​Teaching with Arts Integration

Ms. Ryan's Definitions of Art and Creativity:

Art- an individual’s interpretation of a concept, recognizable or not, presented in some manner to an audience

Creativity- an original interpretation of a concept

 

Personal Statement:

 

What is arts integration?

 

Arts integration is more than just teaching and making a craft that goes along with the lesson, arts integration is creating a lesson that teaches subject area content to an equal extent that art content and standards are being taught. There are so many basic art ideas such as elements and principles, watercolor techniques, and more that can be taught with other subjects in equal proportions in the elementary classroom. A strong example of arts integration would be if I were to teach about shapes in art and how some shapes are organic or geometric, I would also teach about polygons and geometry to integrate the math curriculum. I would be teaching the kids art skills while helping them grasp geometric, mathematical concepts. Research shows that when schools use arts integration, according to the National Endowment for the Arts, “students in arts focused schools usually have higher than average test scores.” (Burnaford, p. 87) I would not consider something like reading a book and coloring a picture of what the book is about a strong example of arts integration. There are multiple levels of using art in the classroom and addressing multiculturalism in the classroom. Level 1 shows the Contributions Approach, which focuses on heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements. Level 2 is the Additive Approach, which includes content, concepts, themes, and perspectives are added to the curriculum without changing its structure. Level 3 is the Transformation Approach, which shows the structure of the curriculum and how it changes to enable students to view concepts, issues, events, and themes from the perspectives of diverse ethnic and cultural groups. Finally, level 4 shows the Social Action Approach, which means students make decisions on important social issues and take actions to help solve them. (Bank) These levels of multiculturalism in the classroom can contribute to the level of arts integration used in the classroom.

 

How do you define art? How do consider yourself creative and artistic?

 

I, personally, define art as an individual’s interpretation of a concept, recognizable or not, presented in some manner to an audience. For me, if someone says that something is art, then it is. Some people organize their closets in rainbow order. This can be art if someone looks at it and perceives it as art. Whether intentionally created as something artistic or just naturally occurring in the world, some things are art as soon as they are recognized as such. I also believe that creativity is an original interpretation of a concept. This doesn’t mean that something has to be entirely your own idea, but if you make an original interpretation or contribution to something that already exists, then that it is creativity, too.Before I took the UMD course EDCI 301 Art in the Elementary Classroom, I would not consider myself an artist, and I still feel rather intimidated in front of a blank canvas, but art is so much more than painting canvases. Through the class, I proved to myself and to others that I can be an artist through the creation of my mixed media art piece. This is a three-part artwork set. I made a shadow box ticket stub holder, a photo/card display with coordinating photo frames, and a chalkboard for my wall. To create this artwork, I did some research on Pintrest to begin to brainstorm some things I would like to have up on the walls in my future home. For the card/picture display, I used a ruler to mark off evenly spaced tick marks and stapled the string at those points in a zig-zag pattern. I made several picture frames for that display using various art techniques from seminar. I used some mini clothespins to hang the photos on the string.I also made a chalkboard to hang up on the walls in my future home so I bought an open frame made of wood from an old barn. For the backing of the chalkboard, I used a hard board that I found and painted it with chalkboard paint and a brush. One of my favorite hobbies is fishing so I used a fish stencil to paint a bright blue fish on the corner of the chalkboard for the robins egg blue accent color. Finally, I found another really neat idea on Pintrest for holding and displaying old ticket stubs. It is a shadow box that has a slit cut into the top for you to insert old ticket stubs into the frame. The paper that I used for the quotes and large ticket stub that I made is regular printer paper that I cut out and soaked in very strong tea water. This dyed the white paper into an antique brown color, which I felt complimented the burlap background nicely. For the backdrop in the frame, I cut some brown burlap and used some light blue burlap for the backing of the ticket stub. Finally, I drilled a slit into the top of the shadow box. In the end, I am very pleased with my final product and I enjoyed being creative through the process of making the three art pieces.

 

What do you see as the value of arts integration? 

 

One idea that has really stuck with me since learning about arts integration is that “arts integration affords the opportunity to compile student portfolios that reflect the process of learning as well as the final products.” (Burnaford, p. 101) I learned that while most adults focus on the product or end result of student work, students take more pride in the process of their work rather than the product. With arts integration lessons, through photo or video, you can document the process of student work much more visibly and accurately than you can for other subjects. When I think about displaying student work, I want to think about how to display the process of the work in addition to the final product. I will take pictures of the students along the way and show the process of the art next to the display of the final picture. “Making the arts process visible for parents helps them look at their own children and begin to understand how they learn.” (Burnaford, p. 106) I really love how this invites parents into the learning process.Something I really consider valuable from arts integration is that when kids use their hands and make a product, the content or whatever they were supposed to be learning sticks with them that much better. When I have my own class in the future, I plan to utilize an article by Gelineau about Making Connections. There are hundreds of lesson plan ideas that help you connect subjects in a classroom to different art projects and skills. One example of one of these lessons is doing “rubbings” with coin money. I will show the students how to strip a crayon of its paper covering and rub it against a piece of paper placed over coins and get the rubbing of both the front and backs of the coins. This is a great way to get kids familiar with what each coin looks like, how to do rubbings, and start adding up the values of the coins. This helps us integrate art into a math lesson on money and it is true arts integration because the core subject and the art subjects have equal value.

 

What is your personal vision for arts integration in your future classroom?

 

One reason I will use arts integration in my future classroom is because I love how art in the classroom really creates a community feeling. Students learn how to communicate with each other by doing critiques, the Burnaford article says, “She helps students learn how to really see their work by becoming each other’s audience.” (Burnaford, p. 91) I have a vision for a great community feel in my classroom. Donahue’s article on classroom management with the arts concludes with the profound insight that, “all art forms can be used to build a positive classroom environment for learning. To embody and express understanding requires a deeper knowing than any multiple choice question can assess.” (Donahue, p. 120) I want to create an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable talking to each other and giving constructive criticism for each other. I think, by definition, that it is all or nothing when it comes to true art integration. This does not mean, however, that you should not incorporate art into your classroom and teach with it even though it is only arts integration is when there is an equal emphasis on art and some other subject matter. The objectives need to include both academic items and art techniques. I feel that art can be used to teach several subjects very effectively as we explored in this course. I do think that for the purposes of our integrated art lesson, it is important to integrate art in the ideal form. Some integrated art is better than none. In my first year of teaching, I can see myself planning about four fully arts integrated lessons. I would like to ask the art teacher to co-teach a lesson or two with me during my first few years, at least, so I can fine-tune my art skills and so the kids can experience and benefit from some collaborative teaching.Additionally, I definitely feel I will use local art in my classroom. I would love to hang up my own students’ artwork in my classroom permanently so they can come back and visit it and me over the years. I would love to invite some of the students who have come through my classroom to come back in and show off some of the art they made while they were in my classroom to my current class. I would also like to invite the experts into my class. My sister is an art major so I would love to have her come in and present or help me teach a lesson once in a while. I think it is really important to celebrate and display student work so I intend to do that in several ways. First, I want to hang up student work in the classroom and constantly rotate it out with new projects. Next, I would like to laminate some things the kids draw and use them for every day teaching tools. Finally, I would like to have an evening that the kids could bring in their families and show off all of their work. According to Burnaford, “positioning student work and performances in the community rather than just in the school building seems to draw in community members and parents.” (Burnaford, p. 103) The article is saying that the actual site of the work becomes critical. I really want to make it a point to showcase student work in places other than that of my classroom or school building. It is kind of like the feeling of being published and publically validated as an artist when your work is displayed in a public setting.In conclusion, arts integration provides classroom teachers with the opportunity to provide a greater depth to the education for their students. I certainly intend to bring the ideas included in this paper and that I gained from the course into my future classroom.

 

References:

Banks, J. A. Multicultural Education Multiculturalism’s Five Dimensions. http://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session3/3.Multiculturalism.pdf

Burnaford, G. E. (2001). Renaissance in the classroom: Arts integration and meaningful learning. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates. (Chapter 4)

Donahue, D. M., & Stuart, J. (2010). Artful teaching: Integrating the arts for understanding across the curriculum, K-8. New York: Teachers College Press. (Chapter 4)

Gelineau, R. P. (2012). Integrating the arts across the elementary school curriculum. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (Chapter 3)