The HOT APPROACH is an innovative delivery system that provides teachers, teaching artists, administrators, parents, and arts organization educators vital professional development, resources, tools and strategies to develop, deepen and expand effective practices in arts education, arts integration, school culture change and leadership development.

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The HOT Approach shares a commitment to student achievement through three Core Components.

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The HOT Schools Continuum of Practice is a guide that helps schools identify their current depth of practice toward “becoming” a Higher Order Thinking School and to develop a plan to advance along the continuum from Arts Access, Arts Connections and Correlations, and Arts Integration.

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American educational psychologist widely known for his “Taxonomy”, a classification and ordering of the six levels of intellectual behavior (thinking) important to learning.

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American philosopher John Dewey is one of the most influential educational thinkers of the 20th century. Much of Dewey's work influenced the democratic practice component of HOT Schools.

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Professor of Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Connecticut and Director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, Joseph Renzulli contributes to The HOT APPROACH to whole-school change through his “Schoolwide Enrichment” and “Enrichment Triad” models for school improvement.

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Professor of Cognition and Education, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education contributes to HOT Schools through his theory of Multiple Intelligences.

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Collaboration demonstrates the ability to work effectively in diverse situations, to exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises toward a common goal and to assume shared responsibility for collaborative work. The National Endowment for the Arts document “Preparing 21st Century Students for a Global Society” states:  “Collaboration is essential in our classrooms because it is inherent in the nature of how work is accomplished in our civic and workforce lives. Fifty years ago, much work was accomplished by individuals working alone, but not today. Much of all significant work is accomplished in teams, and in many cases, global teams.”  HOT Schools promotes collaboration between and among all members of the school community, especially opportunities for student collaboration.

ECHOs (Enhanced Curricular HOT Opportunities) are designated time blocks which engage the whole school, often in multiaged groupings, in active learning.

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HOT Blocks are a creative intervention model where cross-curricular collaborations between grade-level teachers and arts classroom teachers support students in Scientific Research Based Interventions (SRBI) in their learning of language arts and math content through the arts.

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HOT School Coaches are integral to the change process and must be transparent in their efforts to create leadership teams who can communicate how the vision of the HOT Schools Program is aligned with the vision of the school community and assist in developing a collaborative culture.

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An informance is an informative performance in which both the creative process and creative product are explored.  Town Meeting and Teacher Artist Collaboration shares are often presented as an informance.

Interdisciplinary planning begins with an opportunity for arts and non-arts classroom teachers across content areas to meet regularly to create a plan for instruction that centers around a theme, concept, issue, problem or topic and allows each discipline to bring their curricular goals to the planning process. Students taught using this approach explore multiple topics in several standards-based disciplines connected by a unifying concept that reinforces their learning and brings the curriculum to life. HOT schools are encouraged to develop Interdisciplinary Planning Teams that include representation from each grade level, each arts and specialist discipline, the administration, and the parent group, and who meet regularly to discuss and plan interdisciplinary opportunities for students.

Leadershops are day-long workshops collaboratively designed, hosted, and conducted by a HOT school and HOT Schools staff to share best practices, developed and tested in HOT schools over time.

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Magical Mailbox reinforces literacy by providing multiple outlets for student writing. This student-generated and operated repository, initially intended for student writing, has grown to include opportunities for sharing visual art, songwriting, music composition and other work.

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The Mini Institute a 2-3 day residential conference that introduces new material, explores the intersection between new state or federal recommendations and HOT Practice, targets specific constituents' professional development needs and/or reinforces specific content from the HOT Schools Summer Institute.

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The Theory of Multiple Intelligences is a theory of intelligence that differentiates it into specific (primarily sensory) 'modalities', rather than seeing intelligence as dominated by a single general ability. This model was proposed by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Gardner articulated eight areas to be considered as a discrete intelligence: musical/rhythmic, visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. He later suggested that existential and moral intelligence may also be worthy of inclusion. Each individual possesses a unique blend of all the intelligences. Gardner firmly maintains that his theory of multiple intelligences should "empower learners", not restrict them to one modality of learning.

These are opportunities for HOT Schools to identify their school’s unique needs on their journey toward ‘becoming HOT’ and to choose from a menu of services provided by HOT Schools to assist them in advancing along the HOT Continuum of Participation ©.

Peer Days provide HOT Schools educators with opportunities to meet with their peers in order to create a statewide community for discussing issues and sharing ideas.

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Peer Partner Days are daylong workshops to which teachers in a specific arts discipline invite a non-arts classroom teacher partner to attend.

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HOT Schools designate and provide a stipend for a Site Coordinator. Site Coordinators are teacher-leaders who serve as the liaison between the HOT Schools program staff, and school staff and administration. They distribute information, collect data, assist in reporting, attend 3 yearly meetings, and advise HOT Staff of pertinent issues or trends in their schools and districts.

Provide students with the opportunity to serve on peer-review boards to help develop student leadership and student voice. Students are generally selected for boards through an application process. HOT Student Boards may include: Literary, Art, Music, Production, Student Governance, etc.

The hallmark of HOT Schools professional development is a nationally acclaimed, weeklong residential conference packed with renowned speakers, seminars, workshops, sequential learning tracks, interactive demonstrations and performances.

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Teacher Artist Collaborations (TACs) partner teaching artists with extraordinary skills in one particular arts discipline: dance; theater; visual arts; music or creative writing with teachers whose extraordinary skill resides in their content knowledge and understanding of certain strategies for transmitting that knowledge to students.

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Town Meeting is a whole school gathering that develops community and provides a forum to celebrate student learning in progress.

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VTS is a well-known program developed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine more than twenty years ago. VTS is a method initiated by teacher-facilitated discussions of art images that has a cascading positive effect on both teachers and students. It is perhaps the simplest way in which teachers and schools can provide students with key behaviors sought by Common Core Standards: thinking skills that become habitual and transfer from lesson to lesson, oral and written language literacy, visual literacy, and collaborative interactions among peers.  HOT Schools educators, particularly teaching artists, are well versed in using the VTS concept and adapting it in ways that support student learning.

• Creating: conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work and generating and conceptualizing ideas and work.
• Performing: presenting, selecting, developing and refining artistic work for presentation; conveying meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
• Responding: involves analyzing, interpreting and using criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes. It provides information for improving learning and teaching. Assessment is an interactive process between students and faculty that informs faculty how well their students are learning what they are teaching. The information is used by faculty to make changes in the learning environment and is shared with students to assist them in improving their learning and study habits.

• Formative Assessment: The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. Formative assessments are typically classified as “low stakes”, which means they have low or no point value.
• Summative Assessment: evaluates student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments are often “high stakes”, which means that they include a high point value.

The specific component of the knowledge or skill identified by an academic content, performance or operational standard. It can be characterized as being declarative, procedural or contextual in the type of knowledge it describes.

Standards in education set by the state education chiefs and governors in 48 states who came together to develop a set of clear college and career ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Today, 43 states have voluntarily adopted and are working to implement the standards, which are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to take credit-bearing introductory courses in two- or four-year college programs or to enter the workforce.

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National Core Arts Standards are framed by a definition of artistic literacy that includes philosophical foundations and lifelong goals, artistic processes and creative practices, anchor and performance standards that students should attain, and model cornerstone assessment by which they can be measured. The connective threads of the conceptual framework are designed to be understood by all stakeholders and, ultimately ensure success for both educators and students in the real world of the school.

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A mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. Students make complex choices and understand the interconnections among systems.

Focuses on grades and may reflect classroom components other than course content and mastery level.

Broad, general statements of what the program, course, or activity intends to accomplish.  Goals describe broad learning outcomes and concepts (what you want students to learn) expressed in general terms (i.e., clear communication, problem-solving skills, etc.). Goals should provide a framework for determining the more specific educational objectives of a program, and should be consistent with the mission of the program and the mission of the institution.  A single goal may have many specific subordinate learning objectives.

The theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Knowledge refers to learning concepts, principles and information regarding a particular subject(s) by a person through books, media, encyclopedias, academic institutions and other sources.

Brief, clear statements that describe the desired learning outcomes of instruction; i.e., the specific skills, values, and attitudes students should exhibit that reflect the broader goals. An objective might be preceded by: “students will be able to….”

Statements that describe significant and essential learning that learners have achieved, and can reliably demonstrate at the end of a course or program.  Learning Outcomes identify what the learner will know and be able to do by the end of a course or program – the essential and enduring knowledge, abilities (skills) and attitudes (values, dispositions) that constitute the integrated learning needed by a graduate of a course or program.

Focuses on gathering of mainly verbal data rather than measurements. Gathered information is then analyzed in an interpretative manner, subjective, impressionistic or even diagnostic.

Research that gathers measurable data. Quantitative Research focuses more in  counting and classifying features and constructing statistical models and figures to explain what is observed.

Looks closely at student work. Teachers, teaching artists and administrators take time to develop methods of collective inquiry; the kinds of conversations and processes that create collective responsibility for assessing and improving instructional practice and learning opportunities.

The proficiencies developed through training or experience. Skill refers to the ability of using information and applying it in a context. Skill refers to successfully applying that theory in practice and getting expected results.

SBAC is the student assessment system aligned with the new Common Core State Standards (in essence – replacing Connecticut Mastery Tests).  SBAC intends to be a system of valid, reliable, and fair next-generation assessments in English language arts/literacy (ELA/literacy) and mathematics for grades 3-8 and 11. The system, which includes both summative assessments for accountability purposes and optional interim assessments for instructional purposes, uses computer adaptive testing technologies to the greatest extent possible to provide meaningful feedback and actionable data that teachers and other educators can use to help students succeed.

A teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge. PBL focuses on student learning goals, including standards-based content and skills such as critical thinking/problem solving, collaboration, and self-management.

Connecticut State Department of Education

Connecticut Office of the Arts

Department of Economic and Community Development

National Association of State Arts Agencies

National Endowment for the Arts

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State Historic Preservation Office