|
|
Exploring the Benefits of Art in Elementary Education
The first issue with this article is that the journal that it was in was not cited and it was so dated. But that said the actual arguments still hold true today. Observing the Ames public schools, NCLB is not so starkly adhered. They do use the arts in their district wide math program, often introducing concepts with cubes and visual graphs. The students like that approach.
Flory’s strongest points were on the first page where she listed the “proven” incorporation of the arts with “regular” subjects. I will admit listening to the kindergarten teachers often complaining about little or no play in their curriculum, which is Flory’s last point of developing imagination.
West’s example of students engaging in the arts is very strong. I had a friend that was the principal of an elementary that used the direct instruction system but they had several periods of arts based activities that tied into their general work. That school had the highest testing scores in the state!
The new idea for me was “hearing” Flory say that she thought the arts should be treated like language to enhance all subject understanding. I know that visuals often clarify verbal ideas. What a novel research topic!!!
How Integrating Arts Into Other Subjects Making Learning Come Alive
This article builds on the basics of the last one with real life examples. The statistics from17% to 66% are staggering. I think that the key is deep integration between art and the other subject. So often, teachers think that a superficial use of art will be effective. I worked on a research project with a special education teacher. We presented at a couple of conferences, but like Schwartz states this works but is not used is a big way. I really liked that a school learning coach was an artist. Finally there is a saying for our bulletin boards “Art is not extra, it’s integral!”
How Arts Integration Supports Learning: Students Shed Light on the Connections
This article was a good description of a secondary research project building on research data collected by James Catterall citing a multi year Chicago Arts Partners in Education (CAPE). It seemed as though Karen De Moss and Terry Morris (co authors) had worked in some capacity with Catterall. This study was more focused and therefore the results were clearly significant improving student understating from 37% to 66%! Great statistics to use for our own small plans in schools.
There was a clearly defined degree of involvement between the classroom teacher and the artists. This was the topic I mentioned under the last article. The article’s glossary defined “arts integration” as fully sharing the lesson planning and teaching vs. “arts enhancement” as each teacher doing separate things in the project. After those great definitions, the authors did not comment on the arts enhancement work. I agree it is not significant.
The article was heavy into providing writing examples for the primary qualitative analysis. The student work displayed clearly a major shift in understanding vs. fact building. It was amazing.
The only criticism I have is that writing examples were the main data used. Why not find some arts research examples to demonstrate changes, too? Perhaps this field is so new there are too few studies to use?
Great articles!
|
Locked
