Shaping Learning

As art educators, we are able to connect with colleagues, administrators and the community to engage them in an arts-minded culture that supports the school and district art programs. It takes time to build that collaboration. In the prior post, I elaborated on the importance of communication as a means to spreading the word about the work done in our art classrooms. The focus was primarily on getting information out to parents and guardians. However, I mentioned how by sharing the newsletter with colleagues, one is able to bring them into the fold, so to speak, and help them understand the cross-curricular connections that occur every day in an art classroom. The multi-disciplinary integrations that enable students to remember, understand, apply, analyze and evaluate concepts from other subjects, which they then use to create an original work of art extends the learning. Integration makes sense of the mass of information they take in through the course of the week. My lessons are not guided purely by what happens in the other classrooms, but I do know what they are studying and when they study it. This method supports the student, the teachers and the learning that takes place. What is magical is when art educators connect with teachers on campus as well as with teachers from other schools. Students are amazed that children their age at another school are learning the same things as they are! Sometimes we need to see how it is done, in order to apply it to our own contexts.

Here are some of the many wonderful opportunities for art educators to collaborate with other teachers to engage students (and make the teaching process fun, too):
• Partner with a colleague for the Champion Creatively Alive Children Grant program, sponsored by Crayola © and the NAESP (plan now for next year!)
• See how it is done at the Lab School of Washington, D.C. as part of the Power of Art Program sponsored by the Lab School and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
• Submit an application for the PBS Teachers Innovation Awards, and see how you can integrate concepts from other subjects, with resources from PBS
• Join Art Ed 2.0 and collaborate with another classroom in another state 
• Partner with a colleague for the Art:21 Educator Institute for 2012-2013 to integrate contemporary art into interdisciplinary themes.

I look forward to hearing how you integrate across the curriculum, and what partnerships enable you to do that, while also establishing high standards for artistic process and technique?

Thank you.
Samantha Melvin