Preparing Educators for Arts Integration

This resource examines professional development approaches from across the United States to help schools and allied arts groups integrate the arts into an already crowded K–12 curriculum. The authors document the purposes and structures of a broad spectrum of current efforts and programs. Several of these programs have been in place for decades, thus demonstrating their sustainability and effectiveness. Emphasizing the value of collaboration among teachers, artists, educational leaders, and community partners, the book draws on the broad range of experiences of the authors, who came together as a working group of the Arts Education Partnership. Readers will find strong, empirically tested models of arts integration to inform curriculum development and teacher professional learning.

Book Features:

• The first critical reflection on arts-integration training programs and projects from across the United States.
• Promising practices for pre- and inservice teacher professional development programs in arts integration.
• A summary list of recommendations for actions based on the authors’ collaborative experiences.

Gene Diaz is a visual artist, international educator, and professor of distinguished achievement at Lesley University providing faculty development and arts program evaluation. Martha Barry McKenna is university professor and director of the Creativity Commons at Lesley University and is chair of the Higher Education Task Force of the Arts Education Partnership.

"Leaders in the schools and districts should be required to read this book to gain awareness and knowledge of arts integration across disciplines and begin to view the arts as a crucial component of education."

—Teachers College Record

“This book affirms an ideal of helping more school children and communities realize the importance of arts integration and how it can make a difference in the classroom, improving the preparation of all for work and life."
—From the Foreword by Jane R. Best, director, Arts Education Partnership

“Gene Diaz and Martha McKenna have tackled the question of how to prepare teachers for the task of arts integration, something of proven value for all students, and not often included in formal teacher education. We owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing varied perspectives together in this important book.”
—Madeleine F. Holzer, former director of educational development, Lincoln Center Institute

“As compelling and promising as arts integration is, it can't fulfill its promise until we create professional development models that demonstrate its core principles, including interdisciplinarity, deep collaboration, rigorous reconceptualization of the nature of curriculum, and the value of reflection. The authors take on this challenge and, in the process, illuminate critical elements of any rigorous contemporary professional learning experiences—pre- or in-service."
—Steven Seidel, Harvard University

“McKenna and Diaz have assembled a robust collection that gives the reader a view of several arts-integration professional learning programs offered across the country. This will prove to be an indispensable resource to educators, teaching artists, and community partners who provide arts education programs.”
—Barbara Shepherd, director, School and Community Programs, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jane R. Best

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Gene Diaz and Martha Barry McKenna

PART I: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN ARTS INTEGRATION

Chapter 1. Using the Creative Process as Pedagogy
   Gene Diaz and Martha Barry McKenna

Chapter 2. Arts Integration and Standards Alignment
   Amy Charleroy and Pamela Paulson

Chapter 3. Using Curriculum Design Frameworks for Arts Integration
   Don Glass and Lisa Donovan

PART II: STATEWIDE MODELS OF ARTS INTEGRATION

Chapter 4. Whole-School Models of Arts Integration: Oklahoma A+ Schools
   Jean Hendrickson

Chapter 5. The Evolution of Arts Integration in Maryland: Working in Consortium
   Mary Ann Mears, Kathy O'Dell, Susan J. Rotkovitz, and Lori Snyder

PART III: EDUCATION OF LEADERS IN ARTS INTEGRATION

Chapter 6. Preservice Teachers Advocating for the Arts
   Eric Engdahl and Peg Winkelman

Chapter 7. Principals Art Leadership Program
   Una McAlinden

Chapter 8. Learning from an Arts-Savvy Charter School Principal
   Elizabeth F. Hallmark

PART IV: ARTS SPECIALISTS IN ARTS INTEGRATION

Chapter 9. Championing the Way to Effective Arts Integration
   Joyce Huser and R. Scot Hockman

Chapter 10. Professional Learning in and Through the Arts
   Sibyl Barnum

PART V: ARTS INTEGRATION IN PRACTICE

Chapter 11. SLANT: Professional Development in Science and Arts Integration
   Julia Marshall

Chapter 12. Dance Literacy: A Pathway to Arts Integration
   Karen Bradley and Susan McGreevy-Nichols

Chapter 13. The Resonant Heartbeat: Folk Dance, Physical Literacy, and Arts Integration
   Colleen Hearn Dean and Terry Sweeting

Chapter 14. Kansas: Pioneering Arts Integration
   Elaine Bernstorf

Conclusions and Recommendations: Different Strokes for Different Folks
   Gene Diaz and Martha Barry McKenna

About the Contributors

Index