Art Curriculum Considerations
Chisago Lakes Schools Art Curriculum Consultation 4/3/17
First of all...
I am hopeful that this electronic resource will serve to document some of the the great things happening in arts education both at the state and national level. Edits on this online document can be made at any time which makes for efficient sharing of ideas and resources. If you know of a resource that would be great for other arts educators to see, simply let me know and I will add it. Please note that any red headings/buttons are actually links to additional online content that is referenced. Simply click the blue links to go directly to that content. Additionally, I have placed many embedded links within some of the text of this document. You will notice these as they are underlined and in blue text. You can click on these items to go directly to supplemental resources on the covered topics. It is my hope that this entire document could serve as a form of professional development for you.
I look forward to connecting with many of you soon! If you have questions please don't hesitate to contact me!
Jeremy
Items for Discussion (from 2/16/17) Email inquiry
ITEMS TO RUN BY JEREMY for our April meeting
1. We would be willing to send some lessons, does he want rubrics? Lesson explanation? We would like his input on a lesson we are teaching and then the grading followed by the rubric. (unless that is not his thing and he is not interested)
Yes please send me your documents ahead of time. Perhaps you could make copies of them, place them in one Google folder and sent to me? Not sure how many teachers you have, but otherwise make sure if they send them individually, that they give me what they hope me to focus on... notice... or what they want the most feedback based on. I will do my best to review them as deeply as possible. I can come ready to discuss them at our meeting. Curriculum and assessment is a major component of my work and there are all kinds of models. I am working with Lakeville Schools to create a deep, rigorous, and transferable model for elementary art. I can share some of that process with teachers and it would be scalable to middle and high school.
2. How to write essential questions
Yes... more than willing to help with that and our national standards have already done some overarching essential questions to start this process (I was one of the authors and final editors for the National Core Arts Standards). We worked with Jay McTighe (the UbD guru) and his wife Daisy (my job equivalent in Maryland for years) on developing this work. You can find the full version of the standards here. Just look for the enduring understandings and correlating essential questions as a place to start our essential question dialogue. These are the enduring understandings and essential questions we developed that are overarching across grade levels. So think of them as the big ideas to be continually addressed irregardless of grade level, course, etc. From there we can work backwards to make them more grade or course specific.
3. How many standards should a 9 week HS & MS teacher be expected to teach in 1 class. Same question, but for elementary, only seeing the kids a total of 20 days per grade/year.
This is a somewhat difficult answer. The guidance here is complex. Ideally, all standards would be embedded in the course, but the arts credit is meant to be a year long program of study. There are no state "Carnegie Units" or seat time requirements that equate to a student being in a class means they are progressing towards mastery of standards. There are several considerations in the works if we can get the funding of the next state arts standards completed. Latest word is that the governor's budget did not include arts standard revisions again. So there awaits what will happen with that. Irregardless, when they do happen, I think we will see a grade-by-grade set of standards (not grade banded by k-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12... expect something similar to national standards for high school ie. proficient (intro level), accomplished (took a foundational course/prerequisite), advanced (independent study/AP/high rigor). All of the potential considerations I think will benefit the arts, arts education, and art teachers. We can talk more about that for sure.
4. What we need to show in our auditing? How we prove what we do and or to look at our eclipse info and see what he thinks?
If there is a way to share this with me please do. Maybe your IT can get me a guest login? I am not here to "police" but rather to help systems get stronger... so I have no personal interest in "auditing" the district. But I am often asked how can we improve.... how do we build a better system of arts education... and I have lots of resources I can share with the teachers. So the focus is on generative growth of systems not policing them.
5. Art being taught in other areas than art and music. How does this work? Can we get his take on what we are teaching in business, and IT and how it all fits?
This one is complicated, but when following the law (which is made up of both statutes and associated rule making) it actually is more clear than it appears on the surface. We can definitely have a conversation on this. Ultimately, whoever is charged with endorsing a class as the arts credit for graduation should hear this content. I have done this over the phone with a shared presentation as well. If there is a common misunderstanding from school districts, it is that they start with the statute and stop there. They have to look at the rules to know how to apply the statute. That is why there is a great deal of non-compliance in this area. We can definitely address this. IF THIS IS A CRITICAL ISSUE IN THAT YOU ARE MAKING DECISIONS ON NEXT YEARS PROGRAMMING, WE MIGHT WANT A PHONE CALL BEFORE OUR MEETING IN APRIL. I KNOW MANY DISTRICTS ARE DOING THEIR PROGRAM OF STUDIES FOR STUDENTS TO ENROLL IN CLASSES ALREADY. THAT WORK MIGHT ALREADY BE DONE IN YOUR DISTRICT AND IT THEN BECOMES AN ISSUE OF HOW TO FIX THE SYSTEM FOR THE FOLLOWING YEAR.
6. What is the expected outcomes of such vague standards. They are free to do as we wish, but so vague it sometimes makes us wonder if we are meeting them the way they were intended.
State law at the time required the standards to be "uniform across arts areas" which drove the detail and specifics of the standards down. It then forced the standards to look similar across art forms (visual art, media arts, music, dance, and theater)... which made standards more uniform, but less specific... basically more general. This is problematic at giving districts the district specific enough standards to guide instruction without forcing a curriculum. In MN there is a high degree of local control at the district level to determine curriculum. Simultaneously there was a shift away from focusing on "knowing and understanding" content... knowledge-based recollection and more of a focus on knowledge transfer and application. I think if you look at the national standards, you will see higher levels of specification, but it will again be short of dictating a curriculum. When we move to math and science, it comes much closer to dictating curriculum. I think that is the ultimate issue... provide enough guidance so teachers know what is required, but provide enough room for them to be innovative, creative, and not force them to teach in any particular format or pedagogy. I think the Lakeville model, along with one from Orono, Duluth, Rochester, and Burnsville can help you with this. I think you will find it helpful... and it meets both state and national standards.
7. Where are we at with MN standards?
They were supposed to be done last year. That was put on hold and then they were supposed to be started this current academic year. Then in the legislative sessions last spring, the legislature determined that since MN did not have health and physical education standards, that MDE needed to prioritize the development of those standards. The legislature provided an appropriation to fund that work because MN has not previously had these standards. That pushed back the arts another year AND all other academic standards areas. So in short, all standards revisions got pushed back one additional year because of the legislative decision to adopt the national SHAPE (phy ed/health) standards. Latest word I had a week ago was that MDE was not sure how they were going to fund the arts standards revisions because the governor's proposal did not include funding for it. So... they hope for change in the legislative sessions, or if that doesn't work, MDE will have to consider cuts within the agency to figure out how to fund it. I am hoping it will not get back burnered one more year, but I am not holding my breath on it. :-) I might have more information by April when we meet.
Jeremy Holien - State Visual & Media Arts Education Specialist
Email: jeremy.holien@pcae.k12.mn.us
Website: http://perpich.mn.gov/
Location: 6125 Olson Memorial Highway, Golden Valley, MN, United States
Phone: 763-279-4185
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JeremyHolienArts/
Twitter: @JeremyHolien