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Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common Core

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Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common Core

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What is striking is that both STEM and Arts Integration are linked through definition as an approach to teaching through two or more content areas. Still, the arts have some unique parallels to the Common Core Standards that may make their implementation a beneficial addition for teachers and administrators. These parallels attest to the rigors of the arts and the need for their processes in today's global workforce and the unforeseen future.

1.  Process Produces Product - I developed many of these Arts Integration lessons which provide students with time to compare sources, conduct research and focus on the process of their work. The products created are naturally richer and more extensive than from a "traditional" approach.

2.  Access Points - By weaving the arts into and through our content in naturally aligned ways, we are providing relevance to student learning, and giving them an opportunity to connect their world to our classrooms.

3.  True Equity - By using Arts Integration, teachers and leaders can ensure that students are learning in a way that meets their own unique cultural, social, emotional and intellectual needs.

4.  Analytic Practice - When studying any piece of art, composition, drama or dance, one must be able to analyze the components that create the whole. Additionally, the ability to synthesize these parts into a whole work is critical to making meaning for each audience member.

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Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common Core

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Arts integration specialist Susan Riley looks at some of the ways in which teaching with the arts can meet and enhance Common Core requirements.

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Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common Core

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Arts integration specialist Susan Riley looks at some of the ways in which teaching with the arts can meet and enhance Common Core requirements.

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Report: Why we need arts education (not only to improve test scores) 

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Report: Why we need arts education (not only to improve test scores) 

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A new report by a presidentially appointed committee on arts education makes the case that art education not only helps young people find their voice but also is an effective tool in improving student achievement in all subjects. It even ends up helping the private sector too.

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Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best

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Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best

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A 2005 report by the Rand Corporation about the visual arts argues that the intrinsic pleasures and stimulation of the art experience do more than sweeten an individual's life -- according to the report, they "can connect people more deeply to the world and open them to new ways of seeing," creating the foundation to forge social bonds and community cohesion.

"Arts education enables those children from a financially challenged background to have a more level playing field with children who have had those enrichment experiences,'' says Eric Cooper, president and founder of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education.

"When you think about the purposes of education, there are three," Horne says. "We're preparing kids for jobs. We're preparing them to be citizens. And we're teaching them to be human beings who can enjoy the deeper forms of beauty. The third is as important as the other two."

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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How the Arts Unlock the Door to Learning

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How the Arts Unlock the Door to Learning

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Arts integration goes beyond including art projects in class; it is a teaching strategy that seamlessly merges arts standards with core curricula to build connections and provide engaging context.

Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention. For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information.

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(See more arts-integrated lesson plans from Bates.)
What we also saw in these classrooms were students who were enthusiastically participating in the learning process, and having fun. It's not revelatory to say that the arts can engage kids. But that that engagement can also be leveraged to boost academic growth and improve discipline seems like a secret that really needs to be revealed. When you see how the kids embrace these lessons, hear them tell how art helps them remember concepts better, and learn about the improvements teachers have noted in student understanding and retention, it makes you wonder why more schools aren't integrating the arts in every class.

A Whole-School Reform

Bates decided to become a fully arts-integrated school in 2007 as the primary initiative in a whole-school reform effort. Other initiatives in their school improvement plan (PDF) included Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), an operational framework for implementing practices and interventions to improve academic and behavioral outcomes, and Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), a college readiness system with research-based methods for elementary through postsecondary students. Their principal at the time, Diane Bragdon, had brought the school back from the brink of failure and now was ready to aim its trajectory squarely toward greater success. Bragdon got the support of Anne Arundel County Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Maxwell, long a proponent of schools of choice, who knew well the impact arts integration had had in other Maryland schools. The district applied for a four-year grant called Supporting Arts Integrated Learning for Student Success (SAILSS) from the U.S. Department of Education and was one of 15 districts and schools to receive it.

Since they started implementing arts integration schoolwide in 2009, Bates has seen a 23 percent drop in the average number of referrals and suspensions per student. The school's percentage of students proficient or advanced in math has grown four times more than the state's over the same period, and five times more in reading. Not all lessons are taught with arts integration, but Bates takes pains to diligently track those that have been in a regular log (PDF), and they report substantial improvements in student comprehension and retention.

Why Does Arts Integration Work?

Why does it work? Arts integration uses teaching practices that have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention. For example, when students create stories, pictures, or other nonverbal expressions of the content they are learning -- a process researchers call elaboration -- they are also helping to better embed the information. In one eighth-grade math class, students prepared for a test on linear equations by creating photo stories of the steps involved. This required that teacher Laura Casciato spend nearly a full class period teaching about basic principles of design (PDF). She explained the trade-off: "It was an easy decision to spend time on the art because we know that they retain that information better. They're going to look at that test and say, 'Oh yeah, I remember that information from my photo.'"

As with any new initiative, there are a number of factors that must be in place for it to succeed. With arts integration, high-quality professional development is essential. Teachers don't need to be "artistic" to be able to use arts integration; they just need to learn some of the fundamentals so they will be better able to think of ways to merge art concepts with other content. For example, knowing the basic elements of design, such as emphasis, balance, contrast, and repetition, enabled Casciato to teach her students how to create more informative photo compositions to illustrate each step in solving a linear equation (PDF).
(Read tips for administrators and teachers for getting started with arts integration.)
Bates used the bulk of their grant money for professional development, which they started in the 2007-08 school year. They have PD Thursdays every other week, and at least one per month is on arts integration. Last year (2011-12) was the final year of their grant funding. Teachers report they are now well versed in arts standards and know how to create arts-integrated lessons. Many now train their colleagues and new teachers entering the school.

Beyond engagement and retention, adults and students at Bates cite numerous other benefits of arts integration: It encourages healthy risk taking, helps kids recognize new skills in themselves and others, provides a way to differentiate instruction, builds collaboration among both students and teachers, bridges differences, and draws in parents and the community. Plus it's just plain fun.

Lastly, there's equity. If we agree that the arts can provide all kinds of benefits for kids, from intellectual to creative to social-emotional, then shouldn't all kids have the opportunity to learn about and experience them? But far too few schools have either the funding or the bureaucratic support to make this a priority, a lack often born out of fear of sacrificing academic achievement. What Bates and many other arts-integrated schools across the country are showing is that by creating a richer, more memorable learning experience through the arts, they unleash not only a rising tide of academic achievement but they lay the foundation for what it means to be a truly creative community.

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How the Arts Unlock the Door to Learning | Edutopia

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(See more arts-integrated lesson plans from Bates.) What we also saw in these classrooms were students who were enthusiastically participating in the learning process, and having fun. It's not revelatory to say that the arts can engage kids.

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Effective Arts Integration Improve Test Scores

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Effective Arts Integration Improve Test Scores

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Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report.

In other words, when teachers reinforce academic concepts with the arts, students learn more and score higher on standardized tests.

"Not only is it repetition, but it's time spent whenever a child is learning something in a different way, that means they're learning it again," Brown said. "They're repeating it, and so the immersion in their learning is a different form--through the arts--but it's also more time spent on the content, so they start thinking critically and creatively."

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Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report.

In other words, when teachers reinforce academic concepts with the arts, students learn more and score higher on standardized tests.

MSU's John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development generated the report, which evaluated the impacts of the Mississippi Whole Schools Initiative. The program supports teachers' efforts to use the arts--composing, painting, drawing or sculpting; playing, singing or listening to music; and dancing and dramatic performance--to foster retention and learning.

Judith Philips, Stennis research associate, headed the development of "Arts Integration and the Mississippi Arts Commission's Whole Schools Initiative: A Stennis Institute Study for Decision-Makers." The report initially was presented at the Mississippi Arts Commission's 2013 Whole Schools Initiative Summer Institute.

Philips said the research verifies that effective arts integration reinforces classroom learning.

"Schools that effectively implement arts integration have either significantly reduced or completely eliminated the educational achievement gap for economically disadvantaged students," she said. "This research indicates that arts integration can achieve that objective in Mississippi public schools."

Currently, almost 5,500 Mississippi students in eight public and four private elementary schools are participating in WSI. The study compared results on language arts and mathematics Mississippi Curriculum Tests, fourth-grade writing assessments and fifth-grade science tests to scores of students not enrolled in arts integrated classrooms.

"The percentage of students scoring 'proficient or above' on standardized tests was significantly higher at schools participating in the Whole Schools Initiative that had effectively implemented the WSI arts integration model, when compared to student performance statewide and when compared to student performance for the school district within which the WSI school was located," Phillips told arts commission participants during her presentation.

Karen Brown, MSU instructor in curriculum, instruction and workforce development, teaches an arts integration course in MSU's College of Education. She said she's not surprised at the Stennis report's findings because students, especially young children, gravitate to learning that way.

"Not only is it repetition, but it's time spent whenever a child is learning something in a different way, that means they're learning it again," Brown said. "They're repeating it, and so the immersion in their learning is a different form--through the arts--but it's also more time spent on the content, so they start thinking critically and creatively."

Brown said all MSU elementary education majors are required to take the arts integration course. She also takes a student group to WSI's annual summer institute.

"Arts integration, from the perspective of a classroom teacher, is teaching both the content area and the arts together, and that takes some special training and special knowledge, but when you do that, it immerses the child in the content," Brown said. Phillips said arts integration requires quality professional development and mentorships for teachers. Providing that training for teachers requires additional resources that many state school systems may not be able to provide, she acknowledged.

"Given our state's budget constraints, the Stennis Institute recognizes that additional resources to support these efforts will need to come from either federal grants or from philanthropic organizations," Phillips said. "To that end, we collaborated with the arts commission and wrote a grant for the commission to the U.S. Department of Education for an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Program grant."

If awarded, the DOE grant should pay for a national workshop leader and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts teaching artist to visit Mississippi on a quarterly basis. Phillips said the visiting expert would provide professional development, conduct student learning initiatives and train state teaching artists in implementing Moving through Math, a curriculum using movement, music, spatial reasoning, and interpersonal skills to teach mathematics, verbal and visual skills.

Brown said parents interested in having their children involved in arts integration should inquire with their respective school system administrators or inform other parents and teachers at parent-teacher organization meetings. Then, local advocates could request the school system apply for a WSI grant.

"I'd like to see increased involvement, funding and awareness from stakeholders, legislators, teachers, parents--everyone," Brown said. "We have data that arts integration is working and making a difference in Mississippi classrooms."

To read the Stennis Institute report's executive summary or entire content, visit www.mswholeschools.org/research/whole-schools-initiative-evaluation-and-research.

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k-12 education; educational psychology; literacy; learning disorders; educational policy; stem education; poverty and learning; arts and culture

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Effective arts integration improves test scores

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Effective classroom arts integration can reduce or eliminate educational achievement gaps for economically disadvantaged students, according to a Mississippi State University research report. In other words, when teachers reinforce academic concepts with the arts, students learn more and score higher on standardized tests. MSU's John C.

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Effectiveness of art integration in k-12 online education

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Effectiveness of art integration in k-12 online education

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If you've ever been overwhelmed with assessing an arts integrated lesson, you're not alone. Authentic assessment of students' skills, understanding and application is hard enough. Trying to do it across multiple content areas in a way that equitably assesses both content areas is even more challenging. That's why going digital can be a lifesaver. There are more tools than ever to help you through the assessment process, and some are particularly good for arts integration and STEAM.

Digital Assessment Tools

In today's SmART Ideas Video, I'm sharing my favorite digital assessment tools for diagnostic, summative and formative assessment across content areas. To make it even more convenient for you, I've also created a comparative tool that you can download which highlights each tool, shares it's best categories for use and provides some ideas for implementing it in your classroom.
Tools mentioned in today's video:
Assessment for makers like your students doesn't have to be overwhelming! With the tools that are out there, we can mix and match assessments to best help us determine how to meet the needs of our students in any lesson. For more assessment ideas, please be sure to visit our Assessments Page and click on any of the items in the assessment toolbox.

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Digital Assessment Tools for Arts Integration and STEAM

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If you've ever been overwhelmed with assessing an arts integrated lesson, you're not alone. Authentic assessment of students' skills, understanding and application is hard enough. Trying to do it across multiple content areas in a way that equitably assesses both content areas is even more challenging. That's why going digital can be a lifesaver.