Arts Integration – the use of the arts to initially engage students, and then to accelerate and then to deepen learning, and then to forge vital connections with other learning, is in some ways easy and simple and in some ways complex.

Arts integration can be simple - just attention to the timeless idea that anything ‘hands-on’ is more engaging, is more likely to be understood and more likely to be  remembered.  So, simply remembering to try to engage more of the senses, through music, visual arts, dance or movement, or drama or storytelling will make lessons or units more engaging and more effective.

Arts Integration can also be complex and effective at the very highest levels of learning and understanding, and doing this takes time, practice and usually involves collaboration, with other teachers and ideally with artists, and it involves the teacher in high levels of personal and professional learning – so be ready…

Nearly all of us have made use of the arts in one or more of our lessons, and have seen the difference.  When we are asked to reflect and describe an unusually effective learning experience of our own, we most likely will describe a time when our senses were engaged, when we were making something, and that the learning was made more meaningful by careful attention to our interests or to the making of connections during the lesson.

Formally, arts integration is usually thought of having three components:

1 – as Learning “Through ” and
“With” the Arts....using the arts to teach and learn another thing.....

2 – as a Curricular
Connections Process....Integrating two or more 'subject areas' to make higher level connections

3 - as a Collaborative
Engagement, Professional Learning Experience.....artists and classroom teachers working together......

Purposeful doing of this, planning for the benefits of arts integration, can become nearly automatic with practice, and when done collaboratively can be some of the most effective professional development available.

This is what we will be aiming for in the following website, podcasts, prompts, modules and courses.  Of course, we will be emphasizing the connections to character development and the benefits of school transformation through art integration and character development and transformational (teacher) leadership.

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