OUTLINE OF EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT
Professional Development for Classroom Teachers
All of the teachers who request tickets and buses for their students will have the opportunity to receive three hours of professional development from San Diego Opera's Geisel Director of Education and Outreach, Dr. Nicolas Reveles. The teachers will be given basic information on the art form, an introduction to the voice and an overview of the 2013 Season. They will also be given instruction on how to connect opera to their curriculum. They will develop a lesson plan in order to introduce their students to opera. The professional development sessions will be scheduled in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013. Once the dates are announced, please send an email to educate@sdopera.com to inform us which session you will attend.
Classroom Teachers’ Lessons
Based on their professional development sessions, the teachers will present a lesson plan to their students in order to introduce them in a basic and general way to the art form of opera.
Docent Visit
San Diego Opera Docents will visit the classrooms to introduce the students and teachers to the operas that they will be seeing at Student Night. Given that the basic information will have already been presented by the teacher, the docents will be free to deal specifically with the opera they are going to attend. The docents will have technological support in equipment, DVDs and PowerPoint files. The docents will be expected to use an interactive pedagogical approach to the students based on predictive strategies.
Busing to the Student Night
Thanks to a grant from the Gluck Foundation, all students attending the Student Night event will be bused free of charge. As there are limited funds available for bus reimbursement, schools should submit their ticket requests as soon as possible. Once those funds are exhausted, schools will still need to arrange their own bus travel. Tickets are free of charge for all students and chaperones. Arrangements for busing should be made by the teacher as would be done for any field trip, in cooperation with their school districts. Invoices for busing are to be submitted to San Diego Opera for reimbursement.
Student Night at the Opera
The students and their chaperones/teachers will attend one or more of the four productions in San Diego Opera’s 2013 Season, seeing at least the first act of the opera.
Next Steps
Students involved in the program will receive a follow-up visit from a teaching artist or docent in order to support their experience of opera, reflect on that experience, and give the Education Program an opportunity to assess the overall efficacy of the program.