAM ecosystem is providing opportunities for students to
gain insider knowledge about creative industries and future careers that are normally out of their
reach. The workforce will benefit from the creativity, skills, and diverse perspectives of these
students. Educators are learning, practicing, and gaining confidence in utilizing innovative ways
to engage students with culturally relevant, hands-on, project-based learning. Dramatic Results
believes it is imperative to train all educators to provide students with social-emotional practices
needed to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate their emotions. Dissemination
efforts for the ABC Project have directly led to developing relationships with SEED replication
sites in Maryland and Wisconsin.
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A. Quality of the Project Design
Project goals. The SEED Project’s long-term goal is to build arts-integrated educational
pathways for a more creative and diverse workforce. This begins by fostering self and social
awareness among educators and students through STEAM and design thinking. STEAM learning
models sharpen skills related to innovation, creativity, collaboration, communication, and
problem-solving that are highly valued in the STEM workforce (Bequette & Bequette, 2012;
Science Solutions Recruitment, 2019; Segarra et al., 2018). Qualitative studies have reported that
STEAM programs increase learning retention, foster a broadened perspective, and increases
focus on professional development that would help with future career goals (Ghanbari, 2015).
STEAM (STEM+Art) can use culturally-valued art forms (Gaskins, 2013, 2014) to make
academic content more accessible to underserved students through arts integration (Catterall,
2012; Razzouk & Shute, 2012) and generate personally-meaningful pathways to STEM and
creative fields (Riedinger & Taylor, 2016). In addition to utilizing STEAM learning models,
design thinking is a highly valued skill in many industries (National Endowment for the Arts,
2017; Nichols, 2013) and is a natural extension to project-based lessons (Larmer, 2018). STEAM
models that have been embraced within higher education strengthen student abilities to see,
think, and learn differently, as both art and science share an interest in experimentation (Gila &
Schettinob, 2016; National Academies of Sciences & Medicine, 2018).
To harness the power of STEAM to promote systems-level change, an effective
ecosystem must be established. The SEED Project addresses the need for high-quality content in
arts and social-emotional learning (SEL), professional development in SEL and arts education
for adults, and an investment in the institutional capacity needed to create a sustainable and
thriving STEAM ecosystem. (Please see Logic Model in Appendices). The four guiding
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strategies of building such a model are Partnerships, Pillars of Professional Development,
Programs, and Public Outreach.
Strategy 1: Partnerships. The first goal for SEED is to build sustainable partnerships
among the lead institutions—public libraries, school districts, and colleges of education—and
expand community collaboration to include art centers, STEAM professionals, and other local
organizations interested in supporting the project. By utilizing a gradual release model (Figure 2
on page 5), Dramatic Results will be the project lead in Year 1, with each community
progressively taking on all functions and operating independently by the end of Year 5. In the
final project year, Dramatic Results will focus on: (1) dissemination, (2) project sustainability,
(3) refining the ecosystem model, and (4) identifying new communities for replication.
There are four primary collaborator roles within SEED: experts, lead institutions, art
teams, and educators (see Figure 3 on page 6). As the ecosystem experts, Dramatic Results will
lead each community in a needs assessment. The lead institutions will hire art teams to manage
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content, logistics, and communications. In Long Beach and Fond du Lac, the public libraries are
the primary organizers, while in Prince Frederick, there is a joint agreement between the school
district and library to co-lead. The objectives for “Partnerships” in each community will include
creating a shared vision and understanding for SEED, high levels of communication and
coordination within the lead institutions, and progress toward sustaining the ecosystems beyond
the grant.
Strategy 2: Pillars of Professional Development. The second goal is to prepare
collaborators in community STEAM ecosystems to meet the social-emotional and intellectual
needs of underrepresented students by creating safer spaces for hands-on, project-based, artsintegrated
learning. The STEAM ecosystem model is about changing how we identify and
approach problems; this shift in mindset requires repetition and reinforcement. As collaborators
begin to implement programs, Dramatic Results will provide content experts that act as guides
on the side during workshops. These experts will reinforce techniques introduced during the
trainings (Figures 4 and 5, pages 7-8) and give responsive, real-time feedback to educators, so
they can iteratively increase self-awareness and self-efficacy for the design process. In Year 2,
art teams and educators will experience a second iteration of these foundational trainings, but
this time they will be able to build upon real-world experiences, thereby enabling them to shift
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from theory to practice. This second iteration allows for more in-depth conversations as the
ecosystem expands and participants gain a sense of ownership to the learning approach.
Dramatic Results will track outcome indicators related to increased understanding of the
ecosystem pillars and intention to apply them in one’s own institutional setting (i.e., classrooms,
libraries, etc.).
Figure 5 | Professional Development Workshop Descriptions
Title Description
Building
Sustainable STEAM
Ecosystems
Lead institutions utilize resources such as the STEAM Ecosystem Mapping Tool
to learn about the power of their why and how defining their purpose sets the
intention for any successful ecosystem, including clearly defined expectations and
roles, equitable hiring and management, effective communication, and
sustainability efforts.
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Cultivating
Psychologically
Safer Spaces
Collaborators learn to foster a sense of psychological safety that encourages
people to speak their minds. Tackling issues around diversity, equity, access, and
inclusion requires trust; increasing trust cultivates positive ecosystem cultures and
organizational practices.
The Power of Data Effectively utilizing diverse forms of evaluation and an iterative feedback loop
empowers ecosystems to use data for enhancing program outcomes, disseminating
results with both internal and external audiences, and securing sustainable funding.
Establishing
Effective Systems
Equipped with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, lead institutions learn to
facilitate collaborations with an ever-growing group of educators and how to give
constructive feedback, so they can finalize program logistics.
Embracing
Diversity, Equity,
Access, and
Inclusion
Educators are empowered to integrate anti-bias design into the structure of their
programs. Participants will define their community agreements that set the stage
for inclusive communication and relationship building. By establishing an
equitable framework, ecosystems can identify gaps that exist between their
mission, actions, and impact.
Design Thinking Collaborators learn how to use the design thinking process as a teaching practice
to create a minds-on, hands-on project-based arts rich environment.
Culturally Engaged
Pedagogy
Collaborators explore an innovative approach to unlock intrinsic motivation by
combining contemporary arts and crafts with culture and digital media.
Trauma Informed
Teaching
Collaborators explore practices that are inclusive and responsive to students who
have experienced trauma (i.e., predictable routines, supportive relationships,
empowering agency, self-regulated skills, and exploring individual and community
identities).
Psycho-Social Skill
Building
Collaborators learn psycho-social protective and promotive strategies to keep
learners engaged in STEAM learning. They discover and practice provisions they
can add to their teaching toolboxes and adapt for any student population.
STEAM Lesson
Planning
Collaborators gain hands-on experience developing arts integrated lessons using
Dramatic Results' Design Tool. Educators will get practice designing workshops
that are project-based and integrate social-emotional learning strategies.
Strategy 3: Programs. The third goal is to develop, implement, and expand STEAM
programs as safe, supportive spaces for students and educators to develop and practice their artsintegration
skills, self-awareness, social awareness, and self-efficacy while learning about
STEAM-related fields and careers. Each community will offer programs primarily during out-ofDramatic
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school time. SEED will use a model created under the ABC Project, where educators work with
art teams to generate lesson plans based on a design brief format and align to Visual and
Performing Arts (VAPA) content standards. Additionally, as a part of the professional
development cycle, SEED collaborators will be able to observe programs being delivered in the
ABC Project during their twice-yearly visits to Long Beach, as well as live, virtual workshops.
Long Beach Public Library is one example of an educator they might see (Figure 6, page 9),
which will give new collaborators a sense of their own trajectory as a result of utilizing strategies
learned from the Pillars of Professional Development when delivering student Programs.
Strategy 4: Public Outreach. Dramatic Results and lead institutions will reach additional
students, community members, and collaborators by refining a set of introductory materials for
each training in the professional development sequence. By Year 5 of SEED, these units will be
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combined into a resource guide to engage new communities. This type of dissemination is
exemplified in the ABC Project, which has produced blogs and companion podcasts to support
professional development in Cultivating Culturally Relevant STEAM Pathways, Developing
Student's Psychosocial Skills, and Classroom Management, as well as tools such as the Virtual
Moderator Checklist and Design Tool for educator lesson building.
Community needs. The value of out-of-school programs has received increased attention
in recent years (Afterschool Alliance, 2020). Summer enrichment programs in particular have
been flagged as crucial to efforts to re-engage students after the learning losses due to the
COVID-19 pandemic (Wallace Foundation, 2021a; National Academies, 2019). A recent
research brief from the Wallace Foundation (2021b) notes: “Social and emotional learning
experiences can play meaningful and important roles in helping young people recover from the
damaging impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and in promoting educational equity.” However,
providing these opportunities for students requires appropriate professional development for the
adults who work with them. Research from RAND (2020) demonstrated that “development of
adults’ abilities to establish and maintain their own healthy relationships'' is the “fundamental
precursor for being able to teach their students how to do the same.”
Arts education and arts integration are key strategies for fostering social-emotional
development and well-being for adults and children (Farrington & Shewfelt, 2020; Holochwost,
Wolf, et al, 2017; National Endowment for the Arts, 2011). Two key components of socialemotional
learning are self and social awareness. Self-awareness focuses on how well people
know themselves; it includes recognizing individual emotions, self-perceptions, strengths, needs,
values, and situational self-efficacy. Social awareness focuses on how well people know those
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around them; it includes empathy, an appreciation of diversity, respect, and overall perspective
(Varner, 2020). These components are embedded in arts education standards and are carefully
mapped in CreateCA’s Arts Education and Social-Emotional Learning Framework
(https://bit.ly/32cU4u4), which has been adopted by Dramatic Results (CreateCA, 2021).
Importantly, self and social awareness are also key components addressed within art
therapy (American Art Therapy Association, 2017) that can reduce chronic stress (Kaimal, Ray,
Muniz, 2016), particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (NAEA Town Hall,
November 2020). One key research on arts education and social-emotional learning outcomes
(Farrington et al, 2019) found that “exposure to arts opportunities allows students and teachers to
engage with one another in a way that often stands in contrast to how they engage with each
other in the context of regular academic instruction and that provides rich opportunities for
social-emotional learning.” Further, for underserved students, art provides ways to find the
strength and resources to forge their own paths within industries that have not always welcomed
them. A recent editorial by a high school senior and artist of color noted, “art has the power to
heal students’ trauma and rebuild our economy in the wake of the pandemic. Arts education is
necessary to rebuild our society and country. We can use art to reshape our society and culture in
a way that is more equitable, and in doing so we can rewrite our own legacy” (Campa, 2021).
Most communities have needs that are so great they are beyond the scope of what one
organization can provide, which makes collaboration and communication all the more essential.
A 2015 report from American Institutes for Research states, “increasingly, there is a recognition
that all of the settings in which young people learn and spend time need to work together to
create aligned pathways for youth success,” adding that “one area in which there is room for
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an increased level of partnership, and potentially a leadership role for afterschool, is social and
emotional learning” (American Institutes of Research, 2015). The Wallace Foundation brief on
Evidence-based Considerations for COVID-19 Re-opening and Recovery Planning (Wallace
Foundation, 2021c) provides evidence that three components are essential for effective out-ofschool
time systems: a coordinating entity, a common data system, and quality standards or
framework. This approach is exemplified in the proposed SEED Project.
Institutional collaboration to serve the community. By fostering students’ 21st-century
skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication the SEED STEAM
ecosystems are keeping the U.S. at the leading edge in the global economy (National Research
Council, 2013). Lead institutions work to serve the communities within which they are rooted
and while their missions are complimentary, in most cities they function independently.
Libraries. All three library systems in SEED have state-of-the-art makerspaces (see
descriptions in Letters of Support) and have been offering STEAM programs for many years, but
feel their facilities are underutilized. Libraries have missions to reach the public and support lifelong
learning, and already have mobile and satellite resources. However, makerspaces can pose
challenges for libraries in other ways, including cost, staffing and scheduling, training staff and
users, noise, and safety (Curiosity Commons, n.d.). Libraries are well-positioned to support the
entrepreneurs, inventors, and businesses within a community with their makerspaces (Cruz,
2016) if capacity issues can be addressed.
Schools need additional programs to serve underrepresented students and position them
to advance to competitive specialized high schools (Reeves & Schobert, 2019). To increase
student self and social awareness, principals and classroom teachers need training in arts
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education and integration and social-emotional wellness to establish value, gain experience, and
demonstrate increased use.
Colleges of education teacher preparation programs need to provide pre-service teachers
with integrated STEAM experiences, applied training in culturally responsive pedagogy, and
clinically rich field experiences so they will be better able to meet the needs of all students in
their future teaching careers. As an illustrative example, although progress in adding arts
integration to pre-service teaching
requirements in California has been
successful, the process took over 12
years. Still “subsequent research
showed that teacher preparation
programs are not skilled in
integrating the arts and that
universities and organizations
should provide ongoing
professional development to faculty who teach in these programs” (Engdahl, 2021). Providing a
structured demonstration program for rich field experiences for both students and faculty in
teacher preparation programs would help meet this need.
Meeting the needs of underrepresented student groups. According to an influential 2015
report from the National Research Council (NRC), learning ecosystems are most effective when
they result in accumulated experiences, positive change in individuals, programs, and
communities, and synergies that emerge between partners (NRC, 2015). Underrepresented
students face a general lack of enrichment resources to support learning both in and out-ofDramatic
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school and may feel disengaged from lesson content when it does not connect to their culture or
interests. SEED will facilitate programming both in and out-of-school (arranging transportation
when needed), bringing a long-term orientation to student engagement by emphasizing culturally
responsive pedagogy (Gaskins, 2021), and work within settings that best suit student needs
(Lawson, 2017; Lawson & Lawson, 2013).
SEED communities that will benefit from replicating the STEAM ecosystem model:
Long Beach (LB) is a dense, urban city in Southern California with almost half (45%) of
residents speaking a language other than English in the home. Despite this cultural and linguistic
diversity, what many groups have in common is the experience of poverty. LB ranks 26th
nationally in the overall percentage of residents in poverty (25.5%), but also 6th in its extreme
poverty concentration within a limited number of neighborhoods (8.1%). The city ranks 3rd
nationally in its percentage of children in poverty (33%). CSU-Long Beach (CSULB) is the third
largest of the 23-school California State University system and recognized as a historically
Hispanic serving institution. Long Beach Unified School District is the third-largest urban school
district in California (Wells, 2015). As the primary organizer for the SEED Project, Long Beach
Public Library aims to progress its strategic plan for youth services by collaborating with
community organizations including the United Cambodian Community (the parent group for
Living Arts Long Beach), Khmer Girls in Action, Latinos in Action, Torres Martinez Tribal
TANF, and the Filipino Migrant Center to serve 440 middle and high school students per year
who live near library branches in the underserved Central, North, and West Long Beach areas.
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, is a community of 43,000 residents located at the southern tip of
one of the country’s largest inland lakes. Although residents enjoy a relatively low cost of living,
the poverty rate has increased in recent years. Marian University is a private institution with a
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College of Education program and is the primary source of teachers for the Fond du Lac School
District. Almost half (48%) of Fond du Lac Public School District’s 6,672 students qualify for
free or reduced lunch. The primary organizer, the Fond du Lac Public Library has opened a stateof-
the-art makerspace, but it is underutilized. The SEED Project in Wisconsin will focus on
expanding opportunities for STEAM learning to lower-income elementary students in grades 3-5
and integrating local art centers into demonstration programs.
Calvert County, Maryland, is a rural community located 35 miles southeast of
Washington, D.C. and 55 miles south of Baltimore. Bowie State University is Maryland’s oldest
historically black university. Bowie’s College of Education is a primary source of teachers for
Calvert County Public Schools. Calvert County Public School District (CCPS) is home to 15,908
PreK-12th grade students, approximately 20% of whom are military-federal connected students.
While CCPS consistently ranks among Maryland’s top districts based on state assessments, its
strategic plan is focused on ensuring equitable opportunities for all gifted students. This includes
adopting new processes for identifying and serving many of the district’s rural gifted students of
color. Calvert County Library has four locations and a mobile library service. The library has
been offering STEAM programs since 2005 and partnering with CCPS for over 30 years. A new
library is scheduled to open in 2023 with a dedicated makerspace.
B. Quality of Project Services
Approach to replication. The SEED Project represents the first large-scale replication of
the AAEDD-funded ABC Project Ecosystem. This replication has required identifying the key
professional development needed by underserved communities, as well as the processes and
instructional materials that will allow the ecosystem model to be customized and sustained.
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While Dramatic Results served as the primary organizer in the ABC Project, the agency’s goal is
to develop a consulting and training model for other community-based organizations that wish to
become ecosystem lead institutions. Since the inception of the ABC Project, many other
communities have expressed interest in applying this idea—some in geographically adjacent
areas such as San Pedro, California, and some as far away as Florida. A small-scale replication
of virtual STEAM programming in Calvert County this school year (2020-2021) has resulted in
the refinement of a resource guide (bit.ly/3g9Djbr) Going forward, Dramatic Results will apply
the lessons learned and evaluation research gathered in these three new communities to position
the agency as a national leader in the seeding of STEAM ecosystems around the country.
Ways equitable access will be addressed. Dramatic Results has been successfully
working with underrepresented students in Long Beach for over 29 years, as well as adapting
programs for very different settings, such as with Native American communities in Alaska and
Oregon. In the ABC Project, Dramatic Results has developed an approach rooted in design
thinking that prioritize the following: (1) Build trusting relationships with students’ families by
asking them what they want and need and then delivering on these needs. The process begins by
listening, then designing experiences based on family feedback rather than the expectations or
assumptions of schools or other entities. (2) Customize communication based on family
preferences, which includes making calls in the evenings rather than weekends or sending texts
instead of emails, and utilizing native speakers to match each family’s language preference. (3)
Provide different opportunities for families to give feedback, including person-to-person, orally,
by email, Google Forms, or in writing. (4) Iterate the communication strategy repeatedly and
consistently to engage with families, even when they appear to be non-responsive. This method
is employed with classroom teachers and principals, too. (5) Prioritize diversity, equity, access,
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and inclusion; representation and diversity matter and having coordinators and educators that
understand the needs of the community—whether that be because they share a similar race, come
from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, or have shared lived experiences—needs to be a
priority in hiring and training decisions (Fund for Shared Insight, 2019). Dramatic Results seeks
to model diversity and inclusion for partner organizations through their multi-lingual team of
eight full-time staff representing seven different racial/ethnic backgrounds.
Evidence of promise from AAEDD evaluation. In the 2019-2020 evaluation report of the
ABC Project, the program demonstrated the ability to recruit and engage underserved gifted
middle school students, including through online virtual STEAM programs during the COVID-
19 pandemic. In the last school year, the ABC Project reached 247 students and 148
collaborators and offered 80 hours of out-of-school live virtual programming, 11 professional
development workshops, and 47 online resources. The following paragraphs demonstrate how
the SEED Project is expected to build on the foundation built by ABC.
Quality of professional development services. In the 2019-2020 evaluation of the ABC
Project (REVA Group, 2021), interviews and focus groups with institutional collaborators found
that perceived benefits of participation in ABC included working with an interdisciplinary team,
iteratively testing new lesson ideas, and learning how to create professional collaborations
outside the program. Among pre-service teachers, key benefits included the ability to observe
others teaching STEAM lessons, learning how to apply the design thinking process, and learning
how to run an inclusive classroom. Eighty-four percent of educators felt they would use what
they had learned in other settings (REVA Group, 2021). During the first year of programming in
2018-2019, the core professional development sequence was established. Collaborators had an
average satisfaction rating of over 90% for four of the six workshops offered. Several additional
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trainings were offered and iteratively improved over the first two years and the program pivoted
to provide more one-on-one coaching as educators were offered time to practice their lessons
with students. As one pre-service teacher noted, “The design thinking process informed my
teaching practice a lot. I think it set the bar very high in terms of what I expected of myself. It
helped me develop my lessons that I've taught since then differently.” SEED will build on these
findings to further strengthen the Pillars of Professional Development and continue to monitor
participant satisfaction and content usefulness (see Strategy 2, pages 6-8 for more detail).
Likelihood that services will lead to academic improvement. Although COVID-19 made
it difficult to capture academic data for the ABC Project evaluation, there was some indirect
evidence that the skills students were learning were helpful within academic settings. Student
surveys showed that the percentage of students responding positively to the statement,
“Designing and making things helps me understand math better,” increased from 58%
responding positively at baseline to 72% responding positively at post-program survey. Further,
student ratings of confidence in the STEAM classroom increased from 75% with positive ratings
at baseline to 89% at post-survey. Given that the SEED Project will involve even closer
partnerships between school districts and other educational institutions within the community, it
is expected that integration with classroom practices will lead to additional academic benefits.
Likelihood that services will lead to additional improvements for recipients. In the 2019-
2020 ABC Project evaluation, interviews and focus groups with students and parents indicated
that students valued the real world and hands-on learning opportunities, creative freedom, and
chances to socialize with similar peers. Student pre-post survey data showed growth in many
areas, including creativity, communication, and valuing STEAM fields. Compared with similar
students in control schools, ABC students were 14 percentage points higher on a scale of interest
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in careers in computer-based graphics and animation and 15 percentage points higher on interest
in careers in designing in digital environments. Among collaborators, there were several
examples of classroom and pre-service teachers beginning to view students differently when
watching them engage in the creative process. This was illustrated in one anecdote recounted by
a program facilitator: “We had a classroom teacher working that Saturday and he was just blown
away. He kept shaking his head because he started to see his students so differently; and it was
really clear to him that he needed to see his students differently and push them differently; and
he was able to really rethink his teaching. And he had a real firewall between his personal and
his professional lives. He was a musician and a Language Arts teacher. And he goes, ‘I don't
know why I'm not bringing the music. That's a real passion of mine.’” These findings have
informed the emphasis on self and social awareness that is the basis of the SEED Project
professional development and demonstration programs.
Dissemination. SEED will conduct community-based and national outreach activities that
strengthen, expand, and sustain arts education-based collaborations among multiple sectors with
specific focus on the needs of: (1) Educational institutions interested in developing and
sustaining a successful, collaborative, customized ecosystem; and (2) K-20 educators interested
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in engaging instruction through arts integration, with special emphasis on providing year-round,
well-rounded arts education for students to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Resources created during the SEED Project will be iteratively tested and refined over the
course of four years. At the end of Year 5, Dramatic Results will compile this information into a
digital resource guide, including arts-integrated activities, lesson plan examples, case studies,
lessons learned, and highlights of educator and community collaboration. The ecosystem guide
will: (1) Provide communities (whether in rural, suburban, or urban settings) with the framework
to successfully develop, deliver, assess, and sustain high-quality, year-round programming
through a collaborative model, and (2) Increase educators’ knowledge, skill, and comfort in
delivering high-quality arts instruction, as well as assessing its impact. All resulting resources
will be aligned to state and national standards and best practices in VAPA and Career Technical
Education that prepare youth with integrated academic and occupational knowledge to succeed
in future career pathways. The resulting resources will then be disseminated through as
illustrated in Figure 10 below.
Figure 10 | Dissemination of SEED Project
Dissemination
Tools
Venues
Community Exhibitions Mount in-person and virtual displays of student artwork, as well as
process documents and resources created by educators that illustrate
ecosystem development and the student experience; based on other
innovative models such as Science Gallery International
(https://detroit.sciencegallery.com/about-science-gallery).
Expanded Networks The SEED Project includes three new ecosystems, which allows for an
expanded community of thought partners across multiple states. Some
trainings from the Pillars of Professional Development will be held
jointly (in a virtual setting), thereby allowing for collaboration and lesson
sharing between lead institutions.
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Paper and Digital Print Disseminate through collaborator’s monthly newsletters and annual
reports; secure media coverage; submit articles to peer-reviewed and
practitioner publications (e.g., Harvard Education Review’s Voices
Inside Schools and National Art Education Association); and produce an
ecosystem resource guide to be published in Year 5.
Electronic Platforms
and Social Media
Produce YouTube videos; craft digital storytelling via blogs and
podcasts; post on all collaborator websites and social media; provide
opportunities for educators and students to share their artwork and what
they have learned with peers, family, collaborating agencies, and arts
educators via apps such as Seesaw; create webinars for Education Week;
send marketing emails of milestones and program events to educators,
funders, and elected officials (local, state, and national).
Presentations,
Workshops and
Conferences
Present at regional and national conferences such as the American
Educational Research Association, Arts Education Partnership, CA
STEAM Symposium, The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning, and Learning Forward; publicize the SEED Project
and evaluation results to board of education members and elected
officials; engage other community organizations and school districts to
visit demonstration sites for possible program expansion and replication.
SEED collaborators will submit articles for practitioner and peer-reviewed publications in
their particular fields, as well as present findings at national and local conferences. Dramatic
Results’ replication of the federally funded Math in a Basket (MIAB) program was a direct
outcome of presenting at regional and national conferences. The nonprofit has disseminated its
current ABC STEAM Ecosystem via a workshop presentation at the 2019 National Association
of Gifted Children Conference, where one of the attendees was the Advanced Learning
Coordinator for Calvert County Public Schools (CCPS) in Prince Frederick, Maryland. This
dissemination effort led to the current STEAM programs’ adaptation as an afterschool STEAM
program (virtual delivery) for their low-income middle and high school gifted girls. This initial
experience with CCPS was so impactful that the district chose to participate in this 2021 AAE
project to expand their pilot program to a full-sized STEAM ecosystem.
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C. Quality of Project Personnel (10pts)
Key Dramatic Results Staff:
Project Director: Christi Wilkins (White, LGBTQ, Basket Maker, and Ceramics Artist)
will manage and coordinate all components of the SEED Project, with a special focus on
fundraising and outreach. Since Dramatic Results’ inception in 1992, Ms. Wilkins has
successfully implemented five AAE grants, resulting in national recognition by the Dep. of
Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement. She has received numerous awards for her
vision and dedication to STEAM and arts education for underserved students. Under her
leadership, the agency’s project models and evaluation have been adopted across the U.S.
Operations Director: Ryan Nuckolls (White) will manage all operational and supervisory
components of this project, ensuring that the proposed Management Plan is built upon and
achieved. She has over a decade of experience working in education and the arts, with a
background in China producing large-scale exhibitions and corollary community programming.
She has extensive training in human resources and change management, with an in-depth
understanding of how to use evaluation to increase programmatic and marketing impact.
Program Manager: Brenda Cruz (Salvadoran American) will act as the primary point of
contact for lead institutions, using high-touch communication with all partners and relevant
stakeholders for achieving successful program delivery. She is an art educator with a background
in Latin American and Iberian Studies who has been bridging the gap between the classroom and
community for over a decade by helping underserved K-12 students experience hands-on
artmaking with rarefied mediums, such as painting and printmaking.
Instructional Specialist: Tori-Ann Hampton (African American and Bi-cultural) will
develop and deliver a customized training plan to build the capacity of the lead institutions, art
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teams, and educators. She is an actor and a formerly credentialed K-6 Teacher for eight years in
Miami-Dade Public Schools, with 15 years of experience working with children. She specializes
in curating safe and encouraging spaces to pique students’ curiosity in the world around them,
and to promote social-emotional coping skills and creative confidence using STEAM.
Note: key personnel responsibilities are expanded upon in the budget narrative. Additional inhouse
expertise not listed above includes student counseling, data management and visualization,
user experience design, as well as marketing and communications.
Contractors:
Project Evaluator: Stacie Powers, P.h.D. (White), is the founder and CEO of REVA
Group. Dr. Powers evaluates Dramatic Results’ current AAEDD grant for the ABC Project and
from 2019-2020 she led evaluations of several Dramatic Results programs as a senior research
associate at Philliber Research & Evaluation. Since 2014, she has evaluated programs for
Cleveland Play House, another AAEDD grantee. Through these evaluations, she has developed
several research strategies that help tie together findings across the ecosystem of students,
families, schools, and communities (Powers, 2019). Dr. Powers has added to AAE dissemination
efforts by giving six national presentations on evaluations of AAE-funded projects, as well as
participating in three panels organized by program officers (see résumé for more details).
Dramatic Results has been refining the STEAM Ecosystem model for the past six years,
including building out an expert roster of national arts educators, trainers, and advisors. This
esteemed group of professionals will be utilized for building the capacity of demonstration sites
and designing more impactful arts-integrated learning experiences for students. One such advisor
is STEAM Specialist: Dr. Nettrice R. Gaskins (African American), a digital artist, academic,
published author, cultural critic, and advocate of STEAM fields. In her work, she explores how
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techno-vernacular creativity (TVC) connects technical literacy, equity, and culture,
encompassing creative innovations produced by ethnic groups that are often overlooked. TVC
uses three main modes of activity: reappropriation, remixing, and improvisation.
Creating safer workspaces for underrepresented groups. Dramatic Results prioritizes
working with Title I schools. The nonprofit is committed to modeling diversity for students
within each new community, which includes fostering an equitable workplace for employees and
partners. It is essential that ecosystems establish intentional practices around diversity, equity,
access, and inclusion (DEAI) in Year 1—these processes inform communication, with educators
and students alike, and is the lens through which data is interpreted and applied. Examples of
how to create physically inclusive workspaces include having gender-neutral bathrooms,
wheelchair accessible common areas, and assistive technology for the hearing and visually
impaired. Anti-bias training will provide SEED ecosystems the opportunity to revisit and update
existing policies for implementing inclusive recruitment, hiring, and management of
underrepresented groups. Examples of non-biased hiring practices include revisiting job
descriptions for stereotypically gendered language, conducting blind résumé reviews, and
providing work sample tests during interviews. To build an authentic and human-centered
culture, SEED collaborators will need to embrace diversity beyond the checkbox.
D. Quality of Project Management Plan (20pts)
Project leadership team: Dramatic Results has been developing, delivering, and
replicating innovative STEAM programs for 29 years with K-8th students both in class and outof-
school in California, Alaska, Maryland, and Oregon, as well as conducting independent
research/evaluation and disseminating nationally. SEED will draw from the agency’s nearly
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three decades of community engagement with underrepresented populations and the professional
development of educators to successfully deliver on project goals. The nonprofit will manage
and coordinate all project components, including producing required AAE reports.
The total budget for this proposed 5-year SEED Project is $10,397,477. Dramatic Results
is seeking $8,544,995, (82%) of this budget from the U.S. Department of Education. A total of
$1,852,482 (18%) is being provided by lead institutions as in-kind donations or with private
funds. $476,695 (5%) of the budget is for evaluation.
SEED will focus on: (1) supporting the four guiding strategies: Partnerships among lead
institutions and educators, Pillars of Professional Development, Programs for underrepresented
students to demonstrate the ecosystem approach in community makerspaces during out-of-school
time, and Public Outreach to disseminate SEED educational and professional development
resources, and (2) ensuring SEED reaches 213 educators, 765 underrepresented students, and
132 community collaborators each year for five years with public outreach via schools, libraries,
and community festivals reaching approximately 35,000 people per year.
Skills, Roles, and Responsibilities of SEED Collaborators. Dramatic Results is confident
that SEED will meet the Milestones schedule (Figure 11 on page 26) based on the organization’s
extensive track record, as well as the caliber and buy-in from lead institutions in California,
Maryland, and Wisconsin (see Letters of Support in “Other” Documents).
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Procedures for ensuring feedback and continuous improvement
Dramatic Results utilizes an iterative improvement cycle at every level of program
development and delivery to ensure high-quality products and services. As this strategy has been
developed over time, it has come to closely resemble the Kaizen model, which emphasizes the
key principles of knowing your customer, creating value and eliminating waste, going to where
the action is, empowering teams, using data to promote transparency in an iterative cycle of
practicing, learning, and improving (Kaizen Institute, n.d).
Dramatic Results’ rigorous feedback cycle will ensure continuous improvement in all
areas of SEED, including administration, development of the collaborative process, revision of
program content and processes, implementation of trainings, delivery of program to students,
documentation of student participation, independent project evaluation, as well as support from
community agencies to sustain the program beyond AAE support. The Project Director, Christi
Wilkins, will monitor milestones in the feedback process to ensure all objectives are met.
E. Quality of Project Evaluation (15pts)
Aligning Evaluation Design and Methods to Project Goals and Objectives. In keeping
with the SEED Project’s general principles, this evaluation is guided by a diversity, equity, and
inclusion framework for practitioner-led evidence building (Project Evident, 2020; D’Ignazio &
Klein, 2020 and a general approach to evaluating innovative program models found in
Developmental Evaluation (Patton, 2010), which emphasizes situational responsiveness and
adaptability in evaluation methods.
The evaluation will take a developmental and mixed-method approach and will build a
comparative case study (Goodrick, 2014) of ecosystem collaboration development in three
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communities over the course of the funding. The goals of the evaluation will be to: (1) create
systems for sharing rapid feedback on performance measures among program staff and
administrators (e.g. Tableau dashboards capturing program logs, attendance, and data collection
progress); (2) facilitate timely conversations about progress toward goals and objectives; (3)
capture progress in implementation and outcomes over time for federal reporting and
dissemination within local communities and the field of arts education; (4) through comparing
results across the three communities, produce more generalizable knowledge about how and why
particular aspects of the program work or do not work.
Evaluation Questions will revolve around these four primary themes: (1) How are the
four ecosystem strategies (Partnerships, Pillars of Professional Development, Programs, and
Public Outreach) implemented in each community? What are the primary opportunities and
challenges? (2) What is the evidence of the effectiveness of SEED for educators, students,
families, lead institutions, and partnerships among these entities? To what extent are shorter-term
outcomes for increasing self and social awareness among educators, administrators, and students
a key driver of progress? Do students increase in creativity, collaboration, critical thinking,
communication (the 4C’s) and engagement with STEAM? (3) To what extent do lead institutions
develop internal capacity for providing high quality, engaging, and equitable STEAM programs?
To what extent do partnerships among lead institutions expand, deepen, and/or develop
sustainable practices? (4) How are resources about arts-based instructional materials developed
and disseminated by each ecosystem? Which resources are more or less successful?
Performance Measures and Methodology. The evaluation will be designed to answer all
three performance measures (PMs) for SEED. The first PM is the number of grantees that attain
or exceed the targets for a majority of the outcome indicators for their projects. The outcome
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indicators, as represented in the program’s logic model (see attached documents), are represented
as the Shorter-Term Outcomes regarding increases in self-awareness and social awareness for
educators, administrators, and students. For educators, additional outcomes include
understanding and increasing self-efficacy for teaching STEAM lessons using the SEED pillars
of professional development. For students, additional outcomes include increases in the “4Cs”:
critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication, as well as increased engagement
with STEAM activities. These outcomes will all be addressed using surveys customized for each
group: educators, administrators, and students.
The second PM is the percentage of AAE participants (e.g., arts educators, teachers,
principals, and other support staff) who complete 75 percent or more of the total hours of
professional development offered. Total number of hours will vary for each group, so the
percentage of hours attended will be calculated to reflect the grand average. The number of hours
offered as live instruction will most likely be highest in the first year and then shift to a
combination of coaching, debriefing, and feedback sessions as the project continues. The PM
will be described so that it is clear what types of professional development are offered each year.
The third PM is the number of accessible, arts-based instructional materials that are
developed. This will be defined as the number of products for dissemination to support the
professional development in SEED guiding strategies. This will include tools to support capacity
building, lesson examples, and narrative accounts of how communities implement SEED.
Validity and Reliability of Performance Measures. The evaluation draws on several types
of quantitative and qualitative measures, each of which will have its own set of criteria for
establishing the validity and reliability of the measurement. In general, surveys will use Likerttype
scales, and these will be assessed for internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha.
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Procedures for measuring attendance at professional development will be defined uniformly
across the three communities. The overall comparative case study approach utilizes triangulation
across data sources as the primary test of convergent validity. For example, if there is consistent
evidence of growth in student social-emotional well-being from student surveys, parent surveys,
and focus group discussions, we can be more confident in our results. In addition to quantitative
analysis of results, the overarching analytic approach will utilize qualitative analysis techniques
to describe the relationships among the various program strategies and their outcomes.
Evaluation Synthesis. To capture the relationship among performance measures, as well
as potential longer-term outcomes, REVA Group will conduct site visits to each community
every year. These site visits will consist of presentation and discussion of evaluation findings,
interviews with host sites, art teams, and lead institutions, observations of student programming
and/or professional development activities using a rubric developed for the project, and
community focus groups with students, families, and educators who will receive $25 each for
participation. These focus groups will utilize a participatory research technique called Ripple
Effect Mapping (see Chazdon et al., 2017) with a representative cross-section of program
stakeholders in each community. Themes emerging from these sessions will be used to interpret
quantitative results, refine ongoing data collection efforts, and understand how the SEED Project
contributes to academic excellence in each community.
Progress toward the long-term goal of building pathways for a more creative and diverse
workforce will be assessed by capturing progress toward ecosystem sustainability, strength of
partnerships, number of educational opportunities, and use of arts-based instructional materials
across institutional settings.