It’s both terrifying and exciting to be studying as a
pre-service arts education teacher for the state of Illinois. Since I am
studying (and hope to one day work) in Chicago, news of the CPS layoffs and
potential arts cuts concerns me on a daily basis…
Nevertheless, one method that could ensure arts’ inclusion
in the classroom is to create more “project-based” learning opportunities.
Edutopia breaks down project-based learning as a combination of:
- Designing and/or creating a tangible product, performance or event
- Solving a real-world problem (may be simulated or fully authentic)
- Investigating a topic or issue to develop an answer to an open-ended question
This description compliments the America Society for
Engineering Education’s recent study identified several characteristics of
quality STEM programs:
1. The context is motivating,
engaging, and real-world.
2. Students integrate and apply
meaningful and important mathematics and science content.
3. Teaching methods are
inquiry-based and student-centered.
4. Students engage in solving
engineering challenges using an engineering design process.
5. Teamwork and communications are
a major focus. Throughout the program, students have the freedom to think
critically, creatively, and innovatively, as well as opportunities to fail and
try again in safe environments.
If American education is truly concerned about creating real-world,
participatory, and collaborative group projects, I truly believe incorporating
more theater into the curriculum would help solve the issues of educational inclusivity
combined with independent thinking. An inherently collaborative art, theater
incorporates technology, memorization, communication skills, and personal
responsibility into every single production. Even an article published yesterday
heralds the ways that theater arts can turn abstract subjects like math into
more concrete, understandable and measurable topics for students of all ages -- which
suggests great things for the future of transdisciplinary arts education.
If students are learning to adapt to the changing demands of
the workplace, arts educators should also work to ensure art's place in national curriculum.
You are thinking strategically to creatively find ways that educators can and should think when developing curriculum. Bravo! This is evident through your suggestion to create project-based learning opportunities through the discipline of performing arts and by extension bringing in multi-sensory experiences in the classroom engaging diverse learning styles such as the kinesthetic learner. Thank you for sharing these thoughtful ideas and link in relation to "trans-disciplinary arts education" Also, another strategy is to do pre-planning with a small group of educators in your own grade or with other grades that might afford opportunities for cross-collaboration and to inspire STEM subject educators to incoroprate the arts in their own classrooms. Here is an example I found on a variety of ways that teachers are incorporating arts in STEM curriculum, an encouraging article during a time that can easily cause worry for the future of the field. http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/02/13/gaining-steam-teaching-science-though-art
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with using theater in learning more abstract concepts such as math. It can be hard to understand and becomes more understandable by way of visualization or enactment for some. My 7th grade math teacher used performative arts to help us grasp concepts this way. She had us get up out of our desks and do dances to remember formulas and rules. We came up with muscle memory ways to remember these. It seemed silly to some but was more engaging than looking at a book or the chalkboard (yes we still had chalkboards). I'm going to quote you here in saying, "An inherently collaborative art, theater incorporates technology, memorization, communication skills, and personal responsibility into every single production." I think a lot of folks misunderstand what theater is and can be, and don't think of it as an art, or even separate it from a lot of tasks that we may already be doing. The whole "I'm not an actor, I don't do theater" mentality I think sticks with people. But hey, I'm not an actor but enjoy acting out :) Kudos to those teachers who see the importance in incorporating all of the arts into a student's education!
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