Arts Impacting Achievement

by Lara Pruitt

Opening Thoughts: A Model for Education

Consider the image of a three-legged stool as a model for the ideal classroom, with the seat of the stool being student achievement. For teachers operating as the sole providers of educational experience, student learning is a continual balancing act, much like the Chinese acrobats who balance plates by spinning them atop a long pole.

In traditional classrooms, learner investment is increased when a second leg of the stool is offered to provide foundation for growth. This second support of educational progress is the student as a co-director of the learning environment. And yet, a third leg of the stool can complete the sturdy progression of student achievement.

We suggest that the third leg of the stool is the work itself; work that is engaging, rigorous and to which both the student and teacher invest in the final product. So, for student achievement to stay balanced and continuous, educational practice must recognize the value of each; teacher, student and work as critical elements for the delivery of instruction.

In the final months of this project, the Arts Impacting Achievement (AIA) staff has come together to reflect and build a work product that shares our learning and process. Most profound, perhaps, is our understanding that work is not merely preparation for life, it is life. Children deserve to learn through authentic production of work.

Arts integration utilizes the intentional sequencing of a series of smaller tasks or activities that lead to both the development of ability and the creation of a final group product. Students learn skills through their application in the creation of learning. Through the critique of products that they and others have made, students synthesize ideas and understand the relationship between skill development and the production of authentic work. Through the arts, students can become engaged in critical thought while developing the discipline to excel. These thoughts form the basis of the work that has been undertaken through AIA.

Flexibility: A Cornerstone to Model Development

In 2003, we set out to document and research a model for arts integrated learning. From the project´s first beginnings, David Flatley* had said, “This is not a model like a book that can be taken off the shelf and followed like a script.” Jackie Murphy* reminded us to keep our structures loose enough to see where change would occur. So how could AIA set out to document and disseminate the ways in which the arts can be a catalyst for learning across the curriculum? How could we research and test the processes in the model when its flexibility and response to teacher and student needs was at the core of the program?

In our first professional development session with teachers, we repeated again and again, “we are nothing if not flexible”, in response to teacher needs for adjusted scheduling and changes in project activities. And through the documentation and analysis of this project, we realize that teachers, of adults or children, should know this phrase as they embark upon the creation of plans to address the needs of a learner.

Flexibility, then, is the lens through which to view the arts integrated model that is Arts Impacting Achievement. Teachers and students learn that instruction must be designed and implemented in ways that can respond to student abilities, interests and development. Curriculum must be flexible in order to create the maximum learning environment for each and every child.
The Building of a Model

AIA is based on the work of the Lakeview Education and Arts Partnership (LEAP) led by Jackie Murphy and David Flatley at the Chicago Teachers´ Center, Northeastern Illinois University, where four schools came together to create a community through the arts, promising whole school change. The first year was spent developing an outline of how to use the work of over a decade in the creation of a model that could be shared both nationally and internationally while testing the model´s effects on teachers. We created a model of our process to describe the interactions and connections we had seen in the development of LEAP.

We analyzed the work we had seen over a decade of school partnerships and identified three outcomes that we would use to structure our research. How could we document the ways in which the AIA model develops teacher abilities to achieve these outcomes in their students?

• Engagement
• Making Personal Connections
• Asking and Answering Questions
• Image Making
• Creating Artifacts of Knowledge

• Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
• Generating Multiple Perspectives
• Developing Multiple Responses
• Reflecting, Evaluating and Choosing Best Response

• Discipline
• Assessing Knowledge Artifact
• Revising Knowledge Artifact/Rehearsing Independently
• Evaluating Knowledge Artifact

Teacher Participation

A teacher survey was built to look at change over time. Plans for in-depth qualitative data collection were made through the development of an observation protocol and checklist, focus groups and individual teacher interviews. Project staff would document the work through collection of photos, student work, planning and reflection forms from teachers and artists.

The professional development commitment we asked for from teachers was intensive. In addition, there was a research design to look at comparison groups who would not receive any of the project activities. The project was presented at staff meetings in the six project schools, three in Chicago and three in Elgin. Research activities would include focus groups, surveys, interviews, and classroom observations. The comparison groups would be selected from the group of willing teachers, only half of the interested teachers would get the program. Of the willing teachers, treatment and control groups were randomly selected by school.

Beginning in September 2004, project teachers received up to 60 hours of professional development outside of the classroom. These workshops were organized into 15 hour seminars which were followed by the creation of an arts integrated unit co-taught with a professional teaching artist.

Teachers worked with professional artists each semester of the project, for a total of four arts integrated units. Units were co-planned by teacher and artist as they worked together to create authentic work experiences for students. Planning sessions for unit development were facilitated by project staff as teachers grouped artistic standards in the discipline of their artist alongside of specific curriculum standards in an academic area. Unit implementation was also collaborative with teacher and artist working together to develop student skills, products and assessments.

The first set of workshops placed teachers in arts immersion sessions where they worked as reflective learners to create artistic responses through the analysis of a text. A framework of inquiry based learning was presented for organizing units of work. Teachers learned specific strategies for collaborative practice while participating in the rigor of arts integrated learning.

Teachers next explored inquiry more deeply through further immersion in arts experience and the creation of assessments. Reflective writing and discussion was a strong component of workshop activities. A summer institute brought the next set of workshops through master classes where teachers explored a single art form for three hours; dance, visual art, music and theater. Program design for the following year was responsive to teacher feedback as teachers shared their lessons learned.

The final seminar explored the creation of documentation panels, first teachers used panels to better understand student learning. Teachers began to look at transformative change in their classroom practice through student interview transcriptions, photos and student work to consider learning and develop their practice in the classroom. Finally, teachers created panels as individual inquiries to represent their own growth and understanding about arts integrated instruction over the course of the AIA project.

Throughout the project, teachers, artists, students and staff grew in their understanding of how arts impact achievement. The lessons learned by all are offered to help others as they work to improve education in and through the arts. As a staff we are grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such an amazing group of teachers and artists for the last three years. Arts Impacting Achievement has been a learning experience that we will use in all the work we do in the future.