There are few organizations that spend as much time in the classroom as DreamYard. DreamYard artists go into the school for an entire school year, becoming a part of the school fabric. It is our belief that in order to have a lasting and significant impact on the lives of students and on the institutions in which they learn, in-depth and meaningful relationships must develop. DreamYard does not offer a one size fits all approach to education, instead, DreamYard molds its program to the needs of the institutions and districts with whom we collaborate. This places DreamYard in the unique position of being a serious broker for school reform in the field of arts and education.

The Nuts and Bolts of the Collaboration:

• Artists go into the classroom for two teaching sessions and one planning session a week for a total of 90 in school classroom sessions a year. In the vast majority of schools with whom DreamYard partners, we run classes with entire grade levels of students so that our impact can be felt throughout an institution rather than in isolated pockets. In addition, most of DreamYard's collaborations are multi-year so that our artists can work with most of the teachers at any given school.
• Artists attend 16 staff development workshops a year. These sessions are designed to support the needs of our artists and teaching partners, workshops include: journal writing, portfolio development, assessment, etc.
• Artists attend a one week retreat at the beginning of the year to work intensely on integrating arts into the curriculum and the nature of collaboration. They attend a second mid-year retreat in February.
• DreamYard leads a mandatory 2 day retreat for the staff and artist partners at each school. This retreat is designed to introduce teachers and artists to the fundamentals of curriculum design. During these meetings the artist and teacher fill out project timelines, discuss what activities address New York State curricular needs and explore elements of the collaborative process.
• Staff development meetings are held throughout the year with collaborating teachers to monitor the path of the collaboration. This includes activities designed to strengthen project development, arts integration and teaching strategies.
• Weekly planning sessions occur between artist and teacher. These sessions are designed to ensure that artist and teacher maintain continuous communication with regard to planning and preparation as well as to ensure that the process in each classroom is documented over the course of an entire year.

DreamYard artists have different skills and areas of expertise that they will bring to the classroom. The work that is done can be tailored to meet the needs of the class.

Methodology:

Each DreamYard project begins with the introduction of a topic, followed by a discussion of the issues that make that topic relevant to the students' lives. Through this process, students use their existing knowledge as the foundation for all subsequent project work.

As the project begins to take shape, students need to do extensive background reading and research. Individually or in small groups students complete mini-projects designed to prepare the group as a whole to complete the larger project.

A fundamental component of DreamYard's approach is the re-working that goes into a successful presentation. Students share their work in rough draft form and garner feedback from students and faculty before making their final presentations. Experience has shown us that editing and rehearsal are perhaps the most applicable skills students learn through the DreamYard process.

Once the research, the creative writing, thinking, discussing and editing have been accomplished, our students have the opportunity to share their projects with an audience. The performance element provides an opportunity for students to receive feed-back on their work, while giving them a forum in which to communicate their ideas. Confidence in self-expression and in the student's ability to solve and present problems and solutions grow with each presentation. The presentation is the final piece of the puzzle by which we create confident readers, writers, speakers and performers.