Cynthia Herbert, Ph.D

• Professional development

• Follow-up demonstrations and coaching

• Curriculum development

• After-school and summer school program development

• Proposal writing

• Program evaluation

Area of specialization:

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

Professional development, demonstrations, coaching, and materials development in the application of best instructional practices and brain research, including multiple intelligences, to meet the needs of diverse learners, pre-kindergarten through high school, across the curriculum. Services provided for

• teachers, teacher trainers, administrators, parents, migrant families, aides, librarians
• regular classroom, special education, gifted and talented, early childhood, bilingual, alternative campuses

Presentations

Presenter, over 600 courses, workshops, lectures, conference sessions and demonstrations for schools, community organizations, colleges and others, 1970-present. Topics include:

·         Differentiated instruction

·         Reading/literacy across the curriculum

·         Curriculum integration

·         Brain-based learning

·         Multiple intelligences

·         Metacognition

·         Learner-centered instruction

·         Conflict resolution

·         Creative learning

·         Multicultural understanding

·         Arts in learning

Sampling of Projects

·        The Foundry. 2005 to present. Co-Director. Development of programs and materials that give  parents and educators tools to nurture individual creative talents and multi-media literacies of children. Latest publication is New World Kids at School: The Teacher's Guide to Creative Thinking, 2009. Work is in collaboration with Susan Marcus, Director, Foundrymedia, and Susie Monday. For more information, see http://www.newworldkids.org/.

·         International Education. 2001 to present. Lead instructor. Professional development and follow-up (in Spanish) for over 200 Central American and Caribbean teachers studying for a year in the United States, and then returning to provide leadership in their home countries and communities. Through the USAID CASS (Cooperative Association of States for Scholarships) Program, housed at Palo Alto College, San Antonio, administered through Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Activities include courses in learning theory, child development, special needs, reading, and other areas, and practicum supervision and assistance in local San Antonio schools. Julia Jarrell, Program Coordinator.

·        Art Education Matters. 2006 to present. External Evaluator and researcher for a longitudinal study of 1,000 students and their teachers at nine middle schools in the Houston Independent School District. The proposal, co-written by Herbert, was chosen fourth in the nation. Services are provided schools by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Young Audiences of Houston and other local cultural groups. Products developed by Herbert include inventories and assessments of fine arts understandings of teachers and students and development of professional development and lesson plans linking art, drama, music and dance to TEKS in language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Project Director, Dr. Vivian Fridley-Hereford.

·         Balanced Literacy. 1996-2005. Professional development, demonstrations, coaching and other services to improve reading proficiency of diverse K-12 learners in Title I schools through the implementation of a research-based program. Highlight: In May 2001, in LaMarque ISD, 93% of all kindergarten students passed TPRI (in contrast to the 70% expectation.) Other schools and districts have demonstrated significant gains on TAAS reading.  

Districts:

Additional sponsor: Texas Education Agency through the following grants, (all written in part by Herbert):

·         Creative Learning. 1996 to 2001. Educational models were developed and then disseminated to promote Creative Learning, a learner-based, metacognitive, active learning program that addresses TEKS and other requirements. Many collaborating schools/districts show significant TAAS gains.

Partners:

·          Carver Learning Center and “Parents Who Care,” Levelland

·          Creative Connections: Nine East Texas school districts

·          Ector County ISD

·          Fisher County Head Start

·          Hockley County Literacy Council

·          Houston ISD

·          LaMarque ISD

·          Levelland ISD

·          Mitchell County Head Start

·          Nolan County Head Start

·          People for Progress, Inc., Sweetwater

·          Texas City ISD

Additional sponsors:

·          The Meadows Foundation, Dallas

·          The Moody Foundation, Galveston

·          Post-Montgomery Foundation

·          Dodge-Jones Foundation

·          The Houston Endowment

·          Harle G. and Kenneth F. Montgomery Foundation

·          Local businesses

Additional products:

 ·         A Blueprint for Excellence, a coherent plan for curriculum and instruction, Levelland ISD

·         The Power of the Family: El poder de familia, an overview of parent involvement programming that works, based largely on over 50 workshops presented in conjunction with the Carver Learning Center

·         “Active Learning,” and “Learner-Centered Instruction,” presentations developed with and for Instructional Facilitators, LaMarque ISD

·         Summer School programs in reading and math for Hitchcock ISD and LaMarque ISD

·         “Mockingbird” and 14 other units with language and life experiences for early childhood

·         Series of Distance Learning presentations in several East Texas school districts

Sampling of Materials Development for Schools

·         Summer School Math Program, for Grade 5 students, using math manipulatives. Texas City ISD, 2005.

·         Creative Learning: Doing a Study (98 pages) and Creative Learning: The Reading Experience (70 pages). Activities for building the cognitive and creative skills of young children. Based on several years of work with 12 Head Start sites in Lubbock and Sweetwater, and their surrounding areas; early childhood programs in the LaMarque, Hitchcock, and Levelland school districts; and the Rio Blanco Montessori School in Blanco. Funded in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Texas Alliance for Education and the Arts, 2004.

·         TAKS Benchmark Tests, development of stories and tests for grades 3 to 11, language arts and social studies, for Dr. Kathy Barnett (former Superintendent, LaMarque ISD), 2003-present.

·         Social Survival, 30 90-minute arts-based lessons in conflict resolution for middle school students, piloted in Austin ISD and Hitchcock ISD, 2001

·         The Reading Experience, a balanced literacy program; 9 manuals; 700+ pages, 1999

·        A Process of Integration (a guide for developing reading comprehension skills through shared reading experiences, PreK-8, with sample lesson plans)

·        Word Play (phonemic awareness, phonics, writing, word games, and other language experiences to correlate with the reading experience)

·        Help Your Child Read! (a booklet for parents to support the reading experience at home)

·        Vertical Development of Reading Comprehension Skills (analysis of basic comprehension skills, such as summarization and making inferences, and their development from non-reader to fluent reader—with suggested strategies for improvement)

·        Multiple Intelligences and Reading (a guide for using multiple intelligences to improve reading comprehension, with sample lesson plans)

·        Reading Across the Curriculum (an analysis of connections between reading and math, science, social studies, and the arts, with sample lesson plans)

·        Analyzing and Choosing a Reading Selection (includes an annotated list of children's books and stories, PreK through grade 6.)

·        How To (instructions for math games, creative drama, piggyback songs, homemade books, puppets and other activities to extend and integrate the reading experience)

·         Multicultural Units, funded in part by the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network and the Texas Commission on the Arts, through the Texas Alliance for Arts and Education—designed to promote multicultural understanding and reading/literacy, 2002.

·        African Tales (lessons for stories include Bringing Rain to Kapiti Plain and Anansi the Spider. Several other stories retold by Dr. Herbert are included.)

·        Asian Tales (lessons for stories include The Stonecutter, Tikki Tikki Tembo and two more.)

·        Mexican Tales (lessons for stories include The Ram in the Chili Patch and The Gold Coin. Several other stories retold by Dr. Herbert are included.)

·        Native American Tales (lessons for stories include Groundhog's Dance, Baby Rattlesnake, and five more.)

·        Texas Our Texas (ideas are included for integrating history, writing, math and other areas. Individual lessons are included for The Legend of the Bluebonnet and Pecos Bill.)

National Publications:

·         New World Kids at School: A Teacher's Guide to Creative Thinking, Foundry Media, 2009.

·         Everychild’s Everyday, Doubleday, with Susan Russell, 1980.

·         I See a Child, Doubleday, 1974.

·         (Contributor) A Place for Ideas: Our Theatre, written by Jearnine Wagner and Kitty Baker, paperback version, Anchor Press, 1974; hardback, Principia Press, Trinity University, 1965..