The+Arts+in+Learning

[|Contributing to the Human Spirit: Arts Education and the Creative Economy] "In a review of 2005 college-bound seniors, research showed that high school students who took arts classes had higher math and verbal SAT scores than students who take no arts classes. Specifically, those students who took four years of arts classes out-performed their peers by 58 points on the verbal portion of the SAT and 38 points on the math portion of the SAT." - Michael M. Kaiser, President, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The creative sector, whose economic function is to create new ideas or creative content, employs 38 million Americans, or 30 percent of all employed people. Source: Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, 2002.

[|Americans for the Arts] research found that young people who participate in the arts are:
 * four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement,
 * four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair,
 * three times more likely to be elected to a class office within their school,
 * three times more likely to win an award for school attendance, and
 * four times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem.

03-07-08 Education Week [|Insights Gained Into Arts and Smarts] Training in the arts increases thinking skills.

[|ARTSEDGE]: **The Kennedy Center "The National Arts and Education Network — supports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects.**

ARTSEDGE offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment."

ARTSEDGE offers: [|Teaching Materials] [|Resources for Arts Education Advocacy] [|Media-rich, Student-friendly Activities]

A Series of Articles from ArtsEdge: Teaching for Understanding in the Visual and Performing Arts
 * [|The Importance of Understanding] "One of the greatest benefits of the visual and performing arts is their capacity to expand students' understanding of themselves, their world, and their ways of constructing personal meaning while engaging in the process of self-expression. In fact, it is virtually impossible for any of us to remain in a passive, "knowledge-recall" state of being when we are authentically engaged in creating visual products or participating in meaningful performance-based artistic activities."
 * [|Creating Desired Results for Understanding]
 * [|Assessing for Understanding]
 * [|Designing Teaching and Learning Activities]

[| Southeast Center for Education in the Arts] "Discipline-based arts education is a comprehensive approach to instruction and learning in the arts, developed primarily for grades K-12, but also formulated for use in adult education, lifelong learning, and cultural institutions. It is designed to provide exposure to, experience with, and acquisition of content from four foundational disciplines of knowledge – production, criticism, history, and aesthetics. Creative inquiry in these disciplines contributes to the creation, understanding, and appreciation of art, artists, artistic processes, and the roles and functions of the arts in cultures and societies."


 * [|Discipline-based Arts Education]
 * [|General Characteristics of Discipline-based Arts Education]

[|Arts Education Partnership]

[|New Initiative Responds to Public Demand for Imaginative and Innovative Learning in Schools] "Prompted by new data that show 80% of Americans feel that jobs today require learning a different set of skills in school, a broad coalition convened by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP) has joined with national, state, and local organizations on an agenda to restore imagination and innovation as key outcomes of learning." (01-11-08)

[|Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement] (2006) This report "describes in nontechnical terms what the research says about how study of the arts contributes to academic achievement and student success. It offers impartial, to-the-point reporting of the multiple benefits associated with students’ learning experiences in the arts. In short, it “makes the case for the arts” based on sound educational research." Important results include: • Schools integrating the arts into the curriculum as part of a comprehensive education reform strategy are documenting positive changes in the school environment and improved student performance. • The American public, by an overwhelming margin, believes the arts are vital to a well-rounded education; more than half rate the importance of arts education a “ten” on a scale of one to ten.

[|Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning] This report provides quantitative and qualitative data analysis of the impact of the arts in learning. A summary of several research studies found that "learning in the arts can not only impact how young people learn to think, but also how they feel and behave."

[|NEW POLL REVEALS STIFLING IMAGINATION IN SCHOOLS UNDERLIES INNOVATION AND SKILLS DEFICIT] Almost nine in ten voters (89%) say that using the imagination is important to innovation and one’s success in a global knowledge-based economy and essential to success in the 21st Century. • 69% of American voters believe that, when compared to other nations, America devotes less attention to developing the imagination and innovation. • 88% of respondents indicated that an education in and through the arts is essential to cultivating the imagination. • 63% of voters strongly believe that building capacities of the imagination that lead to innovation is just as important as the “so called” basics for all students in the classroom and that an education in and through the arts helps to substantiate imaginative learning (91%) and should be considered a part of the basics.