W11P3: Integrating the Arts

I am disappointed by the amount of information about creating functional interdisciplinary curriculum I could find (not as much as I had imagined). While most sources tout project based learning as the solution to disciplinary boundaries, by seeing these strategies first hand as a student, I understand that not always can high schoolers be trusted to self direct their learning. I believe that in order to get students excited about having ideas and performing well academically/artistically, interdisciplinary curriculum should begin very early in a child's life. Unfortunately, I am yet to find research that supports this belief.

As a result, my questions this week pertain to the best means to get children genuinely interested in interdisciplinary curriculum. Is there a way to get students excited about project based learning? How can schools find a balance between allowing interdisciplinary exploration and encouraging high performance?

W11P2: Integrating the Arts

In order to best implement interdisciplinary curriculum, teachers should allow students to draw connections between subjects on their own, and communicate with teachers in other disciplines to design communication that incorporates ideas from multiple areas. It is also important that teachers allow students to direct their own projects, where students can demonstrate understanding in the way that they have interpreted the material, and come up with creative perspectives on the class material.

It is also important that teachers encourage interdisciplinary, arts inclusive learning from a young age in order for project based learning to work. This is because student's first must be excited to learn and have developed an understanding of what excites them as learners.

W11P1: Integrating the Arts

Notes from "Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary: An Arts-Integrated Approach to STEAM Education" by Christine Liao



The rhetoric of STEM education starts with the belief that
future economic growth and innovation in the United States relies
on STEM fi elds, yet the number of students pursuing studies in
these areas is decreasing (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.).

Th e promise that STEM holds for the future is based on the idea
that STEM fi elds drive critical innovation and that innovation, in
line with early- to mid-20th-century notions, is explicitly tied to
economics (Godin, 2008).

One of the strongest arguments for STEAM derives from the
view that creativity is the most important ability in the 21st century
(Trilling & Fadel, 2009).

Some educators argue that increasing the number of school
hours dedicated to STEM subjects will not foster students’ interest
and ability in STEM fi elds. Th erefore, they call for an integrated
approach to STEM education as most applicable to the real world
(Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014).

An integrated
approach to STEM education emphasizes that at least two STEM
subjects be used in concert to construct applications, especially
those with real-world implications.

education. In Bequette and Bequette’s
(2012) view, art and design educators should communicate with
their peers in STEM fields to determine how to integrate art with
STEM to create a STEAM curriculum.

Their view on STEAM education is expressed
through creating a class environment where students learn
through creative problem solving. This viewpoint also corresponds
with problem-based integrated STEM education.

Another view
takes the communication between art and STEM educators to a
transdisciplinary space (Guyotte, Sochacka, Costantino, Walther,
& Kellam, 2014) where the focus is applications to social practices.

Silverstein and Layne
(2010) define arts integration as “an approach to teaching in which
students construct and demonstrate understanding through an
arts form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an
art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives
in both” (para. 1). This definition recognizes the importance of
creative production and promotes hands-on learning through
artmaking.

Bringing STEAM directly into the individual teacher’s classroom
is an easier starting point than executing a larger-scale project in
the current general and curricula environments of many schools.

Art educators can begin to implement STEAM education
through an arts-integrated approach, such as the focal
example described in this article. Ulbricht’s (1998) guidelines
for interdisciplinary art education “emphasize art’s unique
perspective and [that it should] not become a handmaiden
for other disciplines.” Further, Ulbricht specifi es that “new
understandings [should be] developed as a result of connections”
and that interdisciplinary art education should be “concerned
with important social and personal issues” and “organized
around important themes.” And, finally, that “art study should be
collaborative” (pp. 16–17).

W10P3: Interdisciplinary Students

I am still working my way through the paper about STEAM curriculum that I have been working with for the past few weeks. I am a huge fan of this article because it provides ample citations and statistics in order to support its claims about interdisciplinary education benefiting students. I think specifically my focus this week on the way that music and arts education benefits students allowed me to reflect on my own advantages as a result of my education being supplemented by artistic pursuits.

I hope that the rest of the article will explain a process by which American schools can better incorporate arts and music into CORE curriculum, or how to prepare teachers to educate interdisciplinarily, as I believe this information would strengthen my presentation significantly.