Arts+Integration+Review

**Arts Integration** **Prepared By Zane Schaefer and Kathy Grundei** Terry Morris, Consultant. Abstract:  Learning in and with the arts has been linked with increased student achievement, but the means by which the arts may support cognitive growth in students is relatively undocumented. Thirty students across ten classes in veteran teacher artist partnerships were selected to help explore the processes and outcomes associated with arts-integrated learning units versus learning processes and outcomes in comparable non-arts units. The student sample evenly represented comparatively high, medium, and low achievers. Even thought we observed differences in levels of arts integration across classrooms, students from all achievement levels displayed significant increases in their ability to analytically assess their own learning following arts-integrated units. No such gains associated with traditional instructional experiences. Students also described their arts-integrated versus non-arts learning differently. Arts-integrated instruction: 1) created more independent and intrinsically motivated investments in learning, 2) fostered learning for understanding as opposed to recall of facts for tests, 3) transformed students’ characterizations of “learning barriers” into “challenges” to be solved, and 4) inspired students to pursue further learning opportunities outside of class. Questions: · If learning with and through the arts is correlated with higher achievement and other evidence of learning, what special qualities or processes of arts education might be supporting students’ growth? · Would students adept at meeting schools’ standardized achievement demands differ in their arts learning experiences from those who find traditional achievement measures a challenge? · Would individual students value (and gain from) their arts-integrated learning differently from how they value (and gain from) their non-arts-integrated learning? · How would students describe the differences that arts integrated education made in their learning? (The article included examples of student reflections on their learning in non-arts and arts integration units of instruction) **//Enhancing Student Learning Through Arts Integration: Implications for the Profession.// David E. Gullatt, Ph.D. The High School Journal. Vol.91 No 4. April-May 2008.** The purpose of the present review of literature and research is to examine the numerous benefits the arts provide as enhancements for teaching and learning provided for both educators and students in PK-12 school settings. The relationships between exposure to the arts and student achievement within the academic disciplines such as mathematics, English/language arts, science, and social studies has until recently received mixed reviews (Winner & Hetland, 2000, Gullatt, 2007) Writings related to this topic have been typically theoretical in nature with little empirical support. This article provides major talking points for both educational policy and curriculum leaders either searching for rationales to (a) continue or to prepare for providing a functional, productive arts programs supporting the school educational mission of student success and/or (b) address ways to enhance the present school district teaching and learning environments through the arts. Implications for PK-12 educational professionals are also provided from summarized research addressing best practice in the area of arts integration into PK-12 curriculum. Questions: · Aprill (2001) acknowledged that if arts programs are adopted simply for the gains of academic success, they would be disposed of just as quickly if the signs of increased test scores are not visible. What will be the focus of evaluation of the project? What role does qualitative and/or quantitative data serve? · Proper budgeting, professional development, and planning provide the best opportunities for the arts to be incorporated into the school schedule. What is the right balance of these three for success? **//Why Arts Integration?// And**  //**“Arts Integration Research: Research Supporting the Integration of the Arts in the 21st Century Classrooms.**// [] “ When well planned and implemented, arts integration is one of the most effective ways for a wide range of interests, aptitudes, styles, and experiences to form a community of active learners taking responsibility for and ownership of their own learning” //-Renaissance in the Classroom, pg.xxvi.// In a brief overview, the first article, //Why Arts Integration?”// answers the questions: 1) What is arts integration?, 2) How do you do it?, 3)What are budget and structural priorities for becoming an arts integration school?, 4) What is a realistic timeline? The second article //“Arts Integration Research: Research Supporting the Integration of the Arts in 21st Century Classrooms”// highlights the support for arts integration from 1) Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning, 1995, 2) Champions of Change, 1999, 3) Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Social and Academic Development, 2002, 4) Third Space: When Learning Matters, 2005
 * Literature Review- April 28 2010 **
 * //How Arts Integration Supports Student Learning: Students Shed Light on the Connections.// ** **Karen DeMoss, University of New Mexico, 2002**

//Arts in Education Definitions// An ad hoc committee of the New York statewide Local Capacity Building Coordinators drafted this list and it was agreed upon at the Spring 2005 meeting of the LCB Coordinators [|www.espartsed.org/resources/AIE_Definitions.doc] Article defines: 1) Education Terms, 2) Arts in Education Terms, 3) Artistic Terms, 4) New York State AIE terms, and 5) National/International terms. All a good source for developing common vocabulary for Perpich Arts Integration Project.  //Beyond Arts Integration: Defining Learning in Arts Education Partnerships.// Closing Remarks of Carol Morgan, Deputy Director for Education, ArtsConnection. March 11, 2005.  The address, delivered by Carol Morgan expresses a summarization of a symposium ArtsConnection hosted in 2005. She answered the question “What comes next?” when programs want to take the arts “beyond illustration” when the intention is to use the arts as a way to illustrate another subject area.  Through the research from arts integration projects in New York City Public Schools on arts integrated with the Balanced Literacy Curriculum findings included: the arts helped students express themselves verbally and in writing, to develop a voice based on their individual experience, experienced the awakening of a passion in which building stamina is not in questions because their arts experiences were compelling. Teachers also reported that arts experiences taught students respect for the art form, respect for learning and how to take ownership of their learning. Morgan’s closing comments also cited a RAND Corporation study that stated, “Arts Benefits are grounded in compelling arts experiences” What makes an arts experience compelling? The cognitive, personal, and social aspects of learning plus the aesthetic-the parts of the arts experience that engages the child’s body, mind, emotions and imagination, that transports the child to another world and brings him back again somehow changed or, at the very least, having expanded his sense of what is possible. Questions: · How do we measure imagination and the ability to “willingly suspend disbelief” · Why do we teach the arts? · Why do we think it is useful and important to integrate the arts with other subject matters? · What might learning in and through the arts have to contribute to our ideas about how we learn those things we think are worth learning? //Arts Integration Experiences Guide for Prek-4 Teachers in Training (Unapproved Draft)// Lehigh University September 14, 2009 This document defines arts integration and providing some of the logic behind using arts integration approach in teaching and learning. It describes program components specific for teacher training at Lehigh University. Some points in the document that were helpful in adding to understandings of arts integration include: -defining of arts integration as a teaching approach that enables students and teachers to identify and research problems and issues without regard to subject-area boundaries, providing students the experience in a learning setting that will prepare them for effective teamwork in the future. -listing what students learn when working within an arts integration framework: 1) students learn how to analyze, evaluate, and draw reasoned conclusions from what they see and hear, 2) students reflect on the meaning of their perceptions and experiences, 3) students learn to convey ideas, feelings and emotions through creation in arts forms, and 4) students build capacity to expand reasoning ability, to make connections, and to think creatively. -summarizing findings of SCEA (2008, p.2), which stated that, “Teachers report that with an integrated curriculum that includes the arts, students have moments of exhilaration, personal transformation, and academic or life choice change. Teachers and artists who have successful experiences report profound changes in their approach to individual students, to learning, and to the classroom in general.” -research that included: (1) Pinciotti, Berry, Sterman, and Groton (2001) suggestion that content-area teachers who wish to integrate the arts need to have had experiences with various arts and should have done formal reflection on what they saw, heard, and felt, as well as, what it meant to them. Before teachers try out an arts integration activity with a class, they should have a chance to participate in that art form so they will be comfortable leading their students. (2)Arts Integration activities Efland (2002) and Pinciotti (2001) should be problem based with a focus on students thinking about how to represent and solve real-world problems. Using arts skills and techniques to represent information in a variety of ways and forms should enhance students’ understandings and help them spot patterns they might otherwise miss. Questions: · What are the components of effective professional development for teachers who are wishing to design an arts integration experience for their students? · In what ways might the arts enhance the ways learners acquire understandings and skills in their content areas and how might content area topics and materials assist in the learning of arts concepts and skills? **//International Handbook of Research in Arts Education.//** Bresler, Liora, editor //Chapter 18 – Arts Integration Russell and Zembylas-// Springer, 2007 Summarizes what research says about arts integration in terms of “value” and “effectiveness”. How should success be measured? The focus on content areas here is not in terms of disciplines or handmaidens but more in terms of multilayered and symbiotic. “Current education practices place a high value on efficiency, behavioral objectives, and high-stakes achievement tests, whereas rigid boundaries inhibit students’ preparation for participation in a democratic society. Research suggests that curriculum integration has the potential to offer the world-class education that is often talked about, but rarely experienced.” This research looked at 15 studies from //North Carolina A+, Learning Through the Arts, and Chicago Arts Partnerships in Ed.// Findings included: · Many small and quiet examples of integration happen all of the time with imaginative teachers – this is usually not documented or evaluated. //(student teachers often report this kind of work after their experiences)// · There is a focus on qualitative evaluation methods – these reported positive learning outcomes in terms of engagement with subject matter; increased intensity, commitment, and capacity for critical thinking. This causes tension with policymakers due to an increased focus on high-stakes measures of learning. · There is a critical need to find better outcome measures, particularly in the area of student growth. Measures that evaluate multiple kinds of growth about how students’ arts-integrated learning provides both cognitively and affectively different experiences. · Many studies point to quantitative data about how students’ grades do not suffer and even improve in arts integrated classrooms. Qualitative studies and anecdotal evidence suggest strongly that a more important, possibly more long-lasting benefit to students is a positive change in attitude towards school. This is more about description than measurement. · Challenges to arts integration include; o watering down of individual subject matter, o issues of teacher self-efficacy, o the structure of the school day, and o issues teacher education in integration approaches. **//Possible implications for us://** o **//How can we find ways of collaborating across disciplines and professional ideologies that lead to: “Transformative practice zones that provide spaces to share and listen to others’ ideas, visions and commitments and to build relationships in collaboration?”//** o **//How can we soften the tension caused by a focus on “back-to-basics” with students, teachers, administrators, and parents?//** o **//How can we help all players to understand and distinguish between evidence and perception, between fact and belief? What kind of data will help with this?//** o **//There is a strong component in this research about trust in teachers! “Whether and when it is educationally enlightening to work with other subjects, whether arts or non-arts, will depend, as all education ought to depend, primarily upon the informed professional judgment of teachers who are experts in their particular fields. I will depend upon our having confidence in well-educated teachers. They are in the best position to make sound decisions about the value of working collectively with other disciplines.” David Best (1995)//** o **//This book also includes reviews of arts integration in other countries including South Africa, Greece, Japan and Switzerland. These perspectives may also be helpful.//** **//Arts Integration – A Vehicle for Changing Teacher Practice.//** Werner and Freeman //–// Center for Applied Research and Ed. Improvement” //–// U. of Minnesota – 2001 Teachers involved with arts/curriculum integration report “powerful professional development” experiences. · teachers energized by interactions with colleagues from other content areas · observing and co-teaching with arts educators shifted perceptions of classroom dynamics · provided expanded interaction possibilities for student engagement · changed classroom climate as students became more “in charge” of their learning · stronger relationships among students and between students adults resulted · first attempts worked out collaboration issues and further attempts deepened student learning · worries abut time away from other content diminished as the depth of achievement became obvious **//Possible implications for us://** · **//How can we provide a framework for sustainable collaboration skills for adults and students?//** · **//How can we structure ways for teachers/students to notice changes in classroom climate?//** · **//How can we make it obvious that integration will take time and that repeated efforts will become more natural?//** · **//What tools can we present to have conversations about depth of learning vs “skimming”?//** **//Arts Integration: Frameworks, Research and Practice.//** Burnaford, Brown, and McLaughlin – Literature Review summarizing research from 1995 – 2007 This review summarizes articles written about arts integration during the period of 1995 – 2007. It discusses idea/terms including; interdisciplinary, arts-infused, cross-disciplinary, thematic, and arts-based. It summarizes the function/role of arts education and arts integration in America. The review points to the benefits of the “Correlated Curriculum” movement of the mid to late 1930’s in terms of integrity of involved content areas. It also highlights the inquiry/problem-based learning movement of the mid twentieth century. These two ideas seem to be especially relevant to arts integration today. It also discusses the successes and bumps of teaching artists and arts partnerships. · **//This is an overview of arts integration history and ideas. I wonder if teacher participants are aware of these? Would some of this be useful/interesting as foundations for arts integration work?//** //The Subservient, Co-Equal, Affective, and Social Integration Styles and Their Implications for the Arts.// Liora Bresler This publication summarizes the various ways that educators interpret “arts integration” and the implications of each interpretation as it is translated to the classroom. //“Obviously, integration, like other concepts, is a construction, and can mean very different things in terms of contents, resources, structures, and pedagogies to different people; yet the multiplicity of meanings is not always explicit in the ways that the term is used. Each of the constituencies presented (subservient, co-equal - cognitive, affective, social) brings to the concept its own visions on contents and pedagogies in the arts and a different model of what integration implies”.// The following arts integration perspectives are defined: · //infusion – integrating a particular subject across the curriculum// · //topics-within-disciplines – integrating multiple strands of the same discipline within the instructional setting// · //interdisciplinary – maintaining traditional subject boundaries while aligning content and concepts from one discipline with those of another// · //thematic – subordinating subject matter to a them, allowing the boundaries between disciplines to blur// · //holistic – addressing the needs of the whole child, including cognitive, physical, moral, affective, and spiritual dimensions// · //multidisciplinary – looking at a situation as it was portrayed in different disciplines// · //interdisciplinary – considering a problem in terms of different disciplines and then synthesizing these perspectives in coming up with a more general account// · //metadisciplinary – comparing the practices within a particular discipline// · //transdisciplinary – examining a concept as it appears in political and in physical discourse// Each arts integration style //(subservient, co-equal - cognitive, affective, and social)// is discussed in terms of historical origin and implications for learners and educators. Specific examples are usually cited for each. The publication explains that these styles are rarely implemented in pure form and that components are often blended as they are translated to the classroom. It points to the ideas that it may be important for teachers to understand the fundamental differences in assumptions about the relationship of art and art instruction to other content areas and learning goals. It concludes that the most common arts integration styles operating in schools today are subservient and social integration. It suggests reasons as to why this is so and also points to why co-equal and cognitive arts integration styles should be considered. **//Possible implications for us://** · //The terminology used in this publication seems like good foundational understanding for us and for our participants. What vocabulary should we select and present and in what ways would this understanding be most useful?// · //The four arts integration styles discussed may help us and our participants to clarify goals, values, and pedagogical issues. Is it important for our participants to understand these styles and their historical origins? To what extent do we want to guide our participants in the process of clarify their values and goals regarding teaching and learning? Is this an important component in developing arts integration? How do we know if this is something that we should do? How will we do it?// · //Implementing each of these different arts integration styles requires drastically different structures and pedagogical skills. We may value one style but due to resources and schedule restraints be confined to another. How will we work with that tension?// **//Making Content Connections Through Arts Integration//**. Willona M. Sloan March 2009 - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development This article summarizes how school programs used information from //“Learning, Arts, and the Brain, the Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition”// 2008, to develop arts integration programs. Experiences were cited from A+ Schools at the University of North Carolina, The Alabama Institute for Education in the Arts, and the (Out) Laws and Justice Program based in Los Angeles. Some key points learned from these sites are: · The true key to successful arts integration is collaboration among teachers · Teachers map curriculum and decide where gaps and conceptual connections occur · Teachers develop thematic units that integrate subjects · Small school districts engage teaching artists who have been trained · Teachers are trained in the process of making connections between content standards in the arts and in other disciplines · The (Out ) Law program uses a theater focus to engage kids – teachers are trained to guide students to do the thinking, talking, decision making and problem solving as they work toward clearly articulated learning goals **//Possible implications for us://**
 * **//We know about the high value regarding teacher collaboration. How will we structure helping teachers to://**
 * **//define common (or not) learning values?//**
 * **//truly understand each other’s benchmarks?//**
 * **//develop a system to communicate instruction progress?//**
 * **//develop a system to document and communicate formative and summative assessment data?//**
 * **//Will there be a site specific arts integration “mission statement”?//**
 * **//If curriculum maps are an effective entry point for arts integration, will we help teachers map at least a part of their curriculum first?//**
 * **//How will we engage teaching artists? Make contacts? What will training include? How will pay be set up?//**
 * **//Theater seems to have many natural connection points for arts integration. Is there one art content area that may serve better to illustrate the integration process? Kind of an exemplar model?//**
 * **//Is there the possibility of arts integration that occurs between schools? Perhaps via technology? What would that look like?//**