The Arts in the Curriculum - Essay Example

?Introduction In some rooms there are who struggle academically and there are others who learn at an advanced level with accelerated pace. While using the quality teaching lens, during initial analysis of the unit, some misalignments were found. They needed alternative inclusion. This paper addresses strategies which focus on solving some of the misalignments or weaknesses that were identified as a response to the feedback from assignment one. From assignment one, it was clear that for the art students it is important that they remain encouraged to make sense of their world and their relationships through drawing and painting graphic images. This is the key to successful improvement. Consequently, this will call for integration of the arts in the curriculum. It was also found that the norms of interactions and communications in a classroom are very different from those to which students have been accustomed and this is why they may experience confusion and anxiety. Furthermore, they find it difficult in paying complete attention in the classroom. They also struggles to seek the teacher's attention or participate in discussions. Therefore, it is inherent to create culturally compatible learning environments. Moreover, there is also a need for encouragement of active participation of parents or guardians.  Strategies 1. Integrate the arts in the curriculum One of the important strategies is engaging students in arts activities which encourage dialogue in issues that are important to them. These make the students alive. Moreover, providing opportunities for students to express themselves through the visual and performing arts enable them to learn and develop their talents and multiple intelligences. Such intelligences are not only in verbal and mathematical form rather they are visual, spatial, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences (Gardner, 1983). Students benefit from being encouraged to make sense of their world and their relationships through drawing and painting graphic images. Students who are ‘encouraged’ are able to use their imaginations. They take time to elicit their interpretations of visual arts through open-ended questions and these are significantly valuable for them. These conversations enable students to understand, as they listen to other classmates and the multitude of interpretations that are possible when viewing the same work of art. DeMoss and Morris (2002) investigated the question of how the arts support cognitive growth in students. They interviewed 30 students from 10 classes in CAPE schools that are led by veteran teacher/artist partnerships. They found significant increases in the ability of the students to analytically assess the learning of their own. These students belong to different achievement levels and the results were found in case of arts-integrated units. However, in case of traditional instructional experiences, no such benefits were reported. (2002, p. 1). In addition, DeMoss and Morris documented these benefits of CAPE. “Observations of final performances in the arts-integrated units corroborated students' own assessments. Students who had difficulties controlling their behavior and staying on task performed their parts in final events with seriousness and competency. … As students across the board indicated in their interviews, the kinds of activities that the arts provide do engage children more deeply in their learning by creating an intrinsic responsibility for the learning activities. This finding held particularly true for those children hardest to reach by traditional approaches.” (pp. 20–21) “In this case, the arts contributed to analytically deeper, experientially broader, and psychologically more rewarding learning. These developments could have significant positive effects on students' general cognitive growth over time, particularly if students experience arts-integrated learning in their classrooms on a regular basis.” (p. 24) A more recent study demonstrating the benefits of integrating visual arts in the curriculum on young children's cognitive development was reported in the New York Times (Kennedy, 2006). Third grade students in the Learning through Art program sponsored by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum were found to have "performed better in six categories of literacy and critical thinking skills—including thorough description, hypothesizing, and reasoning—than did students who were not in the program" (Kennedy, 2006). In this program, the Guggenheim Museum sends teaching artists to the schools where they collaborate with the teachers for 90 minutes per class that takes place in a day in a week over a 10- or 20-week period, helping students and teachers learn about and make art. Groups of students are also taken to the Guggenheim two or three times in that period to see exhibitions. Posters of artwork can enliven a classroom and be a starting point for enriching conversations. If there are restrictions on displaying such work on the walls, inexpensive foam core panels that fold out and stand up as the background for a classroom gallery, can be used. Invite children to describe the artwork on the posters and create a story about what is happening in the pictures—what may have happened before and what may happen next. Photography is another form of art that children can learn from an adult, be it a teacher, a teacher's colleague, or be it a parent. Students can use disposable cameras and select locations, people, and objects from their environment to photograph; the photos can be posted in the classroom "gallery" and discussed or used to build a story, play, or poem. Photographic "essays" are another way of sharing one's home culture with others. Middle and high school students enjoy "poetry slams" in which they compete to become the best performer of their own poems. Learning songs is another way to experience poetry. From the youngest children's songs of Woody Guthrie to favorite world folk songs to the songs of social justice in the Civil Rights Movement, music illuminates the human condition and makes social studies more memorable. Students can even read plays aloud in the classroom, and later write and perform plays for the class. 2-Create culturally compatible learning environments.  Research has shown that the students learn more when their classrooms are compatible with their own cultural and linguistic experiences (Jordan, 1984, 1985, 1995; National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1988; Saville-Troike, 1978; Trueba & Delgado-Gaitan, 1985). When the norms of interaction and communication in a classroom are very different from those to which students have been accustomed, they may experience confusion and anxiety, being unable to attend to learning, and not knowing how to appropriately seek the teacher's attention or participate in discussions. By acknowledging students' cultural norms and expectations concerning communication and social interaction, teachers can appropriately guide them to participate in instructional activities. Research on the effectiveness of culturally compatible classrooms has been conducted with Hawaiian children as well as with Navajo and African American children (Gilbert & Gay, 1985; Henry & Pepper, 1990; Irvine, 1990; Jordan, 1995; Little Soldier, 1989; Pepper & Henry, 1989). The aspects of culture that influence classroom life most powerfully are capable of affecting the social organization of learning and the social expectations concerning communication. The organization of the typical U.S. classroom is a kind of ‘whole-class teaching’ in which the teacher acts as a leader. He/she instructs, assigns texts, and demonstrates to the whole class. Such whole-class instruction is often followed by individual practice and assessment. In contrast, Jordan’s (1995) report on the Hawaiian students whose achievements regarding reading improved greatly after culturally compatible classrooms were implemented through the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, during an ethnographic study of the students' home life, Jordan and his colleagues found that older siblings were responsible for taking care of younger siblings and doing tasks cooperatively in the home without direct supervision of their parents. Consequently, these educators have transformed their 3rd grade classroom into learning centers. After direct instruction from the teacher, small mixed-gender groups of four or five students could assist one another with tasks at the centers, without the direct supervision of teachers—similar to their home situation. Meanwhile, the teachers worked with small groups of students using “comprehension-oriented, direct instruction reading lessons using particular sociolinguistic and cognitive patterns and a system for managing child behavior which built on standard contingency management to assist the teacher in presenting herself as a person who was both "tough and nice," these being key attributes of adults that Hawaiian children like and respect.” (Jordan, 1995, p. 91) In collaboration with the Rough Rock Demonstration School in Arizona, Jordan (1995) reported that the same approaches were tried with 3rd grade Navajo students, but the techniques did not work well with them. They learned that in Navajo culture, boys and girls were expected to stay in same-gender groups. Also, because their dwellings were so far apart, they didn't have experiences with many children outside of school in peer companion groups as the Hawaiian children did. Thereafter, changes were made in the classroom organization, and the Navajo children were more comfortable working at learning centers with just one other child of the same gender. According to Tharp (1992), teaching as well as learning is more effective when they are contextualized in the experiences, skills, and values of the community. Learning, when, becomes a joint productive activity that involves both peers and teachers, is more effective. Learning is furthered by "instructional conversations"—dialogues between teachers and learners about their common learning activities. A teacher notices that a Chinese American girl tends not to raise her hand to participate in discussions. The teacher discovers that the child is afraid to respond in front of the whole class because she is still learning English and worries that others will laugh at her. The teacher divides the class into groups of four to do collaborative research so that the girl can practice speaking in English in a smaller group. Too often, when young people speak a language other than English and are learning English as a second language, or reading in English, teachers may restrict their activities to the lowest level of decoding and phonics. Here, lowest levels refer to the levels that do not challenge students intellectually. When students have the opportunity to continue learning in their native language they can operate at their cognitive level and grow intellectually. After reading a book or article in their native language, they can be challenged with comprehension, application, and analysis questions—the higher-order thinking skills. Moll, Diaz, Estrada, and Lopes (1992) found that the level of questioning is much more restricted in ESL reading groups than in native-language reading groups. Jordan, Tharp, and Baird-Vogt (1992) found that Hawaiian children's academic achievement increased when certain aspects of their home culture were integrated into the elementary classroom. The use of a culturally appropriate form of communication called "talk story" engaged the students more fully. In addition, Hawaiian students were more comfortable in school when they were recognized as being able to take responsibility for maintaining the order and cleanliness of their classroom. In their homes, Hawaiian children have many responsibilities for the care of younger siblings and cooperate in doing household chores. They felt more "at home" when they could come in early, straighten up the room, and set out other students' work for the day. Teachers made the classroom more culturally compatible by learning about the culture of the home. 3-Encourage active participation of parents or guardians. Parents and guardians are a child's first teachers, but they are not always aware of the ways in which they mold children's language development and communication skills. Children learn their language at home; the more interaction and communication they have at home, the more children learn. Teachers can support this crucial role by sharing information about the link between home communication and children's learning. For example, teachers can act as "culture brokers" by talking with parents to emphasize the key role they play in their children's education. Teachers can assist parents in understanding the expectations of the school and their classroom as they elicit from parents their own expectations of teachers and students. Teachers also can suggest ways in which parents might converse more often with their children to prepare them for communication in the classroom. Parents may not be aware of how they support their children's academic efforts when they discuss the importance of education and take them to informal educational resources in the community. Teachers play an enormously important role in referring parents to community resources such as children's museums, art and science museums, and community-based organizations that offer homework help and arts and sports programs. Teachers also may recommend ESL and GED programs to parents who want to continue their own education. Children learn the importance of language in expressing ideas, feelings, and requests if parents or guardians respond to them and acknowledge their thoughts. Children also need guidance in learning patterns of communication that are necessary in the classroom, including how to make a request, ask a question, and respond to a question. Sheldon and Epstein (2006) found that when teachers involve families in subject-specific interventions in reading and related language arts, "students' reading skills and scores are positively affected" (Epstein, 2005, p. 2). Moreover, NNPS studies found "significant results of subject-specific family involvement [in homework] for students' science report card grades and homework completion" (Epstein, 2005, p. 2). Alternative unit plan Develop Practical Knowledge in the Arts Develop Ideas in the Arts Communicating and interpreting in the Arts Understand the Arts in context 1 Students will identify and explore elements and principles of the visual arts, using a variety of techniques, tools, materials, processes, and procedures Students will develop visual ideas in response to a variety of motivations, using imagination, observation and invention with materials Students will describe ways in which objects and images can communicate stories and ideas Students will identify objects and images in everyday life and recognize that they serve a variety of purposes 2 Students will explore elements and principles of the visual arts, using a variety of techniques, tools, materials, processes, and procedures Students will express visual ideas in response to a variety of motivations, using imagination, observation and invention with materials. Students will express ideas about their own work and respond to objects and images made by others Students will identify objects and images in everyday life and recognize that they serve a variety of purposes 3 Students will apply knowledge of elements and principles to make objects and images and explore art-making conventions, using a variety of techniques, tools, materials, processes and procedures. Students will generate and develop visual ideas in response to a variety of motivations, using imagination, observation, and invention with materials. Students will describe how selected objects and images communicate different kinds of ideas. Students will investigate the purposes of objects and images in past and present cultures and identify contexts in which they were or are made, viewed, and valued. Read More