lesson 6

I have reviewed my resources and how they relate to my topic, which deals with motivation in the arts curriculum, with which I will be involving my middle school students. A lot of my research deals with this type of motivation. Within the research I have collected facts about the positive motivation that takes place within an arts curriculum and how it affects the students and teachers.

Motivation is the key to my research and with reading about this I discovered that there are two types of motivation. They are: intrinsic (something that is enjoyed and the individual is motivated to do the task at hand) or extrinsic (the individual needs an incentive to want to be motivated). After identifying these two types and looking at documentation I learned that not all motivation is self -motivation. Some motivation comes from the teachers and them being able to know their students and be passionate about the subject they are teaching. This helps with making the students motivated and eager to learn the material as well. Teachers can have a large impact on students if the students feel comfortable in the environment as well. The students are more likely not to worry about self-esteem issues and they are able to express themselves in their work and enjoy working on the assignments; they tend to retain more of the information. Within all the studies creativity, self-esteem, and self-expression were key elements in the area of motivating students in the arts and what often makes the art environment different from the student’s core classes. In an era where standardized tests seem to be taking over the classrooms, enrollment within the arts curriculum has proven to be an important avenue for students in the raising of their test scores. On the down side, there is also the opinion that the arts are seen as the “fun” classes and that classes that focus on strictly obtaining the highest FCAT scores should be the priority. As art teachers we know that the arts have an impact on the whole student and that some of the information they are learning will be able to be carried over to their core classes. Students in art classes can improve their skills in creative thinking, higher order questioning, as well as mental, physical, and social opportunities to be creative in the classroom. In some studies, this has been shown, but not enough research has been done for full verification. This is important research to continue so that teachers, parents and students can have more support in advocating for the inclusion of the arts curriculum and in showing the community how art positively affects the student’s motivation in ANY subject matter.

The two articles that I also included, from this class (so far), are those discussing the National Arts Education Association and Evans-Palmers’ The Potency of Humor. Palmers talked about the importance of reducing the stress in the classroom for teachers and suggested that humor will help you relieve this stress. Humor helps with keeping students engaged in the class, not just in the class but also on what is being taught. Being able to communicate with your students is important and can keep the students motivated and wanting to come back for more. The NAEA article talks about getting the community involved, being an advocate for the arts, and the focus on learning and being an effective educator. This all will hopefully be achieved with the final product. My goal is that with surveying and interviewing my students and looking at all the data that is collected, it will show that the students are motivated by taking classes with an arts curriculum and this by sharing this information it will then be a basis for others to join me in supporting these programs.

Beveridge, T. (2010). No Child Left Behind and Fine Arts classes (111th ed., p. 4-7). Longview, WA: Arts Education Policy Review.

Crossman, A. (2010). Equipping Students to Succeed In and Beyond the Classroom. Reston, VA: NASSP Leading Schools. Retrieved November 1, 2011, from http://www.nassp.org/tabid/3788/default.aspx?topic=Equipping_Students_to_Succeed_In_and_Beyond_the_Classroom

Evens-Palmer, T. (2010). The potency of humor . and Instructional Self-Efficacy on Art Teacher Stress , 52(1), 69-83.

Gazzaniga, PH.D., M. (2008). Learning, Arts, and the Brain; The Dana Consortium Report on Arts and Cognition (pp. 71-129). N.p.: Dana Press.

Glass, Ph.D, D. (2008). The Contours of Inclusion: Frameworks and Tools for Evaluating Arts in Educaiton (pp. 1-44). N.p.: VSA Arts. Retrieved November 1, 2011, from www.vsarts.org

Garvis, S. (2009). Improve the teaching of the arts: Pre-service teacher self -efficacy towards art education. US-China Education Review, 6(12), 23-28.

Heilig, J., Cole, H., & Aguliar, A. (2010). From Dewey to No Child Left Behind: The Evolution and Devolution of Public Arts Education (111th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 136-145). Austin, TX: Arts Education Policy Review.

Isreal, D. (2009). Stay in School. Arts Education and New York City High School Graduation Rates, 2-26. Retrieved November 1, 2009, from www.caenyc.org/Staying-in-School/Arts-and-Graduation-Report

Jones, B. (2009). Motivating Students to Engage in Learning: The MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation (Vols. 21 - 2, pp. 272-285). N.p.: International Journal of Teaching and Learning.

Loveless, T. (2009). How Well Are American Students Learning? (Vols. 11 - 4, pp. 3-32). Huston, TX: The Brown Foundation, Inc.

NAEA Research Commission. (2009). Creating a visual arts education research agenda for the 21st century: Encouraging individual and collaborative research. National Art Education Association.

Rabkin, N. (2002). Connections between Education in the Arts and Student Achievement (3rd ed., Vol. 13, pp. 1-8). Seattle, WA: GIA Reader.

Ruppert, S. "Critical Evidence." How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement (2006): 01-20. Arts Education Partnership. National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. .

Russonello, B., & Stewart, . (2005). To Educate the Whole Child, Integrate the Arts (pp. 1-96). N.p.: The Ford Foundation and Douglas Gould & Company.

Zakaras, L., & Lowell, J. (2008). Cultivating Demand for the Arts, Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State arts Policy (pp. xiii-150). N.p.: Research In The Arts.

Lesson 2

I would like my research project to focus on the methods that the professional world incorporates the arts. More specifically, I would like to see the relationship between the amount of art involvement that a company or career uses and their attitude toward art education within the schools. It is my hypothesis that more positive attitudes and desired emphasis on the arts would be supported by those that have encountered community art resources within their career. In addition, it would be beneficial for art students to develop a better grasp on the wide variety of art opportunities within their community, especially those careers often not in the spotlight. The community is a major focus for the future of art education; a better understanding of the community’s view of art is needed for measuring improvements and identifying new focal points for the next strategic plan.

Lesson 3:

My research is about how test scores are improved with students that are enrolled in the arts. The research is varied and there are definitely two sides which are prevalent – those in favor of the arts curriculum and the positive effect on students academically and those who feel that the arts are “frivolous” and take away from the “real academics.” This step of the research is not easy in any case, because even though I want to prove my personal case that what I teach impacts students in more ways than just self-expression and being the “fun” class, the class has meaning and we have a significant impact on the student than what some might say (or wish to recognize). With researching all the parts of this idea I find myself placing things in categories like: no child left behind, right brain and left brain studies in the arts, motivation with students, achievement of students who are in an art curriculum, etc. With most of these that I have listed, they support the arts and show how it improves the students as a whole and that there is definitely a positive effect on test scores as well as in the motivating of the students. Once I break down the categories that provide the best support of my subject, it should be less complicated in arranging these studies into a cohesive and presentable statement and supporting material.

Rabkin, N. (2002). Connections between education in the arts and student achievement . Perspectives on Relevant Research , 13(3), 38-44. doi: Supporting a Creative America

Israel , D. (2009). Stay in school. Arts Education and New York City High School Graduation Rates , 01-26. Retrieved from www.caenyc.org/Staying-in-School/Arts-and-Graduation-Report

Dana. (2008). Learning, arts, and the brain. The Dana Consortium Report of Arts and Cognition, 01-129. Retrieved from www.dana.org

Beveridge, T., & , (2010). No child left behind and fine arts classes . Lower Columbia College, Longview, Washington, USA, 111, 4-7.

Lesson 4:

My research will focus on how the arts affect the students entire academic profile with respect to looking at grades, attendance, motivation and the classes they are taking in middle school. I will be surveying the students and parents, interviewing students and other elective teachers in the arts at my school and looking at this information to come up with my research. In reading different journals, viewing web sites about the arts and other research projects, I find that these authors are all doing about the same thing in the collection of their data. The two items I’m presenting in this are doing just that.

I think that doing my research in this manner will really get the student’s voice as well into the research and can help show administrators, parents, teachers, and maybe even district or state wide authorities that students are seeing an impact in other classes and it is not just the elective teachers that are supporting their subjects and showing student motivation in school. With having my research interviewing students, parents, and teachers and even though it’s a small study, isolating it to one school (the school I’m teaching at),which is a Middle School and only dealing with these students, it will at least show my administration and other teachers and parents that our classes are not just fun or “dumping ground classes.” It will show that we, those teachers within the art curriculum, have an impact on students and our subjects strengthen skills and help motivate the students to come to school, want to keep grades up, help with self-esteem, reading, writing, and so much more.

Sandra , R. (2006). Critical Evidence . How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement, 01-20. Retrieved from www.aep-arts.org

Oldfather, P. (1992). When students do not feel motivated for literacy learning . How a Responsive Classroom Culture Helps, 1-18.

Welcome to ARE 6746 Blog

Hello, ARE 6746 students.

We moved the blog outside of Sakai based on your feedback. Remember that the main information about your blog post assignments (you can read it here) still apply. The purpose of this post is to highlight some features about this new blog.

1. Make sure you are signed in to the blog using the email address that you gave to Leslie. She manually added each of you as authors to the blog. When you go to http://are6746.blogspot.com, click "Sign in" in the top right hand corner. If your email address appears in the top right hand corner, you are already signed in.
2. To create a new post, choose "New Post" in the top right hand corner. Give your blog the proper title according to the assignment paper that I linked to above.
3. Write your post.
4. Embed images and video when necessary: Click on the image icon in the toolbar above
   

which will generate a window that looks like this
If the image you would like to add is on your computer, choose "browse" and find the image on your computer. Then choose "Open." If the image you would like to add is on the web, copy and paste the web address into the box beside "URL." Then choose the orange box at the bottom of the screen that says "upload image."

Your image will appear in your blog post. Often the image will be inserted at the very top of the post. You can move the image wherever you want by clicking and dragging or by cutting the image and pasting it into a new location.

In order to upload a video from your computer to your post, you chose the video icon (just to the right of the image icon), which will generate the following window:


Click "browse" and find the video on your computer. Type in the video title and check the box to the left of "I agree to the Upload Terms and Conditions." When you click "Upload Video," your video will be inserted into your post.

If you'd like to embed a video that is online at a site such as youtube, you can follow the directions here. An embedded video will look like this:




5. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! When you are finished with the text and images in your post, you must add 2 labels to your post. One label must be your first name (see the labels listed at the bottom of this post to see the label I've created for your name). The other label should be the assignment (e.g., Research Reflection Week 2, Research Reflection Week 3, etc.). If you are posting but it is not in response to a specific assignment, just label it with your name. This will allow for easy sorting both by person and by assignment.

You can see where the labels go on the right side underneath the editor. When you have added your labels, click "Publish Post" (big orange button on left under editor).

I hope this helps us get off to a good start.