"Arts
integration brings all learning styles together, helping to ensure that
all students will be successful." - Tamara Mills, Coordinator of Fine
Arts
Arts integration (or arts immersion) is a powerful and effective
approach to teaching and learning. According to Arts Edge, an arts
education website for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts, "Arts integration is an approach to teaching in which students
construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students
engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another
subject area and meets evolving objectives in both." Visit Kennedy Center.
Multi-School Arts Integration Project Example
A successful multi-school project combined arts integration,
interdisciplinary studies, technology integration, and STEM instruction
to teach students the Maryland College and Career Readiness Standards to
kindergarten and high school students. The project involved these
students and steps:
- Kindergraten students created a two-dimensional painting of a monster after reading Mercer Mayer's "There's a Nightmare in My Closet." They used organic and geometric shapes and primary and secondary colors to create their unique monster.
- High school students from Snow Hill High School's After School
Academy took the monster paintings and created three-dimensional dolls
which replicated the designs of their kindergarten innovators.
- High school students in Worcester Technical High School's
Interactive Media Production class constructed packaging for the
Monsters Inside project.