SMART SCHOOLS SUMMER INSTITUTE 2006 STAFF & ARTISTS

Eileen Conklin Mackin, Ed.M., the founder and director of SmART Schools, will design and coordinate the professional development services provided to SMMUSD. She is an arts-in-education specialist and a professional visual artist, with extensive training in dance and theater. Ms. Mackin is a graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Arts-in-Education Program, where she worked with Project Zero’s Howard Gardner, Jessica Davis, and David Perkins, as well as PACE’s Dennie Wolf. She is nationally recognized for the program’s demonstrated success and has been asked to speak at numerous national and regional conferences. Before joining EDC, Ms. Mackin ran successful arts in education programs in NH, and helped craft the arts standards for the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Wendy Cohen, M.Ed., SmART Schools Site Developer & Senior Training Specialist facilitates and coaches workshops on curriculum mapping and designing arts-infused curriculum, instruction and performance assessments aligned to Grade Level Expectation Standards (RI, NH, and VT), employing the strategies of Backward Design, Universal Design, and Assessment for Learning. Ms Cohen is also an adjunct faculty for St. Michael’s Graduate Education Program (VT) where teaches seasoned and new teachers a course entitled “New Directions in Assessment.”

Kurt Wootton, Theater Arts/Literacy Consultant. Director of Brown University Education Department’s ArtsLiteracy Project, Mr. Wooten is also a veteran SmART Schools faculty member. He also works closely with Central Falls schools in RI on a DOE-funded partnership. Mr. Wootton also runs the professional development for the Brown Summer High School Page to the Stage program and ArtsLiteracy conferences and workshops nationally and regionally.

Magdalena Gómez, a Playwright in Residence and Arts Education Consultant with Enchanted Circle Theater, has worked as an artist in the schools training students and educators since 1976 both locally and nationally. One of her works for young audiences, Latino Voices: Remembering and Another Way to See, has been touring since 1995 in venues that range from the NYC Tribeca Theater to elementary schools in Maine. A member of the Nuyorican Poets vanguard since the 1970’s, Magdalena continues to be a performance poet, and has been widely published, including the Massachusetts Review, Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, and the New York Times Book Review, Peregrine, Callaloo, among others. Her recent one woman show, Chopping, premiered at the Boston Women On Top Festival, 2001, was a semi-finalist in the Cleveland Public Theater’s New Plays Festival Competition, 2001 and has been accepted for production in New WORLD Theater’s New Works for a New World, June 2001. Magdalena was the recipient of the Latino Scholarship Fund’s Community Hero Award, 2000 and is the former Director of Teatro El Puente in NYC.

Robert Allwarden, Educator an AIE Consultant, has been teaching music in public and private schools for 13 years. In addition, he is an arts-in-education consultant working throughout New England with K-12 educators to develop the skills and techniques necessary for creating innovative music and theatre-embedded academic curriculum and assessments. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in music composition and theory and a Master of Science degree in education. Robert holds a level 3 certification in Orff Schulwerk music education, and has studied Orff Schulwerk at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. He performs frequently in the greater Boston area with his band The Giant Steps which play "family friendly" rock and roll. As a professional recording artist, he has produced original music for children including two recent CD’s, Animal Potpourri and Reptiles on Vacation.

Loriana De Crescenzo, Education Director of Opera Providence, is responsible for the administration, development and implementation of education and outreach programs called OPERAtunity. OPERAtunity has served more then 21,000 children and youth since 1998. Loriana has been part of the SmART Schools faculty in past years and has worked as a music/performing arts educator in Rhode Island since 1995.Loriana is an accomplished soprano, having performed throughout Rhode Island, Southern New England, Great Britain and Northern Italy. Her repertoire includes major operatic roles for soprano, musical theater and oratorio. She also teaches as adjunct Voice faculty at Providence College. Loriana’s performance credits include Opera Providence, Brooklyn Lyric Opera, Amato Opera, New York Grand Opera, Opera Ensemble of New York, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Hartt School of Music Opera/Musical Theater Productions, Coro Handel and Coro Vivaldi di Torino, Italy. Ms.. De Crescenzo is a native Rhode Islander and a mother of three.

Cathy Davis Hayes, a visual arts educator for 14 years and a working artist, holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MAT from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Catherine has taught visual arts to all grade levels in both public and private schools including the Rhode Island School of Design and the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. She was named Art Educator of the Year by the Rhode Island Art Educator’s Association in 1999, and was the first art educator in the state to earn National Board Professional Teacher certification in 2002. Catherine is currently a visual arts teacher and the coordinator for the SmART Schools pilot program at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick, RI, where for the past five years she has facilitated cross-curricular arts integration and coordinated support between the school’s teaching staff and the SmART Schools team. Catherine is also the Coordinator for the Young Artists Program at the Rhode Island School of Design, which provides K-12 students with visual arts courses that take advantage of the resources of the RISD campus. As an artist, Catherine has been involved with many large-scale community arts projects including serving as Associate Director for the award-winning Circle of Clay project at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. Currently, she is the Assistant Artistic Director and a woodcarver for the Oakland Beach Carousel Foundation, a community-based organization which is hand carving and building a new carousel for the Oakland Beach community in Warwick, RI.

Daniel J. Bisaccio, Math/ Science/ Technology Division Head at Souhegan, H.S., Amherst, received a number of state and national awards for offering public school students’ authentic research and interdisciplinary opportunities in academic areas.
Dan has been teaching biological field research courses to high students for over 25 years. He has developed field tropical ecology courses in Costa Rica, Belize, Jamaica, and Mexico and taken over 300 students to the tropics with him. He currently has three permanent biological diversity monitoring projects going in which he involves student researchers. The biological diversity projects are in New Hampshire, Mexico, and Jamaica, West Indies.Ten years ago Dan was accepted into the Smithsonian Institute’s Monitoring & Assessment Biodiversity Project (SI/MAB) and has certified his three biodiversity projects as SI/MAB sites. In 1996 .Dan Bisaccio has received several national teaching awards: Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching (NSF & NSTA), Environmental Teacher of the Year, Excellence in Earth Science Teaching (American Geological Institute), Entomology Teacher of the Year (American Entomology Society). His work is also the subject of two books (Schools That Work – George Wood, The Passionate Teacher – Robert Fried) as well as documented on a national CBS, NPR radio and television education specials on schools and teaching).