But, It’s Just Art

By Renee Belville, Art Teacher & Julie Dellert, Art Teacher

“But, it’s just art.” The statement that we, as artists, hear too often yet laugh when we do hear it. But...it’s NOT just art. There is so much more to it than just a “pretty picture." Art is relevant to everyone as it helps us academically, mentally and socially. So when does art become part of our lives? 

PART ONE- The Early Years 

When we were toddlers running around and playing, we actually were learning about art without even knowing it. Child development involves just that. As we were getting messy with crafts and figuring out how to cut with scissors, we were actually working on our fine motor skills. Hand-eye coordination was being focused on as well, because one needs to have the skills to accomplish tasks such as learning how to write. In Pre-School, children have fun while being educated. Weren’t identifying shapes, colors and objects one of the very first things we were taught as youngsters? Building blocks, Play-Doh, matching and puzzles are a few developmental activities that help lead children into the next stage of their life...school. 

Art is important in K-12, because of cognitive development, creative thinking, and integrating core subjects as such as math, language arts, history, etc. It can help children improve with decision making, critical thinking skills, school involvement and higher grades. A study called Reinvesting in Arts Education states, “Art Education can be a valuable education reform tool and classroom integration of creative opportunities could be key to motivate students and improve standardized test scores.” 

With cognitive development, art can help children solve problems, figure out patterns and learn critical thinking. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” comes to mind, because children learn how to plan by visual storytelling. This helps academically, starting with language arts, by using descriptive words with artwork. For example, the third- and fifth- graders at Pennsylvania Distance Learning Charter School draw a picture of a story with a written explanation. In class, language arts is involved in many ways like introducing vocabulary, reading aloud, writing reflections, critiquing artwork and completing literacy strategies, like the Venn diagram and exit slips. 

Another vital subject included in Art is math. For example, the seventh-graders complete a perspective lesson where they learn to use a ruler and discover the different types of lines (vertical, diagonal, parallel, etc.) They also study the element, value, which helps make two-dimensional work look three-dimensional. The seventh-graders utilize math terms such as a sphere, cylinder, rectangular prism, etc. With both elementary and middle school classes, we discuss symmetry, pattern and proportion. One popular math-related lesson is the process of creating a tessellation and the history of the mathematical art whiz, MC Escher! 

History is another significant subject that is tied into the art curriculum. Students study art history by exploring geographical regions and the work of cultural artists. From storytelling using a buffalo hide to designs like a mandala and mola, students grasp a better understanding of cultural history. 

Even though core subjects are important in art, so is self-expression. This can help students express themselves in a creative manner. This can be called  “escaping” as art can help cope with stress and obstacles in life. It improves one’s health and well-being which overall can help a child succeed as an individual. And with success comes growth. 

And with that, children transition into the next stage of their life...high school! 

PART TWO- High School and Beyond

In high school and college, students enroll in art courses such as Intro to Drawing and Painting, Art History 101, and Introduction to Photography or Ceramics. They add these courses in as filler, with the mindset that it’ll be a (scoff) blowoff class. But, what students don’t realize is that, like we have seen earlier, much of what you learn in art transfers into many different core subjects, like math, language arts, history and science.

In the Introduction to Art and Studio Art courses offered at Pennsylvania Distance Learning Charter School, students learn how to draw images using the gridding technique. This method breaks their image down into small squares that can be graphed. Once gridded, the picture can be resized and redrawn to create a more accurate drawing.  The grid technique uses calculated measuring and graphing skills.  These same skills are used in math, except instead of graphing lines and parabolas, the students are graphing eyes and hands.


In Introduction to Art, students learn about different art in the real world.  They discover nature art, or art that is created using nature as a medium, and art that is formed naturally in our world. The students learn about chemical reactions, how Fibonacci's sequence affects the growth of plants, the famous art installation The Spiral Jetty, and the beauty of our own natural world.  Mathematics, history, and science are intertwined throughout the entire learning process.

Art is such a vital part of K-12 learning because it is so interlaced with the core subjects. But what about after graduation? People always joke that those with an art degree never achieve much more than a job at McDonald's or Starbucks, but they do make the best latte art!  The truth is, art is more than just a narrow path that leads straight to the french fryer. 

Take architecture for example.  Blueprints are calculated and measured precisely.  Historical and demographic information about the surrounding neighborhood are researched to design the most historically accurate building.  Architects couldn’t create a beautiful and desireable building without some knowledge of art.  By utilizing their artistic expertise, they can assess what building style is more eye catching, emphasize a part of a room using colors, shapes and objects, and even know how much wainscoting is just too much.

What about something in the medical field?  Let’s say a plastic surgeon.  Although a doctor studies many years in medical school, a plastic surgeon also needs to accurately know the anatomy of the human body.  Discovering where the eye sockets connect to the bridge of the nose, or how your phalanges are situated onto your hand is also taught in most college level anatomy art classes.

Video game design and technology careers are one of the fastest growing job markets today.  Because of the high demand for easy-to-use, immediate-response technology, there’s always an opportunity to grow.  Video game designers must have technology skills such as coding and creating algorithms. Without a background in art, their games have very little purpose to them.  Using art to create the characters, colors, and overall atmosphere sets the tone of the game, and is what makes it popular.  Take Minecraft for example.  One of the reasons the game is so widely popular is because of its bright, simple colors and its aim at advertising to the generation that craves nostalgia.

Below is a small list of the many careers that utilize art.  As you can see, art isn’t limited to just learning about the colors of the rainbow and who painted the Mona Lisa (It’s Leonardo Da Vinci, if you’re wondering).   It is utilized throughout our lives from childhood into adulthood.  By incorporating art into our students’ lives, we can offer them a more well-rounded education.  One that will help them not only in their future endeavors, but with every aspect of their lives.

Sources:
http://www.theartcareerproject.com/art-as-a-career/ 
http://educationcloset.com/steam/what-is-steam/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131022170624.htm
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the-importance-of-art-in-child-development/
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19576763
http://www.pcah.gov/sites/default/files/photos/PCAH_Reinvesting_4web.pdf

How Do You Teach Music in a Cyber Setting?

By Elisa Carpenter, K-8 Music Education Teacher

When I have a colleague, family member or friend ask me what I am currently doing with music, I tell them I am an online K-8 Music Teacher.  The FIRST thing that is asked 99% of the time is the question, “How do you do that?”  Some other questions that are asked are,

• Do you even see the kids?
• I bet playing instruments is really difficult, right?
• Isn’t the value of music depreciated because it is not in person?
• How do they participate in games?

These are all wonderful questions…..but these are also the most common thoughts that people have about teaching music online.  Teaching music online has recently been limited to specific fields most related to technology and the creation of music. Fields such as Music Technology Performance, Professional Sound Recording, or even Technology Composition, emphasize real-time products and computer-assisted access to the latest digital technology.  This technology assists instrumentalists with the ability to work with notation software, digital performances, sound boards and mixing professional tracks, synthesizers, multi-track digital audio workstations, audio engineering, advertising, radio, music publishing, marketing, MIDI instrumentation, and much more.  To live in an exciting time where technology and music are one in the same, our students in a cyber school setting deserve the very best in an online environment, regardless of the materials to be learned.

All of the above mentioned careers in music technology are important to our rapidly expanding use of technology as a classroom.  The careers above are normally discussed with students once they reach high school.  This is after they have had their general music education and time to experience music in many simpler ways. In a cyber setting, we can foster an interest in music, and technology at the same time, at the Kindergarten level, and the possibilities are endless!

So where do we start? We can’t possibly limit students in a cyber setting to experience music from 9th grade and up only…….and if we limit it to the career paths listed above, we completely leave out Music Therapy, Music Education, and most importantly…..Music Performance!  The students in our cyber setting receive an all-inclusive elementary music education curriculum that allows them to explore music through singing, playing instruments, composing, notating, listening, analyzing and performing individually and in groups. This is the kind of education that traditional brick and mortar schools offer, so why should we be any different?

This brings us to the meat of the article….how?

It truly starts with the elementary students. The youngest of minds can be the most inspiring and imaginative, the most creative and comprehensive.  Zoltan Kodaly, a famous musician and master in music education says the following about children:

"Let us take our children seriously! Everything else follows from this...only the best is good enough for a child." (1941) 

Kodaly had it right from the start – when we invest in our youngest students, our students will invest in

themselves and others as they continue to grow. So our investment is two-sided.  Yes, we as music teachers need to be concerned with the material taught and how they receive the experience in a cyber setting, but also that the material is authentic and exciting!  It is like telling your kids you are going for ice-cream, and you go to the grocery store to get yogurt…..kind of a letdown!

Here is how, as an elementary music teacher, I make my musical experiences for my students engaging, achievable, but also fun!

1. I have general goals for my students as musicians and people too!
2. The curriculum has music that stands the test of time, and is developmentally appropriate.
3. What we do is relevant to the music industry today, fun, and has goals that they can reach!

My utmost priority as a music teacher is to not create the next Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Michael Bublé…..although that would be pretty awesome……it is to have a classroom environment where my students can learn about music, and explore what their musical purpose is in life.  I want to aid in the well-balanced social and artistic development of my students, and to offer the opportunity to become a musically literate adult. I want my students to be able to sing to their children when they go to bed, or sing Happy Birthday to celebrate another year.  Music is about sharing the gift of expressing who we are, and how we are effected by the world around us.  My students don’t have to be the next big thing, just a big thing in their own lives.  I do this by implementing the following rules in my classroom:

1. At all times, we are respectful of the level of musicianship of our friends, and choose to support their learning.
2. We always have some class time to perform for our friends, and practice audience etiquette.
3. We give helpful feedback during a presentation of what we have listened to.
4. When working in small groups, we keep each other accountable – following rules and being polite helps us all learn better!
5. If you or a friend is struggling, offer encouragement, or ask for help!  Learning music in any way is like learning a second language, and that takes time!

I put in place activities, performance opportunities, progress checks and games so that my students can consistently be encouraging and well-minded musicians.

Second……the huge elephant always in the room….is the curriculum.  The two most important aspects of my curriculum are that the music being played stands the test of time, and that it is developmentally appropriate.  I feel as though having these firmly in place allows for some really wonderful and musical things to happen! When the curriculum is built upon how children develop physically, vocally and mentally, their achievement rate will be much higher, and the sense of accomplishing musical tasks will become intrinsically valued and later built upon, rather than just another check on the to-do list.  Music that stands the test of time simply is music that intrigues their musical ears and employs them to move. See the example below:

Setting: Student in a kindergarten classroom, at home currently in their music class

Activity: Gross motor – Skipping

In this class, a student will practice skipping to 5 different types of music: A classical overture with a rhythmic skipping value, Irish tap dancing music, to the beat of a lollipop drum, to an unaccompanied children’s folksong and to a short piece of rhyming literature.

In the example above, the student is at home, but still gets the opportunity to move in a way that they are already familiar with. They are also in the comfort of their own setting.  On top of that they are experiencing different cultures, and mediums as to how a rhythmic skipping pattern can be found in instrumental music, literature, dance music, and folksongs, while reinforcing gross motor development. You could also see this in a traditional setting.

Whew…almost done!

Lastly, the material is relevant to what they see today.  Most young musicians are exposed to music through the radio, television, mobile device or through music in their own home or culture. Technology is expanding quickly, so we must keep up with it, and offer learning materials that are just as exciting and new, but also attainable. Below you will see a chart of tools that I use for games, assessments, and some big ideas I cover in each of my grade levels. 

Student Learning is ascertained through keyboard performance. The students have supporting materials throughout their musical experiences.	Games	Assessments	Big Ideas in Music	Learning Theories Used
	-Circle Games used with online spinner http://wheeldecide.com/ -Prezi Presentations    https://prezi.com/ -Reading with an interactive book https://prezi.com/ -Flashcard review games https://quizlet.com/latest -Jeopardy    https://flipquiz.me/ -Resources: http://www.classicsforkids.com/composers/	- Google Forms -Quizzes -Tests -Written papers -Notated music -Group work -In-class performances	Google Document Link: Big Ideas in Music	Zoltan Kodaly Carl Orff Dalcroze Gordon Music learning Theory

I would like to encourage you to think of music learning as nurturing a mind to be aware of all facets of human life; that sometimes we don’t have the words to explain how we feel.  There are those who are better with mathematical computation skills, or others who use a written language to make human experiences tangible.  Regardless of our gifts or talents, music learning in a brick or mortar school or cyber setting should be the same; a chance to explore each bridge that music connects us to.  Whether the bridge leads to the divisions of note values and math, to describing the science behind amplitude and frequency to musical pitch, or the physical demands of practicing an instrument – music is in everything we do. Why not figure out how we can do it best?

The title of this article is “How Do You Teach Music in a Cyber Setting?”……and I hope this article has led you to answer the question in the title; that technology enhances music learning – not solely to make a way of living, but a way of life.

Creating MORE VOICE in the Online Classroom

 by Katie Heiles, 7-12 English Teacher
and 
Victoria DeRoner, 7-12 Social Studies Teacher

As commonplace with any job, when you start your online teaching adventure, you’re probably given a generic course that someone else created.  That course may (and probably will) lack any kind of personality, and as you fall into your own groove with your teaching, you will probably also fall out of favor with the course set up.  This is when overhaul happens, and when overhaul happens, you tend to come to  “Ah Ha!” moments of epiphany about your courses and your teaching.  After almost 10 years of teaching in the online environment, we have come to the realization that there has to be a different set of instructional best practices than most teachers are familiar and/or comfortable with.

These realizations come mostly from frustrations - frustrations about the course design, about the student dynamic, and about our limitations given the cyberspace environment. First and foremost, when a course is designed without heart, and with only a purpose to present information and ask students to reproduce it, it lacks personality and functionality.  It becomes repetitive and very two dimensional.  Often, students are required to access multiple resources in different places, leaving them feeling disorganized and lost.  Understandably, this will lead to a lack of engagement.  If we understand that our students are digital natives, then we must understand that they are “accustomed to the twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphics-first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their video games, MTV, and Internet are bored by most of today’s education, well meaning as it may be” (Prensky).  This means a boring course is not going to pique their interest, or keep their focus.

We also need to realize the reality of our online student population.  We have students with drastically different learning styles and needs.  Some students may be able to read and recall without an issue, but what about the auditory or visual learner?  They need, and very much deserve differently formatted learning activities.  These are just a sampling of the frustrations that led to making significant changes in the way we choose to format our courses:

Through a combination of technology conference workshops, a better understanding of the SAMR Model, and our own trial and error, we came up with the acronym, MORE VOICE.  We now use this model as a guide in implementing necessary changes to improve the learning experience for our students.

• Multimedia
• Options
• Relevance
• Embed

• Visible
• Organization
• Instructions
• Choice and creativity
• Expectations

Multimedia:

As online teachers of digital natives, we need to use multimedia tools whenever available.  Having a lesson on a white background with black text only, will not engage our students. They need images, videos, audio, and interactivity in their lessons.  

Options:

Our students need options in case something doesn’t work for them. For example, if they don’t have a strong internet connection (an obstacle many of our students face), there needs to be a backup plan.  Instead of just providing a link to an interactive magazine they can flip through, we need to also provide a link to just a pdf copy. Or, if you’re asking students to watch a video, maybe provide a reading and study guide as an alternative.  

Relevant:

Our lessons need to be relevant.  We need to find ways to connect it to their lives, interests, or something they are familiar with.  

Embed:

If something in the lesson can be embedded, do it!  When in doubt, embed. This takes away the need for students to click out of the lesson and to another site.  In addition, they will be less likely to get lost in the process, or accidentally be viewing content that isn’t part of the lesson.  Embedding removes barriers, and makes the course more accessible for all learners.

Visible:

We, as teachers, need to be visible as often as possible. Our students need to see us, whether it’s using our webcams during live classes, or creating instructional videos for asynchronous days that show our faces and our personalities.  If video isn’t an option they need to, at the very least, hear our voices. Our students deserve to be able to make that human connection and know that we are not robots.  This will help foster a positive student-teacher relationship.

Organization:

Not only does there need to be organization  within individual assignments, but we also need to have consistent organization across all lessons.  In following a consistent structure, the students know what to expect and can move through their lessons with confidence. This means text should be formatted consistently across the course, and day to day lessons should follow the same outline or structure throughout the course.  

Instructions:

Due to the barrier of the online environment, our instructions need to be extra clear to students.  This is especially true of the asynchronous lessons that require them to move through the content without teachers right there with them.  Teachers need to consider various learning styles in creating their instructions and ensure they are meeting accommodations of students with IEPs.  Lessons should not be “scroll worthy”.  If there is too much, find a way to cut back or chunk the information better.

Choice and Creativity:  

Providing students with choice and the ability to be creative is another way to foster engagement and student success.  Planning lessons that allow for this will be beneficial to students.

Expectations:

Students need clear and consistent expectations regarding what they need to do. The teacher’s expectations should be transparent and explicitly stated for students in the lessons.  This also means grading practices and feedback should match the expectations so that students are never guessing how they will be assessed.  

MORE VOICE is not about the the course revolving around the teacher or the content.  It is about humanizing online courses, so that our students feel as though they are part of a real learning opportunity, and understand that there is a real life, breathing and caring teacher on the other end of the monitor, who wants nothing more than to see that student succeed, because their success is our success.

#togetherhappenshere.

For some of our favorite MORE VOICE  tools and resources, see the links below:

• Screencast-o-Matic - record screen share directions
• Youtube - create and edit webcam videos
• Powtoon - create animated video lessons
• Quizlet - create flashcards, study games, and study sessions
• Studystack-create flashcards and study games
• Kahoot- create online review games
• Quizizz- game style formative assessment
• Vocaroo - record audio directions
• Padlet - create online bulletin boards
• Prezi - create interactive presentations
• Ed Puzzle - edit and add questions to Youtube videos
• Classtools.net - Create vintage style games and other interactives
• Zondle - Online review game generator

Works Cited

Prensky, Marc.  “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?” On The Horizon 9.6 (2001). Print.

“How The SAMR Model Improves Teaching With iPad.” Learnmaker. 12 April 2015. 9 Feb 2016.<http://learnmaker.co.uk>