GIVE Programs & Initiatives

Grow with GIVE

The Grow with GIVE Program, by New Victory Theater, ArtsConnection, and Community-Word Project, is a year-long professional development initiative that partners GIVE with six New York City-based arts and culture organizations to train their teaching artists and administrative staff on the GIVE Guide. 

Officially launched in Fall 2022, Grow with GIVE provides specialized programming to each participating organization led by a team of specialized GIVE Trainers – many of whom collaboratively developed the GIVE resources – from partnered institutions New Victory Theater, ArtsConnection, and Community-Word Project.

Each organization participates in an introductory workshop for their full staff, and has a learning cohort of up to ten Teaching Artists and administrators participating in a bespoke professional development program. Across the 2022-23 academic year, the learning cohorts engage in four multi-hour training sessions, a lab-style sharing session for coaching and reflection supporting the implementation of GIVE practices in the classroom. A final convening of all five organizations to share overall learnings and celebrate will culminate the program in June 2023.

The participating Grow with GIVE organizations are: 

City Lore Inc.

Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, Arts and Literacy Program

Marquis Studios

Snug Harbor Cultural Center  & Botanical Garden

Studio in a School NYC

A teaching artist sits on the floor with students, organizing slips of paper into a poem

We believe fundamentally that the principles of an ICT environment are what benefits all community members. A learning environment that increases inclusivity is one that builds humanity, supporting diverse thought and innovation. We hope to deepen alignment with ICT principles, increase our knowledge of best practices, and learn how to better serve our community.

– Snug Harbor

GIVE Programming with the NYC Department of Education

In the 2021-22 school year, in partnership with the New York City DOE’s Office of Arts and Special Projects (OASP), GIVE piloted three professional development workshops for DOE Arts Specialists in these three key GIVE content areas:

  • Planning an Inclusive Lesson
  • Intersectional Approach to Classroom Behavior and Culture; and 
  • Collaborative Goal Setting, Reflection, and Adjustments

During the 2022-23 school year, Teach With GIVE professional development workshops are being offered to Arts Specialist teachers, Classroom Teachers, Arts Education Liaisons, Paraprofessionals and School Leadership teams. 

This year we are focusing on the topics listed below with more to come.

  • Building Arts Residency Classroom Partnerships,
  • Intersectional Approaches to Student Behavior; and
  • Celebrating Artists with Disabilities in your curriculum

Supporting all learners in a classroom is a collective effort that requires skilled and thoughtful partnership. Together we’re exploring resources focused on topics such as creating liberated learning environments, collaborative goal setting, co-planning, and teaching, supporting all the students in your room and inclusive curriculum. Activating Teach with GIVE to imagine—and build—an even more inclusive, more vibrant future for arts education. To add your name to our GIVE DOE Workshop email list, click here.

Photograph of four adults creating tableau while a facilitator observes.

“Everyone needs to have this resource and should be incorporating these resources/ approaches into their teaching no matter what environment they are in. It will help us all become better teachers and best serve any student!”

– Pre-K and Elementary Music Teacher, Brooklyn

Conferences

  • GIVE: Growing Inclusivity for Vibrant Engagement. (April, 2019). Face to Face, NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, New York City, U.S.A.
  • GIVE: Growing Inclusivity for Vibrant Engagement. Defining a Partnership. (November, 2019). Arts for All Abilities, New York City, U.S.A
  • The GIVE Day of Learning. (November, 2021). NYC Museum Educators Roundtable Conference, New York City, U.S.A.
  • Inclusive Practices & Developing Real-Time Resources for Teaching Accessible Arts. (November, 2020). Grantmakers in the Arts, New York City, U.S.A.
  • Art As A Catalyst For Change. (September, 2022). The Sixth International Teaching Artists Conference (ITAC6), Oslo, Norway.
  • Bridge, Build, Belong. (May, 2022). The NYC Museum Educators Roundtable 2022 Conference, New York City, U.S.A.
  • Teach with GIVE. (May 2022). NYCDOE Arts and Cultural Education Services (ACES), New York City, U.S.A
  • Can You “GIVE” Me a Hand? Creative Approaches to Micro- and Macro-Collaborations for Inclusive Arts Education. (October 2022). Arts for All Abilities, New York City, U.S.A.
  • Explore resources designed to support the creation of Liberated Learning Environments in the classroom. (March 2023). Whole Girl National Conference, New York City, U.S.A.
  • We’re Better Together: Paradigm Shifts in Inclusive Arts Education in NYC and Beyond. (April 2023). Face to Face, NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, New York City, U.S.A.
  • Teach with GIVE: A Toolbox for Transforming Challenges into Possibilities in Inclusive Arts Education. (April 2023). ABLE Assembly Conference, Boston, U.S.A.
  • Teach with GIVE: Tips, Tools, and Strategies for Inclusive Educational Theatre. (April 2023). NYU Educational Theatre Forum 2023: Collective Visioning, New York City, U.S.A.
  • From Casting to Curtain: Centering Inclusion Throughout the Theatre Education Experience. (September 2023). 2023 Educational Theatre Conference: The Power of YOU, St. Pete Beach, U.S.A.
  • Cultivating Inclusivity in Theatre Education. (September 2023). 2023 Educational Theatre Conference: The Power of YOU, St. Pete Beach, U.S.A.
Photograph of construction paper cut into shapes with different ingredients for collaboration written on them.

Research & Program Evaluation

Preliminary GIVE research, conducted in Spring 2021 by WolfBrown, showed that Teaching Artists who participated in training to use the GIVE resources improved in creating a welcoming and inclusive classroom more substantially than a control group of Teaching Artists working in similar environments. There is also evidence that Teaching Artists who engaged with the GIVE materials taught students to use digital tools and platforms more effectively than their untrained peers. For more information about our preliminary research, visit the About GIVE page.

In 2022-23, WolfBrown will further evaluate the effectiveness of GIVE trainings on educators, arts administrators and community Teaching Artists through program evaluation on Grow and Train with GIVE. The findings will help the overarching GIVE goal of social action and transformative change in inclusive practices within arts and education.