Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
Museums and schools have a long history of working together to facilitate students' learning in and through the arts. While art museums have traditionally served school audiences through arange of single-visit tours, increasingly they offer more extensive school programs in an effort toprovide students with in-depth, comprehensive learning experiences. Studies suggest that a smany as half of American museums offer some form of a multiple-visit school program in which students might visit the museum from two to ten times a year. Museums also offer extended experiences such as pre- and post-visit activities in the classroom
Recent research suggests that many multiple-visit programs focus on creative and critical thinking skills, skills that are considered increasingly important in the general education of young people. Yet, until now, the museum education field has neither articulated exactly what is meant by critical thinking skills, nor how the museum provides a unique environment for learning such skills.
In 2003, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM), in partnership with the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI), received a 3-year grant from the Department of Education to research students' learning in and from an art museum multiple-visit program. The ISGM's School Partnership Program (SPP) provided the context for this study and focused on three overarching goals described in the report in more detail. Launched in 1996, the SPP is a multiple-visit program serving K-8 students from neighboring inner-city public schools. Over the three years of the study, the pedagogy for the SPP shifted from a Socratic-method to more open-ended questions, using the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) questioning model which focuses on learning to look at and make meaning from works of art, as well as gaining familiarity with the museum environment in order to feel comfortable using the Gardner as a community resource.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-Massachusetts-Suffolk County-Boston
Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
In the summer of 2010, the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) commissioned an initiative to help identify how arts organizations can better and more effectively serve Chicago Public Schools (CPS) through arts education programming and explore the ways in which arts providers are using the CPS Arts Guide. Four cultural organizations from different disciplines were selected to spearhead the initiative, consulting with and gaining input from arts education providers across Chicago. The Ravinia Festival, the Art Institute of Chicago, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the League of Chicago Theaters were selected to represent their respective disciplines (music, visual arts, dance, and theatre/literary arts).
Each convening institution was charged with researching the music education offerings of their respective sectors by conducting focus groups with colleagues, and surveying the arts partners within their discipline. Ravinia convened all music sector organizations known to the institution several times during the process to get their input at each phase of this project:
In the summer of 2010, four meetings were held to introduce the sector to the project and obtain their feedback on the commission and design of a survey. It was important to Ravinia that the survey creation be as inclusive of all members of the music sector as possible. Subsequently, these meetings, which preceded the survey development,provided the background for most of the questions which ended up in the survey.
In the fall of 2010, the same music organizations were invited to a meeting to review a draft of the survey and provide Ravinia with feedback. In this meeting, the music sector proved to be once again very engaged in the design process and confirmed to Ravinia that they desired a survey that would be thorough and comprehensive even if it required some time to answer.
In the summer of 2011, Ravinia again met with a large number of representatives from the music sector to discuss the findings of the survey, dive deeper into some of the more surprising findings, and create recommendations.In all, a total of 8 meetings were held, with more than 90 people representing 53 organizations that were a part of the process
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Illinois-Cook County-Chicago
Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
This report examines the academic and civic behavior outcomes of teenagers and young adults who have engaged deeply with the arts in or out of school.
In several small-group studies, children and teenagers who participated in arts education programs have shown more positive academic and social outcomes in comparison to students who did not participate in those programs. Such studies have proved essential to the current research literature on the types of instrumental benefits associated with an arts education.
A standard weakness of the literature, however, has been a dearth of large-scale, longitudinal studies following the same populations over time, tracking the outcomes of students who received intensive arts exposure or arts learning compared with students who did not. This report is a partial attempt to fill this knowledge gap. The report's authors, James Catterall et al., use four large national databases to analyze the relationship between arts involvement and academic and social achievements.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
Artful Citizenship is an arts-integrated social studies curriculum project designed to provide third- through fifth- grade students and teachers with the tools necessary to:
* develop visual literacy skills;
* implement social science content across academic content areas;
* create opportunities for integrated artistic response.
Artful Citizenship is a pilot educational program funded by the US Department of Education, Arts in Education, Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program. It was developed by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (FIU) in partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), Visual Understanding in Education (VUE), a non-profit organization that develops learner-centered methods that use art to teach critical thinking and visual literacy, faculty from the FIU College of Education, and a team of independent education researchers and evaluators from Curva and Associates, a private research and evaluation firm.
The Wolfsonian and its partners recently completed the three years of funded activities that included development, field testing, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of Artful Citizenship as part of the core social studies and language arts curricula in the third, fourth and fifth grades at three Miami-Dade County public elementary schools. All three schools have high percentages of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who are at risk of academic failure. An additional school with similar demographics was included to serve as a comparison group for evaluation purposes.
The evaluation addresses the central objectives of the program: teaching visual literacy in order to influence children's character and social development, and, ultimately, to improve academic achievement, as measured through norm-referenced tests and criterion- referenced test (Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test). The psychosocial dimensions included in the evaluation were Art Self-Concept, Art Enjoyment, Academic Self-Concept, and School/Civic Orientation
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
Artful Citizenship is an arts-integrated social studies curriculum project designed to provide third- through fifth- grade students and teachers with the tools necessary to:
* develop visual literacy skills;
* implement social science content across academic content areas;
* create opportunities for integrated artistic response.
Artful Citizenship is a pilot educational program funded by the US Department of Education, Arts in Education, Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program. It was developed by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (FIU) in partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), Visual Understanding in Education (VUE), a non-profit organization that develops learner-centered methods that use art to teach critical thinking and visual literacy, faculty from the FIU College of Education, and a team of independent education researchers and evaluators from Curva and Associates, a private research and evaluation firm.
The Wolfsonian and its partners recently completed the three years of funded activities that included development, field testing, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of Artful Citizenship as part of the core social studies and language arts curricula in the third, fourth and fifth grades at three Miami-Dade County public elementary schools. All three schools have high percentages of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who are at risk of academic failure. An additional school with similar demographics was included to serve as a comparison group for evaluation purposes.
The evaluation addresses the central objectives of the program: teaching visual literacy in order to influence children's character and social development, and, ultimately, to improve academic achievement, as measured through norm-referenced tests and criterion- referenced test (Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test). The psychosocial dimensions included in the evaluation were Art Self-Concept, Art Enjoyment, Academic Self-Concept, and School/Civic Orientation
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
Data from the 2006-12 Annual Arts Education Surveys and other NYCDOE databases for 2006-12 have yielded valuable information to school leaders, teachers, parents, and community-based organizations to expand students' access to and participation in the arts. Under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott, the NYCDOE maintains a strong commitment to arts education for all students. The success of our endeavor to build the quality of arts instruction and equity of access across all schools, as articulated in the Blueprints for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, will depend on our continued collaboration with the arts and cultural community, the higher-education community, and other city and state agencies.
Working with the New York State Education Department (NYSED), the arts and cultural community, and the higher-education community, along with school leaders and parents, the NYCDOE is fully committed to supporting quality arts education, even in the face of the most severe fiscal crisis in 40 years, and will continue to:
- ensure student achievement in the arts;
- support school leaders to plan and provide comprehensive, sequential Blueprint-based instruction for all students;
- build capacity of teachers to deliver quality teaching and learning in the arts; and
- support all schools to meet ArtsCount/NYSED requirements.
The Office of Arts and Special Projects (OASP) -- within the Office of School Programs and Partnerships, Division of Academics, Performance, and Support -- continues to analyze arts education data to refine and develop strategies to address the findings of the Annual Arts in Schools Report and support arts education citywide.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
Data from the 2006-12 Annual Arts Education Surveys and other NYCDOE databases for 2006-12 have yielded valuable information to school leaders, teachers, parents, and community-based organizations to expand students' access to and participation in the arts. Under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott, the NYCDOE maintains a strong commitment to arts education for all students. The success of our endeavor to build the quality of arts instruction and equity of access across all schools, as articulated in the Blueprints for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, will depend on our continued collaboration with the arts and cultural community, the higher-education community, and other city and state agencies.
Working with the New York State Education Department (NYSED), the arts and cultural community, and the higher-education community, along with school leaders and parents, the NYCDOE is fully committed to supporting quality arts education, even in the face of the most severe fiscal crisis in 40 years, and will continue to:
- ensure student achievement in the arts;
- support school leaders to plan and provide comprehensive, sequential Blueprint-based instruction for all students;
- build capacity of teachers to deliver quality teaching and learning in the arts; and
- support all schools to meet ArtsCount/NYSED requirements.
The Office of Arts and Special Projects (OASP) -- within the Office of School Programs and Partnerships, Division of Academics, Performance, and Support -- continues to analyze arts education data to refine and develop strategies to address the findings of the Annual Arts in Schools Report and support arts education citywide.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
Arts and Culture;Education and Literacy
Arts @ Large works closely with school teams (comprised of teachers, administrators, specialists from a variety of disciplines, parents, and student representatives) to monitor a series of key elements in each Arts @ Large school that helps to determine the efficacy of programs, while examining opportunities for ongoing improvement.
The most successful programs follow these guidelines:
1. Teachers, administrators, after school providers and students team with Arts @ Large staff to collaboratively define an overarching issue, idea or concept where arts can be linked to academic content to create an exciting learning environment.
2. Arts @ Large teams identify art forms (music, visual art, theatre, dance, literary arts) that connect to and can enhance teaching the selected topic or concept.
3. Teams seek out, interview and invite artist educators, community service organizations and higher education to partner with teachers and students to create project-based, arts integrated activities.
4. Planning meetings are scheduled with participating teachers and selected partners to define goals and objectives of Arts @ Large projects.
5. Projects are implemented in a collaborative teaching model that involves both the community partners and teachers.
6. Teams design and provide ongoing assessment of Arts @ Large projects.
7. The school community celebrates the achievements of students, teachers, artist educators, parents and community partners.
This section of the handbook describes each of these attributes in more detail.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
