Arts Integration

Arts Integration

“Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both.” – Kennedy Center

When we mention “arts integration,” people envision very different processes and outcomes. At Perpich Center, we are thinking about arts integration along a continuum. #ItDepends.

Here are some considerations to begin your planning for arts integration:

  • What is your goal in using arts integration?
  • What connection will your lesson(s) or unit have to standards and benchmarks?
  • What is your plan for assessing learning—who is leading/scoring the assessment, what is being assessed, using what type of assessment?
  • Is there adequate time for teachers to plan collaboratively?
  • Do all students have classes/experience/skills in the subjects being integrated?

The combined answers to these questions will help you select the most appropriate model on the continuum for the lesson(s) or unit you have in mind. Answers to these questions are below.

Curated by the Perpich Professional Development and Resource Programs team, the above presentation highlights the integral components of arts integration. We invite you to view this 54-minute narrated slide presentation as you begin to think about arts integration. Topics include:

Introduction
00:21 Introduction to Perpich Center
01:19 Follow along with resources on the arts integration webpage
01:44 Introduction to parts of this video presentation
02:30 Philosophical foundations of the arts: What the arts do!
07:38 Integrated learning: What are we guaranteeing?
08:32 Five key opportunities for your students
12:56 What is YOUR WHY for arts integration?
13:58 Search Simon Sinek for his why-how-what circle

Definitions and models
14:54 Defining arts integration
15:32 Multiple models of arts integration – #ItDepends
17:46 Arts integration models on a continuum
18:45 Arts as curriculum
19:39 Arts-Enhanced lesson(s) or unit
21:51 Arts integrated lesson(s) or unit (one subject is most prominent/important)
24:50 Arts integrated unit (two equal subjects)
26:00 Big ideas!
27:16 Essential questions
28:51 Enduring understandings

Artistic processes
29:55 The arts processes
31:51 Creating
33:17 Perform/Presenting
34:22 Responding
35:08 Connecting
36:05 2018 Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards in the Arts

Putting it all together
38:06 Table A: Continuum of models | Crosswalk with artistic processes
40:29 Table B: Examples
43:10 Table C: Example of one idea across the continuum
45:38 Checking assumptions and capacities
52:21 Table D: Your constraints, assumptions, and possibilities
53:20 For more information email PDR-Questions@pcae.k12.mn.us

ARTS INTEGRATION QUESTIONS

What is your goal in using arts integration?
  • Engagement. The arts are inherently engaging, and in addition, arts integration practices have been shown in brain-based research to improve comprehension and long-term retention. Arts integration also fosters healthy risk-taking, differentiation, bridges differences, and opens the door to learning.
  • Connection. Learning is best accomplished when it is connected to life experiences, across disciplines, and/or through conceptual thinking.
  • Knowledge. Art is a way of knowing—skills and techniques, thinking routines, methods of critical thinking and examination, and creative exploration and innovation.
  • Multimodal. The arts provide unique opportunities for literacies that go beyond text and numbers.
  • Transfer. Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum or a silo. Arts integration is an opportunity to use and apply learning across disciplines and to see purpose in learning.
What connection will your lesson(s) or unit have to standards and benchmarks?
  • Will students be meeting benchmarks in one or both subject areas?
  • Will one subject be more prominent than the other?
  • Will you be using an arts experience as a “hook” towards meeting benchmark(s) in a non-arts subject?
  • Might an arts area be used to differentiate the way students show understanding?
What is your plan for assessing learning – who is leading/scoring the assessment, what is being assessed, using what type of assessment?
  • Will both teachers plan, deliver, and assess learning of benchmarks in their respective subject area?
  • Will the teacher of the most prominent subject area plan, deliver, and assess learning in brief consultation with a teacher of the second subject.
Is there adequate time for teachers to plan accordingly?
  • Will students be meeting benchmarks in both subject areas?
  • Will you “go deep” with a big idea, essential questions, and enduring understandings?
  • The more integrated the lesson or unit—the further to the right one moves along our continuum—the more collaborative planning time is needed. We find that time is one of the most challenging hurdles to ongoing arts integration.
Do all students have classes/experience/skills in the subjects being integrated?
  • At the elementary level this is almost certain, but not so at the secondary level as arts classes/learning become electives.
  • Do all students have skills in the designated arts area?
  • Will students be meeting benchmarks in one or both subject areas?
  • Will you be using an arts experience as a “hook” towards meeting benchmark(s) in a non-arts subject?
  • Might an arts area be used to differentiate the way students show understanding and not necessarily about meeting benchmarks in the arts?

ARTS INTEGRATION RESOURCES

All of the templates examined in the slide presentation are provided here. Keep in mind, one model is not better than another, but one model will be better suited for your purposes and available resources.

PERPICH LIBRARY ARTS INTEGRATION RESOURCES

The Perpich Library has a professional collection specializing in books for K-12 arts educators and teaching artists focused in each arts discipline (dance, music, theater, and visual arts), arts integration, and American Indian people and cultures. There are also hundreds of books for students of all ages in the Children’s Arts and Diversity collection.

Our library materials are free to all residents of Minnesota 18 and older. To become a member and reserve materials, get reference assistance, or arrange a visit, contact the Perpich Library at library@pcae.k12.mn.us or 763-279-4170.

Check out these specialized book lists relative to Arts Integration:

Visit the Perpich Library

Need more information or assistance? Please reach out to Lorene McGrane, Administrative Specialist on the PDR team: Lorene.McGrane@pcae.k12.mn.us

"Knowing that our music staff is a couple of stages behind our art staff, we wanted them to have the benefit of seeing where our journey in curriculum and aligning standards has taken us so far in the art department. It was one of those moments where you feel that warm glow and that inner 'Hey, this is exactly what we were hoping for all of our work.' It gave the music staff a template of where they can go next. It was such a great feeling to have it all there in a collection of documents, clear, concise, and just want we needed."

Jennifer Olson, Rochester Elementary Visual Arts Partners

"The workshop helped to morph my classroom into a space where students were more engaged, respected, and included in the learning process."

Albert Lea Senior High School English and Journalism teacher

"Perpich Center has provided teachers and students in my district, in addition to others from across the state, with a myriad of valuable opportunities for both growth and professional collaboration that are simply not readily available anywhere else in the state of Minnesota."

Anoka High School Art Department Chair

"The professional development arm of Perpich has led the state in its investigation of what quality art making is and why it matters to our state, kids, and future…all things must be made, making requires creative and critical thinking. Our state must continue to support the future - which will come through the creative professions and their invention."

Foundation Studies Chair, Coordinator of Teaching Artist Programming, College of Visual Arts

"The program transformed my teaching. The way the program taught us by having us experience the lessons ourselves, the way Perpich treated us like professionals, the way Perpich worked from where we were as teachers and moved us forward to encourage ultimate growth was the best experience I have ever had in professional development!"

Moreland Magnet Facilitator, West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Area Schools (District 197)

"Perpich Center is able to reach every child in this state via the rigorous professional development that they provide teachers, districts, and communities."

Vocal Music and Fine Arts Coordinator, Washburn High School, Instructor of Secondary Choral Methods, St. Olaf College, Northfield

"Our students have access through PALS (the inter-library loan system) to get materials for instruction. Research and best practices in art education come from Perpich. It is Perpich Center that provides the leadership in implementing the art standards in K-12 schools."

Kathryn Gainey, Professor of Art, St. Cloud State University

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