Professional Development - Art Integration into School Curriculum

If your district does not have a dedicated art teacher then listen up.

This personalized training is focused on helping classroom teachers incorporate visual art into their STEM subjects.

Howard Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences states:

“Students learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of students - and perhaps the society as a whole - would be better served if disciplines could be presented in a numbers of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means."

Art Costa’s research on the habits of mind

Habits of Mind is knowing how to behave intelligently when you DON'T know the answer. It means having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, the answers to which are not immediately known: dichotomies, dilemmas, enigmas and uncertainties.

Our focus is on performance under challenging conditions that demand strategic reasoning, insightfulness, perseverance, creativity, and craftsmanship.

Research shows that success in the 21st century is centered around creativity. Public education has focused on the left side of the brain (responsible for logic, such as in science and mathematics( and ignoring the right side (that has do with creativity and the arts). Northeastern University Graduate Program stresses the importance of creativity in business:

The Importance of Creativity in Business

Organizations today operate in a highly competitive, global environment, making creativity crucial. Creativity is what fuels big ideas, challenges employees’ way of thinking, and opens the door to new business opportunities. “Creativity” and “innovation” are often used interchangeably for that reason, but are two separate concepts.

“Innovation isn’t just one thing,” Marion says. “There are a lot of competencies that go into realizing an innovation. Creativity is different because creativity is a mechanism to being innovative. You can have great ideas, but not be innovative.”

Creativity in business is a crucial first step that needs to be prioritized by senior leadership. A survey by IBM of more than 1,500 chief executive officers shows consensus: Creativity was ranked as the number one factor for future business success—above management discipline, integrity, and even vision.

This is a training program that will provide classroom teachers with lesson plans, examples, and hands-on art projects that will connect with their curriculum.  This would allow students to have an art experience that will enrich their connection to the content.  It would also offer teachers the tools and confidence to provide a rich and creative art lesson that, by its nature, is differentiated.

This presentation would be tailored to your staff’s individual needs.

·         Three to five grade appropriate art projects will be presented

·         Art projects will be engaging but simple enough for a non-artist to teach

·         Curriculum connections will be evident

·         Background information on the art-ism and/or artist will be covered

·         Teachers will actually produce one or more of the projects, which will provide a level of comfort/experience when they present the lesson to their students.

·         Teachers receive a digital packet containing everything they need for and about the lessons

If you are interested in learning more how your students will score higher on required grade-level standardized testing, please contact me:

Donna Jean Engstrom: dj@donnajeanart.com, (810)923-5499