Standard 3. Knowledge of Content and Integrated Curriculum.

Educators should know, understand, and use the central concepts and tools of inquiry
appropriate to the subject matter and age/grade levels they teach. They should be able to
create meaningful learning experiences that develop children’s understanding of subject
matter and increase their skills. Educators should plan integrated units of curriculum,
instruction, and assessment based upon their knowledge of subject matter, curriculum goals,
and developmentally appropriate practices among the families, communities, and cultures
from which their children come.

As teachers we need to be aware of the content our students will be learning, or else

teaching becomes extremely difficult. If we, as teacher do not have a grasp on the curriculum

how can we actually teach our students. as an educator I think integrated curriculum is so

important because it can be really eye opening to students to see how their subjects connect.

As an elementary education and performing arts major my future goal is to be able to

incorporate performing arts into the classroom across my curriculum. This semester I was

fortunate enough to take an independent study with Marianne where I was able to explore why

incorporating arts is so important.

In one of my first education classes we looked at Howard Gardner’s Multiple

Intelligences. Gardner first introduced the idea of multiple intelligences in his book Frames of

Mind first published in 1983. But as of a recent publication in 2011, there is a total of eight

multiple intelligences. The eight intelligences are Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial,

Musical, Naturalist, and Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. Each of the eight

multiple Intelligences were created to express the many methods we as individuals learn. As

human beings we collect information and solve problems in our own unique way and the

Multiple Intelligences give names for how we do that. Through his research Gardner noted that

many schools only focus on teaching through two intelligences, Linguistic and Logical

Mathematics, and well those are important teachers should be open to teaching through ways
that connect to their students who relates to another intelligence. (Gardener p.6) Adding the

arts into the common core would enhance how teachers incorporate more of the Multiple

Intelligences into the classroom. For example, a teacher could do a reading unit with students

and have art centered lessons. The art lessons could be either visual and performing and they

would allow students to explore and develop more of the multiple intelligences. Adding the arts

would not only explore the Spatial, Musical, and Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligences but also the

Interpersonal Intelligence because many art-based lessons require the students to work

together.

Another philosopher I learned about that also expresses the important of arts in

education is Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky discovered the Theory of Creativity. In an article written by

Gunilla Lindqvist she explains Vygotsky’s feelings towards art and his theory. Lindqvist write,

“Vygotsky maintained that art has an important role in education, not as morality, but as an

introduction of aesthetic reactions into life itself. (p. 246)” What Vygotsky means is that

including arts in education not only helps students in school but also helps them with life

outside of the classroom. Lindqvist writes, “According to Vygotsky, one of the most important

aspects of art—the absurdities, nonsense, inversions— are very close to children’s play. This

explains why art is such an important ingredient in children’s life. (p. 248) It is easy to

understand how these aspects are easily related to children’s play because when you watch a

child play or listen to them learn the sometimes have the most absurd responses, but it makes

sense to them and it allows them to explore their learning in their own ways. Another

important aspect of art of Vygotsky that also relate to children is imagination. “Vygotsky

claimed that all human beings, even small children, are creative and that creativity is the
foundation for art as well as for science and technology.” (Lindqvist p. 249) This creative ability

Vygotsky considered to be imagination. His belief is an interesting one but as someone who

believes in integrating the arts into the common core it makes sense. I believe what Vygotsky is

trying to say is that we should allow students to explore their imagination in other areas

besides art forms because it allows them to be creative in other ways that are just not art.

As educators we always strive for our students to achieve higher order thinking skills.

Higher order thinking skills is a concept of education reform based on learning taxonomies. the

idea behind these taxonomies is that that some types of learning require more cognitive

processing than others. The most famous taxonomy that many teachers use is called Bloom’s

Taxonomy. Benjamin Bloom, in 1956, published a framework for categorizing educational

goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. The original taxonomy included the following

categories: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. All of

these categories were accompanied by a list of verbs that showed different ways how students

could demonstrate skills related to the category. Then in 2001 a group decided to give the

taxonomy a revision. They renamed the categories: remember, understand. apply. Analyze,

evaluate, and create. Included in the revisions was now an updated list of verbs. The addition of

the category of create open the idea of the connection the arts have to high order thinking

skills. However, any teacher who has incorporated arts into the classroom before knowing how

even before the category “create” was added, that students use the other categories while

participating in the art form. Through imagination, self-expression and self-knowledge students

are exposed to higher order thinking. For example, if a class was to do a lesson that was based

off of Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert, they become the expert on that topic. Thus,
causing them to use all other areas of higher order thinking. For example, they have to be able

to comprehend the information they are becoming expert for as well as remember how to

apply it, so they are able explain it to the class. (Landley)

Artifact 1: Integrating the Common Core Reference Guide

This reference guide was the culminating part of my independent study. I created this

reference guide as I continue my career as a teacher as a way to reflect on the strategies I have

learned thus far. Instead of assigning strategies to one or more concentration, I decided to

make connections between a strategy and the major areas of concentration (English/Language

Arts, Mathematics, Science and History). I hope that this guide will not only serve as a resource

for me but as well as any other teachers than are looking at ways to incorporate arts into the

classroom. The reference guide connects to this standard because it shows ways to incorporate

arts into the curriculum. What’s nice about these strategies is that they can be used across the

board and it gives teachers the leeway to use them at any point in the curriculum.

Artifact 2: Movement and Drama for Children Final Mini Unit

Movement and drama for children was the first class I took that exposed me to how to

incorporate arts into curriculum. In this mini unit my plan is to help students better understand

the book Bridge to Terabithia buy Katherine Paterson. This book is for ages nine and older. I

think it is a great book for children but there is a lot that happens that might be difficult for

them to understand. But I believe using the movement and drama activities will help them with

the understandings.

Artifacts 3 and 4: Final lesson from MLE 303 and then the same lessons integrating the arts
 This artifact(s) I actually find really interesting but its technically the same unit on

Hurricanes, but Artifact 3 is the original from MLE 303 and Artifact 4 is the unit with art

integration. I decided to include both forms of the unit because I feel like together they embody

what this standard is all about. This standard is all about curriculum and content knowledge and

how to incorporate everything all together. This unit does this, it is a unit across all for main

areas of content (English, mathematics, history, and science) all about hurricanes with then the

added element of performing art strategies. Overall, I am very happy with this unit and how it

connects to this standard.

In my future classroom I want to be able implement arts into the common core. I

strongly believe that implementing the arts will grow my student’s knowledge. I want my

students to be able to explore their learning in different ways and this includes using their

minds, bodies and imagination. Through the addition of arts in my classroom not only will my

students hopefully have a better understanding of the curriculum, but they will gain a better

sense of self-worth.

References:

Gardner, H., Davis, K., Christodoulou, J., & Seider, S. (n.d.). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Landley, L. (2017). “Arts Integration Professional Development: The Higher Order Thinking
(HOT) Schools approach”. Retrieved May 10, 2018.

Lindqvist, Gunilla (2003) 'Vygotsky's Theory of Creativity', Creativity Research Journal, 15: 2, 245
— 251