Write a Consise Definiton of Arts Integration Using Concepts Found in Chapter 1 of Your Textbook

Art instruction is riddled with frameworks and philosophies. However, there is one approach encompassing the best of all fine art educational activity frameworks: Arts Integration. Integration develops the deeper thinking and learning abilities used in all other disciplines. It can also provide ample evidence for making fine art a core subject in an bookish arrangement.

Integration is being piloted at district levels in the California Bay Area. Julia Marshall is a professor of Art Teaching at San Francisco State University, too as a consultant to the Alameda Canton of Education for Integrated Learning.

Marshall recently wrote an article titled, "A Systems View: The Role of Art in Educational activity," in the May 2016 event of Art Education. I got a chance to sit down with Marshall to aggrandize on the concepts of integration in her commodity and to hash out further steps for implementation.

Arts Integration: What Information technology Is and What It Is Not

Arts integration is the product of arts-based enquiry. What differentiates integration from approaches like STEAM is that integration makes art the key lens through which students explore, conceptualize, and demonstrate deeper thinking and agreement. Through integration, art is at the forefront of how students investigate different topics. Marshall gave the example of a thematic study of ancient Greece. "Integration is non 'allow's study Greece and in the social sciences students talk about wars, in math classes look at Pythagoras, and in art make Greek sculptures.' That is thematic learning. Real integration uses the arts as the primary lens. Integration would ask students questions such every bit: What if you lot were a Greek artist? How would you interpret your time? What would you document and how would you lot do it?"

Integration embodies what frameworks like TAB and the Studio Habits of Listen value: choice-based art didactics with behaviors, not products, as the primary objectives. Marshall explains that art education is headed toward the assessment of the process. "The focus is not on color choices but rather the significant, thinking, and reasoning that the artistic process generates. Assessment is in showing understanding of the earth, on persistence, observation, and creative behaviors."

Workbooks: A Method for Integration Implementation

One successful integration method being used by students of all ages throughout the Bay Area is the workbook. The workbook is essentially a sketchbook given to each student. The workbook is used for writing, drawing, designing, questioning, and illustrating interdisciplinary content and connections. Students create a generative topic that interests them and they are then asked to explore information technology. Peer groups can be used for analyzing choices and determining which topics work all-time. The workbooks are then taken from class to grade throughout days and weeks in order to bear artistic enquiry. Students follow the thread of their themes and topics throughout their twenty-four hours. Marshall observes, "In middle and loftier school, it'due south the students who should be integrating, not the teachers. The students get from class to class and they are the ones who should be finding connections and patterns. The art room is the place to bring it all out."

Marshall gave some specific workbook examples from Oakland city schools and Berkeley High School. One educatee chose to focus an inquiry effectually zoo animals. The student went to a zoo, used her workbook every bit the soil to cultivate ideas and certificate connections and demonstrated a dynamic progression in thinking. The student documented similarities between human anatomy and various animals. The anatomical investigation inspired farther research and illustration into comparative evolutionary theory. Written report of reincarnation came virtually every bit a next step in this student'south inquiry-based process. In a terminal summative projection, a metaphorical zoo display was created to examine the relationship between humans and animals.

Steps and Resources for Integration

Co-ordinate to Marshall, ane small step that tin be taken toward integration is to refocus fundamental questions away from which techniques students will use to what concepts students demand to grapple with and sympathise. Get-go with what larger understandings students should achieve first, and then build the art skills upward to help manifest those understandings. The key is a shift in thinking from products to behaviors. Another entry point comes from asking students what interests them and what bothers them. Studio Habits of Listen is a dandy framework for assessment.

Integration is invigorating considering information technology tin be successfully executed by even the most isolated of fine art educators. STEAM and PBL models can crave hours of collaborative fourth dimension and visionary leadership to exist properly executed. Integration can alleviate the struggles of interdisciplinary staff collaboration. Marshall suggests that some crucial resources for integration tin be found through Project Zippo: Teaching for Understanding. Another online resource is through Making Learning Visible.

A dynamic resource for integration is a volume written by Marshall and David M. Donahue titled Art-Centered Learning Beyond the Curriculum. The book gives concrete examples of how to contain integration using gimmicky artists and every core subject field within the school organization. Marshall acknowledges art teachers are not e'er experts in other academic content, and the purpose of this book is to give insight into integration and steps on how to brand it work. There is even an instructional guide to developing an integrated curriculum.

Conclusion: Integration as Art'south Key Academic Role in the School System

As creative person educators, we know how vital the arts are for developing multiple intelligences. When taking an integration approach, we can also provide evidence for the central function art can play to foster academic success in all disciplines. Marshall believes art classes can become the catalyst for deeper thinking, agreement, exploring, and contained learning.

Integration encourages students to create knowledge and contribute to the growth of noesis, rather than exist passive receptacles of information technology. Integration can aid students think systemically and encounter the bigger moving-picture show of where they fit into the world. Marshall elaborates, "Through integrative practice, students see a bird so expand their thinking almost the entire ecosystem that bird is a part of. They contemplate the notions of biodiversity, evolution, and how man beings take learned to fly by observing the bird."

What kinds of experiences accept you lot had with integration?

What other questions or concerns does integration raise?

Mag manufactures and podcasts are opinions of professional instruction contributors and do not necessarily correspond the position of the Fine art of Teaching University (AOEU) or its bookish offerings. Contributors use terms in the manner they are nigh often talked nearly in the scope of their educational experiences.

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Source: https://theartofeducation.edu/2016/08/23/august-importance-integration-conversation-julia-marshall/

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