Artful Teaching

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• The Brain Dance by Anne Green Gilbert
• Utah Teaching Artist Roster
• Building an Arts-Rich School
• Performances & Exhibitions
• First Steps in Teaching Creative Dance to Children by Mary Joyce
• Dance Integration—36 Dance Lesson Plans for Science and Mathematics by Kaufmann & Dehline
• Jana Shumway Dance Lesson Plan - Utah Animals
• Creative Dance Integration Movement Resource
• Tricks for Using Picture Books for Dance
• Water Dance by Thomas Locker (Bookshop.org)
• Art Should Be a Habit, Not a Luxury by Arthur C. Brooks

Who is Mr. Dance? Meet Provo City School District’s Arts Coach, Chris Roberts

Heather Francis and Tina McCulloch have been working with Mr. Dance for over 10 years. Chris gave Heather her first teaching job out of college at Rees Elementary. Chris taught Tina the Brain Dance, which created a big change in her third-grade students.

Now retired, Chris was the Beverley Taylor Sorenson (BTS) arts integration coach for Provo City School District for over 20 years. He worked to facilitate the BTS grant through collaborating with principals and supporting BTS arts educators. As the Provo City School District arts coordinator, Chris supported arts-integrated classroom activities and professional development for Pre-K–12th-grade drama, music, visual art, and dance teachers.

Mr. Dance Supports the Arts in Schools by Teaching Students in Classrooms and Teachers in Professional Development

Beginning with no job description, Chris made a flier of skills and activities he could offer to teachers as a district arts coach. He went to all 13 elementary schools, and hand-delivered a flier in every teacher’s box. He “had a few bites.” Those few initial interactions rapidly snowballed: now, Chris is a high-demand educator, packing as much Pre-K-6th grade dance integration as he can into his limited 30-hour workweek.

• Learn and share information
• Highlight BTS educators across the district to promote the arts
• Support educators in creating and publicizing school arts nights, performances, and exhibitions.

For example, Chris recently assisted in planning a district-wide dance concert involving all the students in all Provo’s secondary schools and two elementary schools. Ballroom, creative, and modern dance were included. It was an incredible experience for the elementary students—“just amazing that they got to go to Provo High School and dance in front of a full house of families and friends.” This was a magnetic performance bursting with positive energy that was felt by each participant and audience member. Tina recounts, “Chris planted in the hearts of these little elementary students that this is a lifestyle. This is a way I can carry the arts throughout my life, and the positive energy feeds on the arts and makes a positive cycle for artful living.”

“Chris is amazing. He has a way of working with students and teachers to help them become more aware of their bodies and minds. And to integrate core content into his kinesthetic dance activities. He didn't come from a dance background originally, which makes his story even cooler. And I think it's helpful because he knows how to approach students who also don't come from a dance background.”

Mr. Dance Wasn’t a Dancer: Dance Integration is for Everyone

Chris was the carpool dad for his daughter, who joined BYU’s Children’s Creative Dance Program beginning at age 3. Chris’ wife supported his hobby of teaching by working in the business world. Instead of sitting in the car, Chris observed his daughter’s dance class and corrected papers. He listened and watched Miriam Bowen teach the class for three years and witnessed his daughter develop creativity, communication, and problem-solving skills. Finally, it clicked: “Well, that's exactly what I want for my students.”

Chris wrote a grant. Doris Trujillo, who is a teaching artist, visited his school for 10 days. As a parting gift, Doris gave Chris First Steps in Teaching Creative Dance to Children by Mary Joyce. The following week, Chris went to class holding that book—with ZERO experience teaching dance. He explains: “I read what Mary Joyce wrote in the book to tell the students. I read it, and they did it. Then I read the next thing, and then they did it, and then I read the next thing, and they did it. It was amazing!” Chris’ positive momentum kept on dancing: he attended dance integration workshops sponsored by the State; traveled to Seattle to learn from Anne Green Gilbert’s two-week dance workshop; began teaching dance workshops to teachers. The “powerful women” who taught Chris to dance have been a momentous source for growth and influence for his development from a carpool-dad-turned-novice-dancer to ‘Mr. Dance.’

What Happens When Teachers “Let the ego go.”

Chris’s advice to teachers out there: “Do not be afraid of being the fool. You have to let your ego go. It's so important to bring dance to these kids.” Letting the ego go helps create an atmosphere of “Yes! I can do this!” for every student, no matter their dance experience or level of self-confidence, even the reluctant students who cling to the classroom walls. Chris’s lived experience learning to integrate dance—his journey of transforming from a ‘regular’ classroom teacher to ‘Mr. Dance’—models this very “Yes, I can. I can do it!” attitude.

Additionally, listeners, the way Chris held his posture as he described the way he used Mary Joyce’s book—holding his hand out in front of him as if reading aloud from a book—was full of energy and purpose. For the teachers who believe, “I am not a dancer. I am not comfortable in my body or expressing things using my body,” Chris’s example as a teacher who began as a complete novice serves as a totally attainable inroad toward dance for teachers who are uncomfortable with this art form. Dance is for everyone. Unexpected joy can happen when teachers set aside their ego and move their bodies. Chris relates an example of the unique experiences teachers have when they first dance with their students—a second-grade teacher wrote him a lengthy message explaining the feelings and emotions she embodied when she danced. She “felt freer than she's ever felt in a long, long time.”

Collaboration Tips for Arts Educators and Classroom Teachers

BTS educators in Provo District reach out to every teacher and ask: “What's the best way that I can communicate with you? How often? And how can I best serve you?” This way, classroom teachers decide what fits their teaching needs best: face-to-face meeting, email communications, or collaboration during Friday PLC time. The point is that arts educators honor the needs of the classroom teacher, and vice-versa.

Research shows the most effective learning happens in co-teaching environments between classroom and BTS teachers. Chris encourages principals—especially those with first-year BTS arts educators—to create this specific type of collaboration: put the classroom teacher together with the arts educator, to co-teach.

Typically, BTS educators initiate conversations with classroom teachers. For those educators not in a BTS school, teachers can reach out to a visual art planning time technician—or other arts educator— and say, “Hey, I'm studying the water cycle in a couple of weeks. Is there anything you can do to help me with that?”

The research is clear: the more arts are integrated into the classroom—regardless of the art form—student retention and engagement are much higher. For example, let’s say a school has a visual arts BTS educator, and a non-visual arts/generalist teacher needs support with integration. That generalist teacher can reach out to that BTS educator and collaborate on what is happening in each others’ classrooms to support learning in both classrooms.

“Mr. Roberts has been working with my class since 2016. Eight years now, wow. He is amazing. He finds books about all different subjects, such as science, literacy, or social skills. He is so creative in designing ways for the students to dance to the books and learn something at the same time, from how plants grow to the rain coming down, rhyme scheme, and being kind, he finds ways to incorporate movement into these lessons.”

How to Plan Dance-Integrated Lesson Plans

Find a Children’s Book

Chris spends lots of time reading children’s books because they offer a rich starting place for integrating science, math, social studies, and language arts. Chris describes his process: “As I read a children's book, I may exclaim, “Wow, this says all kin

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Rocky Mountain Arts and STEM Think Tank

Supporting Teachers with STEM and Arts Integration in the Classroom

**Listeners, take note: this is not a STEAM podcast series, but a series of episodes focused on STEM and the arts.

Today’s host Heather Francis, with co-host Tina McCulloch, introduces a series on STEM and the Arts. This podcast is important because teachers need practical, applicable examples of what STEM plus the arts or the arts plus STEM look like in the classroom. The experts and teachers in this and future episodes offer insight and experience to our listeners.
Dr. Heather Leary is today’s guest and is a professor in the Instructional Psychology and Technology department at Brigham Young University. This episode explores the distinctions of STEM and the arts, and discusses Dr. Leary’s collaborative STEM and arts project.

Tina is an elementary school teacher with 13 years of experience who integrates the arts into her classroom because the arts create connection, are part of her teaching persona, and help students “recognize the interconnectedness of our learning.”

Dr. Leary has a bachelor's degree in fine arts and began her career as a photographer. Over time, her STEM-focused personal and professional lives overlapped (doing research, working with classroom teachers, and doing professional development). STEM offers a powerful, systemic way to consider content, think about critical thinking and problem solving: STEM is a holistic and simultaneously fun, creative, and engaging approach to learning.

Definition of STEM + Arts — Reaching for Transdisciplinarity

Integrating STEM with the arts helps teachers move towards transdisciplinarity, or emphasizing the natural connections and overlap from arts into science, arts into math, and arts into technology.

Arts + STEM ←→ STEM + Arts

The relationship between STEM and the arts is symbiotic: the relationship goes both ways. Classroom teachers can integrate the arts into STEM-based content, and arts teachers can include science, math, engineering and technology into their lessons. Arts educators do just as much as STEM in art classrooms, and not in a superficial way, but in a powerful way—these connections show up in very deep, problem-solving ways, compelling teachers and students to think critically. The arts aren’t limited to just visual arts, but include all the art forms—theatre, music, dance, visual—and choosing an appropriate artform can support students as they work through problems.

As a dance math teacher, Heather Francis describes an example of a classroom application for using dance as a way to teach mathematical patterning to build the skill of mathematical visualization.

In practical terms, students’ math problem might be: given the length of a flagpole’s shadow, calculate the length of a flagpole. Students likely have difficulty understanding that a flagpole has a shadow. Teachers can choose the artforms of visual art and/or dance: students can draw a flagpole and include its shadow, and/or perform shadow dances. This practice of artform-based patterning translates into larger applications, when students have their own interesting problem due to their experience with an art process informing their mathematical learning and the math informing their creative expression.

Supporting Utah Elementary Teachers’ Implementation of SEEd

The SEEd standards are the new science standards for Utah elementary schools. The greatest influence in the classroom is the teacher, so effective professional development for teachers really spreads to the students. Dr. Leary describes how her research-practice collaboration with Provo teachers is influenced by the district’s emphasis on STEM education.

STEM + the arts are mutually inclusive. Together with Dr. Leary, the arts and classroom teachers are exploring and defining what SEEd-focused teaching looks like using STEM and the arts. They have identified the following needs

1. Teachers need to understand the SEEd standards.
2. Teachers need collaboration to create arts adaptations to SEEd-focused lesson plans.
3. Teachers need continued support as they work to implement the STEM and arts lesson plans.

Teachers ask questions like these:

• How can I integrate this using _____art form?
• What are the standards I am responsible for?
• When do the SEEd standards overlap with the arts standards?

In order to build capacity for teachers and develop students’ skills and knowledge, Dr. Leary and the classroom and arts teachers collaborate to design and implement lesson plans, and collect data from these classrooms. This research-practice partnership is unique because it brings together teachers from different schools and different grade levels. Tina McCulloch works with Dr. Leary both as a classroom teacher and as a graduate student project manager, experiencing the project from both lenses.

Their project is a design-based research project. In design-based research, the practitioner and the researcher work together. The practitioner’s experience changes over time, and is used as a foundational place for theory development, resource creation, future research questions, and necessary shifts for application and practice. Considering the needs of classroom teachers is essential for a participant like Tina, who participates in this research as a practitioner (teacher) and researcher.

Lessons Learned from the STEM + Arts Research Practice Partnership

This research collaboration began in 2019, with Dr. Leary initiating conversations with three classroom teachers and one art teacher. These simple but powerful conversations, which offered these educators time and space to think deeply about the intersection of STEM and art, and what they could do, created an impetus for more collaboration.

Teacher & Arts Educator Collaboration is Key to Create Meaningful STEM + Arts Student Learning Experiences

Dr. Leary describes how teachers are really hungry to learn how they can do more transdisciplinary work. Teachers want to be able to teach in a very authentic, real-world, holistic way: when students walk out into their communities, they hear things, see things, and interact with things, and can start to form a larger, comprehensive perspective and picture of the world: “The world isn't just math, or just science, or just engineering, or just art or just technology, right? All of the disciplines are necessary for something to happen.”

This STEM + arts research work is designed to help teachers create that learning environment, that curiosity, that transdisciplinary approach to seeking information. STEM + the arts is a way to do that; it’s an iterative way to teach: learning by doing, making mistakes, creating a growth mindset with curious thinking and skills development.

Cross Grade-Level Communication About Arts and Science Matters

Elementary SEEd standards are designed so that third grade aligns with fifth grade; fourth grade aligns with sixth grade. Teachers from these aligned grades talk to each other with these questions in mind:

• As a sixth-grade teacher, what do fourth graders learn that I can expect to build on?
• What should students know by fifth grade?
• As a fifth-grade teacher, how can I support your work with third-grade students?

Cross grade-level communication is essential for building teacher collaboration and laying a foundation for efficient teaching and supporting student success in their inquiries.

District support also means that teachers who have never talked with their arts coach, or art educator, or the science educators, are now having productive and meaningful conversations and input about long-term planning and overall learning goals.

The Arts Help Create Meaning in Inquiry-Based Learning

A teacher in Provo District has a master's degree in STEM. At first, her approach to the new SEEd standards looked like this: “I know all about how to do the engineering process and how to have this phenomenon in my classroom.” Soon, she realized, “they [my students] need something more.” As a member of the STEM + arts research partnership, she understood that the ‘something more’ was the arts, but she had no idea how to implement the shift toward the arts. As she continued learning about arts integration, and because of the arts skills she learned because of her involvement with the partnership, she said, ““Now I can do a little bit more.”

When Tina came into her classroom, she said, “Look what my kids did!”

They had done some watercolor painting of clouds. She said, “Because you were willing to show me what wet-on-wet looks like, and how to put some dry brush in there, and then how to sponge some parts off, we have this wall where the kids can talk about their cloud formations and they refer to it all the time.”

The best part? The students want more. They are asking when the class will be doing the next arts-integrated activity. Because of this small success, this teacher has an intrinsically-motivated drive to learn more and invest more fully in deep learning through STEM + arts.

Together, Teachers Create Grassroots Momentum for Artful Learning

More on this idea of reciprocal symbiosis: Teachers are creating momentum by gaining new dispositions and realizing opportunities to access the full capacity of their school’s arts educator through artful conversations, opening the door to an arts-integrated curriculum: when classroom teachers get support from the art educator in their school, they work together to build a strong foundation of positive momentum for both other teachers and the art educat

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• Elementary Lenses of Integration & Visual Arts
• SEEd Science Standards One-page Summary
• Elementary Lenses of Integration Music
• Elementary Lenses of Integration Drama
• Elementary Lenses of Integration Dance
• Elementary Lenses of Integration ALL FINE ARTS
• Draw the Name of Your Favorite Animal Lesson Plan

Bob Smith, Alpine School District Elementary Arts Coach

The last episode featured Mr. Dance, Provo City School District’s Arts Coach. This time, we highlight the Alpine School District. Bob Smith works with all the district’s arts educators in all 62 elementary schools. Arts coaches support these teachers in their development and growth and coach classroom teachers who are new to the arts. Coaches like Bob help teachers understand meaningful ways that they can connect to their students through the arts.

From Teacher & After-School Drama Director to District Arts Instructional Coach

Like Mr. Dance, Bob stumbled into the arts. His teammate said, “Hey, the principal signed me up for this weird program. It's got a lot of art stuff, I don't really understand it. Would you take it for me?” Bob came to the BYU ARTS Partnership Arts Academy and “found [his] people.”

“We were drawing, we were dancing and singing and playing drums, and connecting to a really awesome curriculum. At the same time, we were diving into books, looking deeply into science, exploring different social studies topics, all in day one at the Arts Academy, and I was hooked.”

Bob finished the Arts Integration Endorsement and continues his work with the BYU ARTS Partnership.

The arts enlivened Bob as a teacher and after-school musical theater program director. He has always used the arts in his teaching: turning on music for writing, drawing every day—discovering a whole group of people who were teaching in an arts-integrated way, helped him become a better teacher and then a coach.

Artful Tip for Classroom Teachers: Draw Everyday With Your Kids

Only half of Alpine schools are privileged to have the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Progra, grant. In order to increase access to the arts, Bob creates simple resources that teachers can easily see, connect with, understand and apply to transform their classroom.

Bob creates lesson plans, sends them through the arts teachers, and sends an invitation to classroom teachers to co-teach with Bob in their classrooms. For example, recently he sent out a lesson called “Draw the name of your favorite animal” with an invitation: “If you would like me to come and demonstrate this for you in your classroom, send me an email.” Since then, and after visiting five or six schools, similar projects in other classrooms are popping up. Other teachers are emailing, “We decided to take it on.” “We decided to give it a try.” Find the lesson plan here.

Arts Integration is the Learning

Bob describes the magic that happens in these art rooms and these dance and music and drama rooms. Someone who is trained in art forms—like dance, music, drama, and visual arts—can make magic almost effortlessly. The Arts Integration Endorsement offers teachers just enough to know it's important to know that it can be magic, but when they get back to the classroom by themselves, it feels… “Oh, what did they say?” “What did they do?” “What was that exactly? I don't know that I'm super skilled yet.”

Making bite-size chunks means that integrating the arts feels easy to use: draw every day! Turn on a video tutorial—teachers don’t have to be an artist or the teaching artist for this skill—students can work on developing hand-eye coordination, creating visual connections to a topic, and from there teachers can move right into writing. Instead of only drawing on Fun Friday, begin each week with a meaningful drawing project centered on a learning topic for the week, and add details to it every day. Then, when the class gets to Friday, students can write a paper about the week’s topic. Because they will have drawn out connections already, students will have so much more to write about.

Bringing Creativity, Problem Solving, and Collaboration into STEM Through Arts

STEM means that teachers demonstrate the inherent overlap between multiple content areas: students really understand the application of math, they can visualize effects of science on evolving societies, they can comprehend a cause and effect visually and environmentally. By adding the arts to those content areas, connections light up.

Teachers can give students an arts tool and a topic to discuss or explore or create. For example: when studying measurement, teachers can help students incorporate math through musical rhythms or visual patterns; incorporate science as students define words and sing vocabulary. The arts enliven STEM. STEM subjects are inherently creative: adding the arts creates added value to understanding STEM.

Building arts skills helps students think about questions like, “How can I represent this idea?” “How can I show my thinking?” “What tools can I use to communicate my ideas to others?” These are 21st century skills: successful adults are able to represent their ideas and communicate them with others.

One-Page List of SEEd and Arts Standards to Facilitate Arts Integration

Bob shares an important example about his experience coordinating with his science team about the new SEEd standards in Utah: “Many of the arts integrators who are doing amazing arts integrated projects were curious about the alignment. ‘Can I still do landforms with fourth grade?’ So I asked our science educator, “Break these down for me.” And she started breaking them down. I still kept thinking, Oh, this is like 100 pages of standards. So I kept working, breaking it down until I just had a one page summary of each grade’s science curriculum. I put the science standards side-by-side with that grade’s arts standards, so now teachers can see a clear summary of the big objectives of the SEEd and arts standards alignment.”

Bob offers a single takeaway for teachers regarding SEEd standards: choose a specific phenomenon and use the arts to explore it. For example, look at animals that change color and ask a question.

• “What's the science behind it?”
• “What meaning is there behind it?”
• “How can we capture that and represent different aspects of that in the art form?”

Once students find their passion, curiosity, and excitement and after they have “embraced it in their body through movement or through drama, through visual art, or singing about this interesting thing,” teachers can add in the teaching elements.

Collaboration between Arts Educators and Classroom Teachers is Key for Arts Integration in STEM

Bob explains, “Share those big rocks and those big essential standards that you are trying to really hit home in your classroom with your arts educator. The job of your arts teacher is to build skills in your students. In your collaboration with them, the arts teacher will make visible what your students are capable of in that art form. Then you are going to see some natural connections.”

He continues, “It's so amazing to see principals giving time to the arts educators to collaborate with the classroom teachers. If you're a classroom teacher who wants the support of an arts teacher, or an arts teacher who wants to connect more deeply in the classroom, make a plan together. Talk to your principal and say, “Can we set up a regular time to meet so I can check in regularly to see how my kids are evolving in this art form in the art room.” When the arts educator and classroom teacher have that opportunity for side-by-side time, they can really make it purposeful with these big rocks—the essential standards—to really make connections and nail inquiry-based learning for the students.

Bob shares an example of what this arts collaboration looks like using the SEEd phenomena of rocks. For example, a classroom teacher wants to use watercolor for different types of rock like sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. This teacher thinks, “Watercolor would be a great way to explore a type of rock. But I don't have time to teach them how to watercolor. That will take extra time.” The arts educator can (or already has) built those skills in the visual arts classroom, then the classroom teacher can get right to the integration part because those art skills are already the foundation for the exploration.
A Story of How the Arts in the Classroom Allow Teachers to Truly See a Student's Point of View

The arts are fun, plain and simple. For example, put a box of scarves in the middle of the classroom: colorful, beautiful scarves. Teachers can say, “Kids! Explore these for just a minute.” Students

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie
• Visual Thinking Strategies
• Critique as a part of Visual Thinking Strategies

Don’t forget to peruse the bank of lesson plans produced by the BYU ARTS Partnership in dance, drama, music, visual arts, media arts, and more. Search by grade level, art form, or subject area at www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons.

How to Integrate STEM + the Arts

Heather Francis and Tina McCulloch discuss a specific arts strategy that Tina uses to help her students substantively inquire about different scientific phenomena.

As a classroom teacher, Tina was experiencing rapid changes in classroom education: new theoretical models, new curricular materials, new state standards; she noticed herself and others losing their teaching identity. Arts integration proved a lifesaving practice. Her goal for this podcast series is to create a comfortable environment for teachers to move forward in STEM and inquiry-based learning through the arts.

How to Teach to the New Utah SEEd Standards

In 2015, Utah adopted new SEEd standards for the K-12 classroom. The rollout for materials distribution and testing has been slow: state standards testing for fourth and fifth grades didn’t occur until 2021.

Previously, teaching STEM was based on a more formulaic model: teach facts, present worksheets, answer multiple-choice questions. The teacher presented content and found out what the students’ misconceptions were, then planned another lesson to correct learning or memorize new facts.

Now, students lead the investigation: they ask questions, create their own models, and the teacher facilitates class discussions. Students and teachers are both uncomfortable; the teachers’ instinct is often to jump in and try to rescue the struggling student, but the value of inquiry-based learning rests in the process of student exploration, struggle, perseverance, discovery, and making connections as a class.

To get started with SEEd concepts, teachers can ask students:

• “What are you curious about?”
• “What questions do you have?”
• “How can we construct knowledge together?”

Teaching SEEd Phenomena: A Real-Life, Local Example

Tina shares an example of her experience teaching to the new standards using the principle of presenting a phenomena. She explains:

“I showed them this flash flood coming down. People could hear it and they could hear the rumble. They knew that it had rained and you could hear the people talking in the background. Then the flash flood comes through carrying big tree trunks or rocks and just muddy, muddy water. My students didn't understand why that was such an unusual event. They didn't understand what precipitated it and why it was flowing the way that it was flowing; they had never been witness to this type of event. The video wasn’t enough—the students didn’t have enough context and experience to understand the magnitude of what it means to witness a flash flood. Yet, for the people down in San Juan County—and only one of my students who had hiked in that area and seen one—they see flash floods often. So when those flash flood warnings come out of those slot canyons, it's an important thing to make sure you know. So that's when I thought, “Oh, I really have got to come local,” and find better phenomena for my students to see by using events they could witness right here in their backyard that would drive their questions.”

Tina brought the phenomena home by incorporating the knowledge that many of her students’ fathers are involved in construction. She drew their attention to the east bench of the Wasatch mountain range by showing a news clip of a new-build home that slid off its foundation and landed in the street. She also shared how a local high school is sliding off its foundation every year that it’s a wet winter—it’s being rebuilt now. Her students realized that that’s the high school they will attend. Linking two local events that directly impacted her students’ lives made the difference for their learning. The questions began: “‘Now, Mrs. McCulloch, we live down here in the valley. We're okay. Right, my house isn't gonna slide if I leave the garden hose on?”

“I said, “No, your house isn't gonna slide.” Then we talked about why their home was safe. As we finished the whole unit, one kid said, “I'm always going to make sure that I never live on a mountainside.”’

Being Uncomfortable: The First Step Toward Rich Conversations

Moving from earth science phenomena—a topic where students can clearly understand the impact—to other types of science proved tricky to maintain a high level of student curiosity. Often, phenomena were just a picture students would observe.

Tina explains: “The last one I had was looking at a patch of grass, a single blade of grass, then grass underneath a microscope. I got very generic, boring answers (green, green and pointy, maybe three inches long). I wanted them to go deeper. They needed to go deeper. But I, as a facilitator, did not know how to do that.”

Students’ uncertainty played a role in their silence—students don’t want to let their peers know that they don’t know, even as teachers work to increase the equity in classrooms, encourage every voice, and validate each comment. Students want to have divergent views, as well as convergent views.

Uncomfortableness is something that we need to become comfortable with. Teachers can learn to facilitate discussion, which becomes a rich opportunity for students to develop a whole bunch of inquiry-based questions: “How do we figure out how this phenomenon works?” Allow students to take their own questions and solve that scientific problem. In each classroom space, teachers can make sure students know that it is acceptable to throw out any idea and access your own schema, or reference the evidence in the picture or video by saying what you see.

Using Arts-Integrated Strategies to Help Students Articulate Rich Observation

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) help take students out of a scripted, right-or-wrong answer framework into a place of imagination and critical thinking. Typically used with works of art, Tina used VTS to create a bridge between observing artwork and studying science phenomena.

To warm students up, Tina used Visual Thinking Strategies with Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, creating a great discussion in the classroom. Topics of discussion included agreeing to disagree, building curiosity and practicing observational skills. Students can use sentence stems, like “I noticed,” or “I think,” and then another person will make a connection with that and say, “Oh, and I see.”

What Are Visual Thinking Strategies?

Philip Yenawine, an art educator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, began bringing in classes of patrons and students to view curated artworks. Together with a cognitive psychologist, Abigail Housen, Philip developed Visual Thinking Strategies. This series of open-ended questions expand students’ interpretation of artwork. Using Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie as an example, the class discussion might look like this (teacher-asked questions are bold; potential student answers are italicized):

“What do you see?”

(Crickets)

“Anybody, what do you see?”

“I see some yellow and red squares.”

“I see some blue and black lines.”

“I see some big blotches of colors.”

“What makes you say that?”
(Students get more descriptive in their answers)

“I think it looks like city streets.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, it looks like all those red and yellow, small squares are at intersections.”

“What more can we find?”

(This passes the question baton to a different student, inviting someone else to share their observations. At the very beginning, this process can be really slow (and uncomfortable). Teachers need to wait for students to answer. As Tina explains, “All of a sudden, once students realized I'm just paraphrasing what they're saying, they're getting more and more accepting of divergence.”)

“I wonder…”

(This bridges the gap between VTS in art and VTS in science phenomena.This question helps ready students to take the next step once they are facing a science phenomena question. Visual art is a comfortable place to start using VTS and practicing classroom dialogues; once science phenomena are introduced, teachers can use the same questions to guide students toward self-directed inquiry and investigation.)

Practical Classroom Tips for Effectively Using Visual Thinking Strategies

Students move from ‘reading’ a work of art toward ‘reading’ a phenomena. Here’s what that looks like in Tina’s classroom: When observing water condensation, students really couldn't see what it was. Tina asked “What do you see?” and always followed up with “What makes you say that?” with the same student who offered an observation. This helps students think deeply about the why, create a “because” statement, and generate text evidence for their observational claim. After observations are made, teachers use reflective listening to paraphrase student statements—this helps the rest of the class understand what others observed, if they couldn't hear them that well, and it validates students’ observations.

Visual Thinking Strategies

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

• The Arts Educate the Whole Child

An Unusual Route to Becoming a Visual Arts Educator

“Being in the arts endorsement course saved my life.”

Marie Mattinson, visual arts educator at Edgemont Elementary School, is this week’s guest. Marie graduated with a bachelor's in psychology. She worked as a PE teacher and loved working as an aide for an autistic student. She completed the requirements for a teaching license while teaching part time (including special ed math, third-grade, and after-school programs). After teaching third-grade full-time for 12 years, Marie hit burnout because of testing and expectations. Colleagues

Lisa Gardner and Diane Ames convinced her to enroll in the BYU ARTS Partnership’s Arts Integration Endorsement program. “Being in the arts endorsement course saved my life, really. I was happy again. I was happy to be with the kids and as I was happier, and we were creating things together in all art forms the kids were happy, and it created a cycle of everybody being better and happier.”

After being hired as a visual art teacher, Marie earned her master's in Art Education. She works to integrate science and math into the visual arts curriculum in all kinds of ways. Marie is a recent recipient of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson’s Legacy Award for Excellence in arts education for elementary visual arts instruction in the state of Utah.

An Arts-Integrative Pedagogy Actively Engages Struggling Students

Marie shares how the arts deeply impacted the learning of her own child:
“My son was struggling with long-term memory, retrieval, processing and comprehension. His comprehension is really low. He has ADHD and I just watched him crumble as a first grader. As a second grader, he struggled to write and stay engaged; he hated school, he cried every day. PJ day was the best day because it was the one day we didn't have to have a tantrum about clothes. We had tantrums about everything else.

When he learned his vowels, he was in Miss Gardner's class. They learned through songs, so he can decode and read so well because of music. Then in third grade, our music teacher taught him multiplication through songs, and he can do multiplication because of songs. His French third-grade teacher used movement and dance, (she was also in the Arts Integration Endorsement class) and he learned French that way, because he's in the French immersion program.

Then, I realized that I needed to be more patient and engage all the kids because if my kid was struggling, I needed to be a better teacher and be more patient. I watched him do so many things that he couldn't control. Instead of, ‘Why won't you just sit and listen?’ ‘Why won't you just do this?’ He can't. Before my lived experience with my son, I didn't realize that kids who struggle with ADHD and other things, they can't. They don't mean to be like that. Yet, the pedagogy that creates confidence in learning, connections, and success are the arts.”

Educate the Whole Child: Teach Social-Emotional Skills

Marie is passionate about educating the whole child. Students need to learn the skill of knowing how to care for other people, be empathetic and good listeners. Marie believes these skills are just as important as any academic curriculum you could ever put in front of them. Many lessons in her third-grade classroom focus on people: “Let’s look at cultures, let’s look at who is in our class. How can we learn more about them? How can we represent their beliefs and their interests in an authentic, empathetic way that celebrates them?”

For example, including this social-emotional learning during math class: students can practice empathy and listening skills, collaboration skills. When students start breaking down or showing frustration because the math concept isn’t landing, teachers can help support that student’s emotions first, then work together on the math concept: “It all matters.”

Using Art to Celebrate Diversity and Create Culturally-Responsive Classrooms: Puzzling Out Students’ Ancestral Countries

Marie’s school is extremely diverse: the French dual-immersion teachers hail from Rwanda, Spain, Austria, Ukraine, Switzerland, Morocco, and two are from France; students are comprised of all different socio-economic backgrounds and neighborhoods, and include a lot of second-language learners, and students from Columbia, Brazil, Uruguay, Congo, and Haiti.

Second graders are given a puzzle piece made from paper. They find out which country their ancestors came from. Students learn about their ancestors, where they came from: students find a picture of a monument or landmark from that country. Marie helps each of her 650 students—some of whom are first-generation immigrants—make a contour line of the monument on their puzzle piece, paint a value-scale, and fit all the puzzle pieces together. A discussion is next: “students talk about how different and diverse we all are, and yet! We all fit together, and we live together. We can share these great things with each other.”

Arts Educator Collaborates with Classroom Teachers

Because Marie was first a classroom teacher before becoming a visual art educator, her collaboration with classroom teachers carries weight: “When I say, ‘I promise, trust me, this is going to work and it's going to engage your kids and you will be happier,’ teachers believe me. I do a lot of the work for them in the beginning. In fact, I dragged them. I've dragged a lot of people along. I'm happy to do it, because it takes a few years. I think one of the fifth-grade teachers, she took over one of the integrated projects that we'd been doing and did it on her own in her classroom. I mean, how great is that? She's doing it herself now.”

Successful STEM Arts-Integration Collaborations: The Importance of Planning Ahead

As the arts educator who chooses projects and curriculum and teaches visual art skills Monday-Thursday, sometimes teachers ask Marie, “Hey, we're learning this in science, do you think you could do that in your classroom? and I'll respond, “I'll see if I can fit it in, or no, we've got to do that on a Friday.” Fridays are for integrated projects—sometimes students spend two hours in the art room making clay ocarinas as part of an integrated project to complement the classroom curriculum.

Co-teaching is an effective way to integrate the arts with STEM: the classroom teacher reminds the students what was talked about in science or math and asks, “Why is that working?” Marie asks questions to relate the science or math topic to a visual art theme, so that the kids find the connections between the art and the science, or the art and the math.

Marie explains the value of co-teaching, planning, and arts integration with STEM: “Why are we doing this? We could make a pretty picture if we wanted to, but that's not our goal. Our goal is to help students understand science. What is art doing to help you understand science or social studies? As other teachers see the artwork go up around the school, they talk and they're like, ‘How do we get in there? How do we get scheduled?’ And I say, ‘Well, we have to sit and plan because if we don't sit and plan, it ends up being me doing a whole bunch of extra artwork.’”

Strengthen Student Learning by Inviting Various Art-Form Educators to Co-Create with Classroom Teachers

Professional development with arts integration strengthens student learning by cultivating arts skills and offering resources to teachers. The BYU ARTS Partnership sends a music educator, a drama educator, a dance educator, or a different visual art educator, to Marie’s school. The school’s teachers decide which units are not as strong or lacking some sort of integration with any art form. We send those ideas to those arts educators and they come with prepared lessons and ideas on how to integrate those. The arts educators work with each and talk them through the lesson and help create the unit’s lessons. The educators practice the lessons so that the classroom teachers feel more confident. Ideas start flowing from the teachers: “Oh, maybe I could do this!” “This gives me a little bit of a start.” The best part about this process is that the classroom teachers didn't have to come up with it all on their own, since classroom teachers are always short on time. The synergy among the classroom teachers, whole grade-level teams, and the arts educators creates a beautiful synergy of ideas and a product that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Amy Rosenvall is the district science educator who is part of this research. Amy says, “Well, the science piece actually means this. So how can we really make it authentic science and art?” So integration isn’t, “Here's this art project that represents the science, but the art is actually doing the science.”

Research Shows 100% Engagement in Science + Arts Lessons

For Marie’s master degree, she created a capstone study focusing on the ecosystems unit from the sixth-grade curriculum. She integrated every art form into that entire unit. Marie explains: “The data showed 100% engagement, every single time, whenever we integrated with an art form. This is a class that had 70% low economic status, seven IEPs out of 18 students, three students with autism. I think maybe three were gifted, which has their own needs to be challenged. So very, it was a really challenging class with 100% engagement. One particular student struggled with depression—his head was down on the desk all the time. Yet, he danced with Mr. Roberts, he painted with

Dovie Thomason at the Arts Express Summer Conference 2022

Today, we have a treat for you—-a sneak peek of what you’ll get at Arts Express Summer Conference from one of our fabulous presenters, Dovie Thomason, a Native American storyteller and author. After we tell you a bit more about Dovie and her experiences, we will share a recording of one of the stories she performed and recorded for the Utah Division of Arts and Museums in 2020, titled “Frog’s Teeth.”

The Story Behind the Story “Frog’s Teeth”

This story comes from a series titled “Stories Grandma Told Me.” This is not a story Dovie heard from her grandma. It was a story given to her when she was the mother of a child beginning to lose their teeth. The person who gave Dovie this story received it from her father’s traditions as part of the Oneida First Nation in Ontario, Canada.

We thank Jean Tokuda Irwin and our partners at the Utah Division of Arts and Museums for granting permission to use this recording and for introducing us to Dovie and sponsoring her at Arts Express this summer as a keynote speaker and presenter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGD_KkI4Ibg

Dovie Thomason Biography

Coming from the rich oral tradition of her Lakota and Plains Apache family, Dovie Thomason has had a lifetime of listening and telling the traditional Native stories that are the cultural “heartsong” of community values and memory. Both wise and mischievous, Dovie unfolds the layers of her indigenous worldview and teachings with respect, sly humor and rich vocal transformations.

When she adds personal stories and untold histories, the result is a contemporary narrative of Indigenous North America told with elegance, wit, and passion. Her programs are a heartfelt sharing of Native stories she has had the privilege of hearing from Elders of many nations and are woven with why we need stories, how stories are a cultural guide in shaping values and making responsible choices, how stories build communities and celebrates our relationship with the Earth and all living beings.

The oral tradition she gifts to listeners inspires delight in spoken language arts, encourages reading, supports literacy, can be used in classrooms to motivate better writing as students experience storytelling techniques, literary devices and effective communication. All of this takes place while they are exploring their own narratives and family values. Dovie has represented the U.S. as the featured storyteller throughout the world.

In 2015, she was honored as the storyteller-writer in residence at the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Dovie has used her storytelling to advise the UCLA Film School on narrative in modern film, NASA on indigenous views of technology, the Smithsonian Associates’ Scholars Program and the premier TEDx Leadership Conference. Her role as a traditional cultural artist and educator has been honored by the National Storytelling Network’s ORACLE: Circle of Excellence Award and the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers’ Traditional Storyteller Award.

Links Mentioned:

• Register for Arts Express
• Dovie Thomason’s Website
• More stories by Dovie on the Utah Division of Arts and Museums YouTube Channel
  • “Turtle Learns to Fly”
  • “Dog’s Tails”
  • “Bear Child”

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Don't forget to peruse the bank of lesson plans produced by the BYU ARTS Partnership Arts in dance, drama, music, visual arts, media arts. Search by grade-level, art form or subject area at www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons.

Coming soon

Amplify Native Voices in the Classroom is an asynchronous and interactive online course developed by the BYU ARTS Partnership. The course includes approximately 14 hours of instruction, two projects, and several discussion board activities. Teachers can earn 1 USBE credit for successful completion of the course. The course is open to all educators from Pre-K to High School.

By the end of the NACI PD course teachers will be able to

• Honor and analyze their own culture and Native American cultures by creating a [artistic artifact] that explores culture and identity;
• Empathize with Native American Tribes in Utah by reflecting and synthesizing what they learned while exploring interactive timelines that represent the past and present context of each socially and politically distinct tribe
• Select accurate and authentic resources by practicing strategies for identifying culturally responsible resources
• Articulate their own principles/framework for culturally responsive teaching that elucidates the connections they have made between their own culture, their student’s cultures, their teaching practice, and the NACI model through a written reflection, artistic work, or video presentation.

Each course will be moderated by a facilitator from the BYU ARTS Partnership Leadership Team. You are given one year to complete the course.

The course is available for teachers publically beginning June 7th, 2022. You can register for the course on MIDAS for USBE or relicensure credit or email [email protected] for more details.

Turtle Island Art Collective

Heather Francis and Brenda Beyal speak with two artists from the Turtle Island Art Collective, Crystal Begay and Alan Groves. Crystal is an artist who specializes in Plains Indian-style moccasins. Alan is a teacher and artist who works with quilt work and beadwork. The Turtle Island Art Collective’s mission is to empower Indigenous artists, showcase Indigenous artists, and inspire Indigenous youth.

How Did the Turtle Island Art Collective Come to Be?

In a suburban or urban area, it can be difficult for native children to learn about their traditional culture and develop an identity as an Indigenous person. Art is a non-threatening way that they can learn about their traditions and cultures.

There are two parts to the Collective’s Mission Statement: One is to provide a space for Indigenous, specifically Native-American, artists in the digital realm. The second is to try to empower native kids and connect them with artists who have similar stories.

“It is hard growing up in an urban area where you are removed from your cultural heritage,” Crystal said. “Children do not see it every day. They don’t learn it in school. They’re not learning the language in school. Through the creation, sharing and learning about Native American art, they are better able to live their cultural heritage. The Turtle Island Art Collective is a vehicle for this exposure and empowerment.”

How Art Helps to Connect to Our Culture

Alan describes how difficult it can be to grow up where there are not many other Indigenous people. He was drawn to art. His first love was graffiti art. “It had meaning. They were saying something,” he said.

As he began having his own children, he and his wife talked about what they want for their children and they came to the conclusion that art is the way they could help them connect to their people and to their culture. “That’s my draw to Native American art. There is a story behind the colors you use and the patterns you use and the images you use. There is a definite story there.”

Offerings and Reciprocity

How does reciprocity occur between Native American artists or between artists and those who enjoy and learn from their art? Is it possible to exchange artistically in a way that is mutually beneficial to both parties? Can artists truly reciprocate by responding to a positive action with another positive action?

There is a lot of effort, love, and pain that goes into the creation of Native American art. Supporting artists can be a way to reciprocate – supporting financially and, in return, obtaining a piece of culture and art. But, a question comes to mind, “What is appropriate to pay Native American artists?”

Alan acknowledged that some create art and are desirous and able to make a living from it and that the decision to do so is up to each individual artist. Because of the time and care that goes into creating these works, Alan generally chooses to gift his art, after he gets to know somebody, at least to some extent. “And that’s been one of the blessings of actually doing it through digital means is that people can message me from around the country and share their story with me,” he said. The reciprocity comes from the learning about each other and creating from those stories.

Trading can also be a meaningful and rewarding way to experience reciprocity. One artist may trade work for the work of another artist. One artist may trade natural goods to be used in art for the works of another artist. Lives and stories are shared.

When Alan first started creating two years ago, somebody traded him a box of porcupine quills that were already dyed. “A big giant box had thousands and thousands of quills in it. But they're all mixed up. There's thirteen colors, and they're all mixed up. And so I'm sitting there at my table sorting quills. And my daughter just sits down next to me. She's in high school. She just sat down next to me and she's like, ‘Do you need some help?’ And I'm like, ‘Sure.’”

He recalled that his daughter sorted the whole box, taking her the entire summer, “We would just sit down and I would start making stuff and she would start sorting stuff. And then when we got done, we had all these bags full of quills. And then we got done and I said, ‘Okay, what do you want?’ And she said, ‘I want one of these medallions you've been making.’ Well, that was two years ago and so I finished it yesterday and I gave it to her today and she was so excited. But the idea is this idea of offerings, that when somebody does something for you, that you can't do for yourself, then you provide them with an offering. And it can be big and it can be small.”

Native-Inspired vs The Inspired Native

It has been a widely accepted idea to be inspired by Native art. We have seen beaded garments at Walmart, geometric designs inspired by Native symbols on pottery and homes, mass-produced dream-catchers, figurines, and t-shirts with pan-tribal representation of Native culture. But, times have shifted. Crystal said, “I think it’s important for Native artists to have a voice.” Now, we are inspired ourselves. We don’t just need representation in media or consumer products, we need space to represent ourselves the way we want to be represented.

There was a time when the United States tried to take the Native American culture away through legislation during the period of allotment and assimilation. This period of Native American relations in the United States was a huge failure. Following this failure came the period of self-determination beginning in the 1970s. At this time, representation of any Native American idea, person, or tradition—authentic or not—in American life may have been applauded.

But again, times have been changing, according to Alan. Now, we are realizing it is important to not just represent the culture, but to represent it in accurate and authentic ways—the way native individuals and distinct tribal groups would like to be represented. “It’s not enough to be a mascot of a team,” he said. Alan said he wants to share what it means to be him through his art. “The story I’m telling is my story now,” he said.

Communal Success

Even those of us who are non-Native can feel connected to and inspired by Native art. Communal success comes when artists and those who support the artists are working together so that the art benefits all of our lives, whether we are Native artists or not.

According to Alan, this success comes when you find your right way to give to your community. This goes beyond purchasing a t-shirt with a Native American print on it: “You’re just taking the art without taking the lessons to go with it,” he said. When teaching art to students, the teaching is more about just the art: it is about the stories and lessons that live with the art. It is about the interaction that comes with the process of creating art. Communal success can occur when artists are engaging in positive ways with Native communities.

Supporting the Turtle Island Art Collective can also help create this communal success. As native and non-native children get more exposure to Native art, this success and connection will carry over to them and their stories.

Resources

• Turtle Island Art Collective Website https://turtleislandartcollective.square.site/
• Turtle Island Art Collective Instagram https://www.instagram.com/turtle_island_art_collective/?hl=en
• Turtle Island Art Collective Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TurtleIslandArtCollective/
• Alan Groves Instagram @al_groves https://www.instagram.com/al_groves/
• Crystal BegayeInstagram @creativenativeboutique https://www.instagram.com/creativenativeboutique/

Follow Us:

• Native American Curriculum Initiative Mailing List
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• AdvancingArtsLeadership.com
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Don’t forget to peruse the bank of lesson plans produced by the BYU ARTS Partnership in dance, drama, music, visual arts, media arts, and more. Search by grade-level, art form or subject area at www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons.

Dance Tells a Story

Story is a theme in the lesson plans that have been developed about the hoop dance. The hoop dance is a way of storytelling. As students learn about the dance, they will be learning about stories and that words are not the only means to telling stories. Each Hoop Dance comes from a different background, different history and, often, a different family.

According to Jamie, one story that has been told through the dance is about an eaglet that is born and then the eaglet is discovering the world. In the dance, students will see the nest and that the eaglet is discovering its wings and then discovering nature. It illustrates, through movement and shapes, how the eagle grows and develops to adulthood. Each hoop that is added illustrates the eagle growing.

Kelina describes how many Hoop Dances show ways to take care of the earth and our gratitude for nature and the earth. The shapes that hoop dancers make represent flowers, animals, and the spiritual aspects of the earth. Dancers pay tribute to the spirits of the beautiful world. In Kelina’s experiences with her family members and hoop dancing, they always finish with two worlds – one that we live in now and one that is the spiritual world.

The hoop dance is a healing dance for those who are dancing and for those who are watching. Even though it has changed over time, the healing aspect of the dance remains constant. Each story is unique – they are passed down from generation to generation. There is a connection to history, to lineage.

BYU ARTS Partnership’s Collaboration on Hoop Dance Lesson Plans – Learning about Native Culture

Kelina described the great conversations that have come about as lessons have been planned surrounding the hoop dance. These conversations help educators know how to teach hoop. One of Kelina’s favorite things is the way to talk about the circle, the hoop in general, the sacredness of it and how kids can see the visuals with hoop. Hoop is using the body to tell stories. Kids can create with different shapes through learning about the dance and being exposed to the history of the dance.

Emily tells about how, over the course of a year, one lesson plan has been published and others are in development. Possibly the most important question that has come out of this process is about the appropriateness for children to learn to hoop dance.

The hoop dance has been performed by many tribal nations across North America. It is a sacred dance and it is meant to be shared by different native cultures. Generally, Native Americans should be the only ones to participate in hoop dance.

If My Students Can’t Learn Hoop Dance, What Am I Going to Teach Them?

Because it is not appropriate for non-Native Americans to participate in the actual hoop dance because of its sacredness, educators might wonder what they can do to teach about the dance.

The dance does not have to be a participatory experience in order for the students to learn. Being an observer is a great learning experience. Within the approved lesson plans, learners participate in the interactive lessons.

As educators, we know the importance of kinesthetic and play learning. The four Hoop Dance lesson plans span four artforms and encourage movement, shape, thinking, storytelling, and dance.

Resources

Native American Lesson Plans - www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons

Native American Curriculum Initiative Blog Posts - https://byuartspartnershipblog.org/category/native-american/

BYU Living Legends - https://pam.byu.edu/ensembles/living-legends/

Living Legends Hoop Dance Film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQBJcWGHJro

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Native American Curriculum Initiative Mailing List

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AdvancingArtsLeadership.com

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Don’t forget to peruse the bank of lesson plans produced by the BYU ARTS Partnership in dance, drama, music, visual arts, media arts, and more. Search by grade-level, art form or subject area at www.education.byu.edu/arts/lessons.