Integrated Learning Specialist Program

A superb professional development opportunity, participants of the ILSP are able to earn CEU and graduate school credits as well as the Integrated Learning Specialist Certificate.

ILSP course curriculum is based on research-based frameworks from Project Zero (Harvard’s Graduate School of Education), and provides educators with the skills to create imaginative, integrated lessons in any subject area. 

ILSP consists of:

- Three, 30-hour core courses offered 3 times a year
- Arts Electives produced by reputable arts organizations and artists
- Option to earn a Certificate
- CEUs through Mills College
- Graduate units through Lesley University

Once enrolled, participants gain skills and experience in:

- Curriculum development using Teaching for Understanding frameworks and Studio Habits of Mind as guides
- Collaboration across disciplines 
- Ongoing assessment and Making Learning Visible
- Culturally relevant pedagogy 

“My primary goal as a result from this program is to make a greater effort to focus on depth rather than breadth in my teaching. Through hands-on experiences, I realized firsthand how much more effective focused, long-term projects that students are invested in are compared to broader, more encompassing activities.” --2nd Grade Teacher, Berkeley

“Art is a tool that an ally could use to unearth the myth of meritocracy, find the cracks and fissures in the institutional foundation and to begin to force a paradigm shift toward justice. We must empower our students, through arts integration, education, and activism, to be allies to the oppressed and correct the wrongs of an unjust system.” --High school science teacher, Berkeley High School

ILSP core courses build the skills, resources, and tools required for today’s diverse classroom. Each course is 30 hours; all courses must be completed with a passing grade; student work is graded pass or fail.

Course A: Strategies and Resources for Arts Integration
This hands-on course focuses on an introduction to arts integrated teaching, curriculum development, and assessment grounded in contemporary arts and educational frameworks from Harvard’s Project Zero: Teaching for Understanding, Studio Thinking, and Making Learning Visible.

Participants explore concepts in math, science, history and language arts through two arts disciplines, investigating the different ways that creative arts help students formulate questions, synthesize, and express learning in core subjects. Participants make art, share lesson plans, read articles, and write a paper synthesizing their learning.

Course B: Ongoing Assessment Strategies and Applications: Making Learning Visible, Studio Habits of Mind, Rubrics and Portfolios
Participants learn ongoing assessment strategies, including Studio Habits of Mind, Making Learning Visible and documentation, rubrics, and portfolios. They develop protocols, tools, and applications that are useful for evaluating and deepening their own learning and their students’ learning. Participants also choose an area of assessment to complete an action research project, and come together to share work at the end of the semester.

Course C: Collaborative Curriculum Design
Participants develop arts integrated curriculum using the Teaching for Understanding framework and receive feedback from the collective group. Participants learn how to use a variety of protocols and tools for evaluating and deepening classroom practice; they also consider points of inquiry, thinking deeply about their own contexts and present their final unit to the group.

Collaborative teams are welcome and encouraged.

CEUs and Graduate Units:
Continuing Education Units are available through Mills College, $150 for 3 units. Units are paid for on the LAST DAY of class after successful completion of the course. Please bring a check to Mills College for $150 on the last day of class and give it to your instructor.

Graduate Units and partnership with Lesley University: After successful completion of all 3 core courses, 3 graduate units are available from Lesley University for $450. Once graduate units are paid, if participant decides to enroll in Lesley’s Ed.D. Integrated Teaching Through the Arts program, she/he is eligible to waive the Curriculum and Assessment course.

Illness Policy: If a participant falls ill or has a family emergency during any course, he/she will be given an incomplete. Participant may retake the course at any time in the future for no charge.

Todd Elkin, M.Ed. is a visual artist, arts educator and activist. Elkin completed his undergraduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute where he received a BFA in interdisciplinary studies, received his teaching credential at Cal State Hayward, and earned a Masters in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Arts in Education Program. In addition to his work as a full-time visual art teacher at Washington High School in Fremont California, Elkin serves on the faculty of the Harvard/Project Zero and Future of Learning Summer Institutes. Elkin is also an instructor in the Alameda County Office of Education’s Integrated Learning Specialist Program. 

Julia Marshall, Ed.D. is Chair of Art Education at San Francisco State University. She holds an Ed.D. from the University of San Francisco and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin. Julia taught for many years as an artist in the schools in the Bay Area where she specialized in art integration for elementary, middle and high school. In addition to her academic publications, Marshall has written integrated arts curricula based on concepts and practices in contemporary art for The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), KQED (San Francisco Public Television) and The Nelson Gallery at The University of California at Davis. In addition to her work in the Integrated Learning Specialist Program, she works with SLANT, (Science, Literacy and Art Community Partners), a collaboration of the California Academy of Science, the deYoung Museum and the San Francisco Unified School District and the Alameda County Office of Education. She has just been appointed to the Blueprint for Creative Schools Task Force of the California Department of Education.

Charles Chip McNeal, M.Ed. is a lecturer, choreographer and adjudicator, conducting artist/teacher trainings, evaluating and developing educational programs throughout the U.S. and abroad. Since 1980, he has worked for San Francisco Ballet; teaching, developing and implementing community outreach and education programs. In 2001, McNeal was named Director of Education when he created the San Francisco Ballet Center for Dance Education, which provides interactive multicultural dance education experiences to over 30,000 children, youth and families each year. McNeal is an experienced arts administrator and civic leader with undergraduate degrees in both psychology and sociology. He holds a Masters degree in Education from Lesley University and is a certified arts integration specialist. 

Trena Noval holds a Masters in Fine Arts and teaches at California College of the Arts and Mills College Graduate School of Education as well as the Integrated Learning Specialist Program in Alameda County, where she teaches and leads professional development for artists and teachers.Noval has published models for Art 21 arts learning case studies, focusing on arts integration and community video projects through the themes of community and environmental stewardship. She has received numerous awards and grants for her work, notably an outstanding achievement award through the Oakland Museum of Art and Alameda County Office Of Education in 2007 for collaborative work with teachers and students at Peralta Elementary School in Oakland, where she has been the arts integration specialist and artist in residence for the past 6 years. In 2009 she received a fellowship to Project Zero, Harvard University. Her work as a teaching artist has been exhibited widely, including in 2011 with the Peralta community for the Oakland Museum’s exhibition Love and Loss: Dias de los Muertos. Noval received her BFA from Tyler School of Art, and MFA from Maryland Institute, College of Art. 

Tana Johnson, M.A. is an arts curriculum consultant and arts learning coach for teachers and schools in Alameda County, California. She leads the Teacher Action Research Institute in San Leandro, California as well as the Integrated Learning Specialist Program through the Alameda County Office of Education's Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership. She develops arts-integrated curricula and produces online educational content for museums and documentary films. Prior to teaching, Johnson produced interactive educational content for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art where she produced a teacher curriculum site, SFMOMA ArtThink, and the award-winning podcast series SFMOMA Artcasts, as well as numerous online features. She produced and directed the short film, “Seeing Yourself Seeing: Olafur Eliasson” and holds awards for her short experimental documentaries. She attended Harvard’s Project Zero in 2009. Johnson holds an M.A. in Creativity and Arts Education from San Francisco State University where she was awarded a Distinguished Achievement Award. She has been an active contributor to the Bay Area arts education and media community since 1994.

Eduardo Pineda, M.A, is a Berkeley-based visual artist and educator interested in the role of art in people’s lives. His own artistic trajectory has taken him from the formative period of the Bay Area community mural movement in the 1980-90s into leading cultural institutions during the tremendous expansions of the 1990-2000s and back into the neighborhoods. Pineda was the Director of Education at the Museum of the African Diaspora (2006-2007) and served in several educational appointments at SFMOMA (1990-2006). He was a teaching artist for the VALUES Project (2003-2006) – an arts integration project of the California College of Arts, the Alameda County Office of Education and Harvard University Project Zero. He was a Student Teacher Supervisor for Mills College School of Education (2008-2010) and consulted for Arts and Literacy in Children’s Education in the Oakland Unified School District. He is currently adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts and Integrated Learning Specialist Program for the Alameda County Office of Education.  Pineda earned a M.A. in interdisciplinary arts at San Francisco State University and a BFA in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. His artworks are in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission and Alameda County Arts Commission public art collections.  

Constance Moore is an art teacher at Civicorps Elementary in Oakland. She has been teaching art for over 15 years. Moore is currently working with water-based media and collage to create mix media paintings. She is a former teaching artist with MOCHA, Museum of Children's Art and an art teacher at Redwood Day School. She attended Spelman College and holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College, and is currently pursuing a Master's of Fine Arts from Goddard College
in Vermont.

Miki Hsu Leavey, BFA is an exhibiting multimedia painter since 1981 whose solo exhibition in Shanghai, China (2009) opened her to Chinese art market. Leavey bridges her arts career with museum education and over 25 years of partnering with the schools and teachers in discrete arts and arts integration. Leavey teaches in the Alameda County’s Integrated Learning Specialist Program and is a Visual Thinking Strategies coach. She trained with Philip Yenawine at the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and at Harvard University. She now trains students, teachers, docents, artists, business executives, and the general public in VTS methodology. She builds bridges between County Offices of Education in Alameda and Napa and is a Napa reporter for the County Arts Leads meetings in Sacramento. Formerly, Leavey was the Arts Educator at COPIA and the Curator of Education at Napa Valley Museum and currently is the Docent Trainer/Coordinator and Educator for the di Rosa Preserve in Napa County.

Mariah Rankine-Landers is a former Kindergarten and First Grade Teacher of 10 years. Mariah holds a BA in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz and a MA in Equity and Social Justice in Education from SFSU. She now works for Alameda County Office of Ed as an Integrated Learning Specialist in supporting the goals of Arts Education. In addition, Mariah does educational consulting with organizations in the Bay Area. She is a resident and adoring fan of Oakland and it's communities. She is always wanting to learn more about everything, especially the arts!

When are the core courses offered?
Coursework is offered throughout the school year and summer.

How long do I have to complete the program?
Upon entering the program, the 12 units of ILSP Certificate coursework should be completed within a 3-year period. All courses (both core or elective) must be completed with a passing grade; student work is graded pass or fail.

Do I have to take the coursework sequentially?
It is recommended that core Courses A and B be taken sequentially. It is also recommended that participants take core Courses A and/or B before Course C. Electives courses can be taken at anytime.

Can I take courses now and decide later about applying for the ILSP?
You can take any of the core and/or elective courses without working towards an ILSP Certificate. Applicants can apply coursework retroactively, should they decide to apply for the ILSP Certificate. Individuals interested in working towards an Integrated Learning Specialist Program Certificate should complete the Integrated Learning Specialist Program Certificate Application.

How will an ILSP certificate help me?
The Certificate qualifies teaching artists, credentialed arts teachers, multiple subject and single subject credentialed teachers to provide leadership, as well as pedagogical and content knowledge to professional learning communities within their school and district contexts. Certificate holders become part of an ongoing network of education professionals, academics, and peers who are an invaluable resource for best practices , coaching, and leading PD in their educational contexts.

How do I get CEU credits for this coursework?

Continuing Education Units (CEU) are available for an additional fee through Mills College. Graduate units are available through Lesley University after successful completion of all three core courses. The graduate units apply to Lesley's Integrated Teaching Through the Arts Masters Program.