Our core work involves professional development over a three-year period with every teacher in our partner schools. Each teacher is strategically paired with one of our highly-trained teaching artists. CoTA works incrementally with each classroom teacher by providing differentiated one-on-one lesson design and co-teaching over an annual ten-week period. Students receive 60 minutes per week of direct artist instruction (10 hours). Teachers receive an additional 30-45 minutes per week of training/coaching from Teaching Artists (project planning, reflections, and lesson study).

CoTA’s design is built around a model of gradual release of responsibility that incrementally shifts the classroom teacher into a leadership role in the arts integration process. This individual work with teachers is complemented by whole school workshops and lesson study involving the entire staff at key points during the school year.

In 2018, the Centers for Research on Creativity (CRoC) completed a three-year study on the impact of arts integration implementation in three San Diego school districts employing a process methodology developed by CoTA. CRoC’s findings synthesized quantitative outcomes employing the Next Generation Creativity Assessment (NGCA) created by Principal Investigator and CRoC founder, the late James Catterall. Qualitative analysis gleaned from structured observations, questionnaires and interviews of teachers, artists, principals, and school district superintendents was also undertaken by CRoC research associates in the field.

CRoC concluded that the three-year findings are promising for students with sustained, statistically significant growth in demonstrated creativity, creative self-efficacy, and empathy. Additionally, in the final year, students experienced a very large significant gain in critical thinking. CRoC suggests that the CoTA program builds upon creative skills sequentially, targeting general creativity in the early years, followed by deep critical thinking in the final year of the program, after solidifying general creativity, collaboration, and empathy.