Active Learning and Arts Integration: Developing Critical Thinking and Inquiry

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Active Learning and Arts Integration Developing
Critical Thinking and Inquiry

• Pamela K. Hill, Ed.D.
• Fitchburg State College

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Help Wanted

• Thinkers Problem solvers for 21st century
  must possess the following abilities
• Analyze,synthesize evaluate data
• Apply knowledge to create new ideas
• Find multiple solutions to problems
• Predict resolve conflict
• Communicate express ideas
• Work well with others
• Young adolescents strongly urged to
  apply.

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How do we meet future labor demands ?

• Education Providing opportunities to learn via
  the creative process
• Music
• Minds-on activities

Dance Movement
Improv Role-playing
Visual Arts
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Recognition of the arts

• Learning in, about, through the arts develops
  each learners capacity to make meaning from
  experience, respond to creativity, and contribute
  to society
• -Massachusetts Department of Education
• The most creative ideas come from people who are
  not bound by conventional modes of thinking
  people poking around unfamiliar disciplines -
  often the arts
• -Thomas Young, CEO Lockheed Martin

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The role of the arts

• Promotes higher level thinking skills
• Nourishes imagination and creativity
• Fosters personal attitudes self-discipline,
  self-reflection
• Builds collaborative/teamwork skills
• Builds self-esteem, confidence, motivation
• Promotes cross-cultural understanding
• Reduces stress, promotes overall wellness
• Boosts school attendance/test scores

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Rationale for Arts Across the Curriculum
Providing Access for All Learners

• Develop the multiple intelligences
• Appeal to diverse learning styles
• Emphasize process of learning and meta-cognition
• Encourage risk-taking, self-expression,
  reflection, and problem-solving
• Provide real life experiences
• Provide alternative routes to learning content

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The arts and curriculum planning

• Provide opportunity for interdisciplinary
  planning and team teaching
• Help create a positive climate for learning
• Facilitate making meaning by experiencing, doing,
  performing, and creating
• Provide authentic and alternative modes of
  formative and summative student assessment

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Enabling Activities

• Readers Theatre
• Visual Construction of Knowledge
• Abstract Painting
• Tableaux
• Storytelling
• Role Playing/Classroom Drama
• Dance Stories/Concepts
• Music as an Interpreting and Symbolic Tool

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Student Assessment

• Observation
• Writing Assessment
• Performance Assessment
• Self-Assessment
• Response Journals
• Portfolios

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Using Active Learning and Arts Integration to
Developing Critical Thinking and Inquiry

• Some Key Components
• When integrating the arts, the arts and the
  other content areas need to come together as
  equal partners. Curriculum framework standards,
  content, process, and skills of each need to be
  respected.
• Activities need to be structured and directions
  clear so that students can work individually or
  in groups on their own with teacher coaching.

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• Teacher coaching is a significant element to
  the process
• Debriefing can be more important than the
  activity itself. Be sure to allow time.
  Focusing on process and meta- cognition is key.

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Toward Implementation A Developmental Approach

• Teacher takes the role of facilitator and coach
• Begin with team building and group norms
• Start small, initially concentrating on building
  discrete skills of critical thinking and inquiry
• Move to more complex activities
• Occasionally revisit team and skill building
  activities
• Finally, provide opportunity for project work via
  choice board activities

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What Adolescent Development Tells Us To Do

• Young Adolescents
• Are social
• Need to be accepted
• Are sensitive to criticism
• Are searching for identity
• Are idealistic
• Have an emerging sense of humor
• Need to move around
• Are reflective, introspective and analytical

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• Young Adolescents
• Experience the phenomenon of Metacognition
• Possess thinking strategies that shift between
  concrete and abstract thought
• Prefer active over passive learning experiences
• Enjoy using skills to solve real-life problems

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What Brain Research Tells Us
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Special Thanks to Claire ReillySoutheast Middle
SchoolLeominster, MAfor her Contributions to
this Power Point Presentation