Development of Creative Thinking Through Art Integration March 2017

Development of Creative Thinking through Art Integration

Lisa Shaughnessy

Carlow University

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Development of Creative Thinking Through Art Integration March 2017

Over the years there has been much effort made towards examining our education system

and trying to predict the needs of the future and how best to prepare our students for future

learning and careers beyond school. Through the No Child Left Behind act and Common Core

State Standards educators, administrators, and policy makers are trying different ways of

restructuring the approach we take towards education. With mixed results, these changes have

shown that there are many ways that teachers can teach and students can learn, beyond what has

been traditionally done. Though not widely used, transdisciplinarity methods with art integration

has caught the attention of many educators and researchers. Transdiciplinarity, in our use

discussing education, is a blending and weaving of different core subject matters as a method of

engaging students, fostering innovation, and encouraging creative and higher order thinking.

Remarkable educational benefits are being discovered through this unique pedagogical approach.

The following research has shown that critical and creative thinking skills are often acquired

when art education is combined with core subject matter.

There have been many different techniques used to integrate the arts in core subjects and

the school day but at the same time the arts are one of the first sacrifices made when budget cuts

are passed down from policy makers and administration (Robinson, 2011). A move towards

integration was fueled by art educators understanding that there are unique skills students

develop when aesthetic experiences become a part of their learning process of core subject

matter. Information and knowledge connected to art, its purpose, and its importance in human

society and culture cannot, and does not live in a bubble. It has been found in studies that

through a transdiciplinarity approach, creativity and creative thinking can be developed and can

lead to students gaining a greater understanding of broad concepts (Guyotte, et all, 2014).

Traditionally school subjects are set apart in the school day with little crossover and with greater

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emphasis (as well as funding and political support) on core subjects like math and science.

Overcoming compartmentalized education will take great amounts of innovation and creativity,

ironically, two skills shown to be enhanced when arts integration and transdiciplinarity are

successfully applied. Transforming education in this way goes beyond just art infusion into other

subjects or using arts to just enhance learning content, but blurs the lines between subjects so that

students can see the connections and understand a bigger picture (Marshall, 2014). Through

methods such as Art Research Integration (ARI) students engage in imaginative inquiry, creative

investigation and production, and use works of art as resources for learning and evidence of

understanding (Marshall, 2014). Students identify an idea, research the concept or question, and

then proceed to follow the research crossing disciplines and making connections to their lives

outside of school (Marshall, 2014). The arts have long provided a more open and accepting safe

space for students to experiment, learn, and deal with complexity (Chemi, 2014). Frameworks

such as ARI,

heralds the potential of the arts (music, dance, drama, visual and media arts) as essential,

transformative mediums in teaching and learning, Arts afford ways to organize,

communicate and understand information, and most critically provide humans with what

is needed in order to learn and thrive in a changing, global world (Hartle, et al, 2014).

By following the research done on these educational methods and moving towards arts

integration and a transdisciplinarity approach, we may discover that there are unidentified

educational benefits for students in the areas of creative thinking, innovation, and other essential

21st century learning skills, a term which attempts to encapsulate the proficiencies we foresee

students needing in a largely unpredictable future.

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Development of Creative Thinking Through Art Integration March 2017

An example of how educators might integrate the arts for improved student outcomes can

be found by examining STEM education. The popularity of STEM education has highlighted the

importance of the discipline areas such as science, technology, engineering and math, but adding

the art element to create STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) stresses the

importance of making connections between disciplines that were previously disparate (Guyotte,

et al, 2014). The STEM education approach was created to show

the intentional connection between two or more of these selected content areas to drive

instruction through observation, inquiry and problem solvingSTEAM brings together

the critical components of how and what, and laces them together with why (Riley,

2013).

Inclusion of arts also brings areas such as fine arts, drama, dance and music, to an equal playing

field with the other components in the popular acronym. This accepted validity is desperately

important to the continuation of efforts towards future funding and support of all arts programs

in schools (Robinson, 2011). The concept of learning transfer may also be a key element in this

art integration equation. Learning transfer happens when a student acquires skills and

information from one setting, and that information and those skills increase their understand and

additional skill acquisition in another setting. Research has shown that there is a correlation

between creative production and academic success but educators are still wanting to know if it

can it be shown that the achievements made in core subject matter is because of the students

involvement in artistic activities (Chemi, 2014). If concepts and modes of thinking in one

discipline enrich students understanding in another discipline (Guyotte, et al, 2014) a

transdisciplinarity approach to education may provide our students with the most effective

learning outcomes. Transdisciplinarity has the potential of giving students a shared language and

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set of tools to tackle future challenges, with the addition of art integration providing

encouragement and opportunities for creative and innovative exploration (Guyotte, et al, 2014).

This type of approach brings a focus on how that knowledge is acquired and how deeply it is

understood (Marshall, 2014). It is not the standard practice, outside of art education, that

students are translating abstract concepts from academic disciplines into visual form (Marshall,

2014) but carrying that skill past the boundaries of traditional art education could provide

access to material that students with different learning modalities may not have had before.

Along with this possibly new access and opportunity for achievement, other learning capacities

such as noticing deeply, embodying, questioning, making connections, identifying patterns,

exhibiting empathy, creating meaning, taking action and reflecting/assessing have been said to

be related to arts integration and imaginative learning (Garrett, 2013).

Employers surveyed have stated they want colleges to place more emphasis on creativity

and innovation as essential learning outcomes (Garrett, 2013). With comprehensive art

integration, creativity, imagination and innovation can be infused into each subject, every day.

Allowing choice and letting students follow interests through a learner centric approach,

educators can help foster inventive, resourceful, and curious students and help ensure their

success today and in the future (Garrett, 2013). One of the challenges is to promote an

understanding that creativity is not only present in the arts, it is a key element to innovation and

discovery in science, technology, engineering and more (Constantino, et al, 2010). Not only will

this new understanding of the importance of creativity, and how it can be honed successfully

with arts integration, bring a new value to the arts in schools but it will provide some lacking

validity and stability of art programs in and outside of school time (Chemi, 2014). Another

important component of this is for teachers to also see the creative capacities in themselves

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(Hartle, et al, 2014). The act of teaching is a deeply creative process that requires fast thinking,

outside the box approaches, and imaginative and inventive use of available resources. If

teachers can see themselves as creative individuals in what they do, the can pass that on to their

students.

Through transdiciplinarity and arts integration with a new focus on, and value of

creativity and creative thinking, a cultural shift may be triggered as students grow with a new

personal value of art. This movement can provide students the chance to learn at higher and

deeper levels which would resonate past them and into the community (Hartle, et al, 2014).

Opportunities in and out of school to share their interests, vision, and understanding with other

students and their community could help plant the seeds towards different levels of

understanding in the population at large. Thought arts integration techniques students will be

gaining a new perspective on information and aesthetic experiences which they could carry with

them and share with others at home and into their future (Marshall, 2014). As student succeed in

understanding in these new ways, they will gain a new self-motivation and confidence in what

they are doing and how they are communicating their understanding and their own ideas and

interests (La Porte, 2016). Successful arts education, within the greater perspective of learning,

provides a defense that school art programs will go beyond their capacity to elevate the spirit

and as a source of cultural refinement (Chemi, 2014). Through more research, evidence could

be shown that the arts-integration model is the future of education rather than the utopian

ideal it may be now (Chemi, 2014).

In conclusion, though it may not have wide national support yet, many art integration and

transdisciplinarity approaches have shown to enhance the educational experience of students.

Methods such as ARI, STEAM, and similar programs has the potential to benefit diverse

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learners in 21st century education (La Porte, 2016). This enhancement goes beyond their

experiences in art; it is giving them the opportunity to grow new and lesser developed creative

and innovative thinking skills. These skills, we know, are of high importance in our efforts to

prepare students for the future. As we cannot predict what they will need to succeed, helping

develop the skills to find, create and communicate what is needed is of the most value. These

skills can be specifically honed when aesthetic experiences are integrated into core subject areas.

Students being able to make connections between subjects and building an understanding of

bigger pictures can allow access to unknown interests and enhance intake of new information.

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Works Cited

Chemi, T. (2014). The Artful Teacher: A Conceptual Model for Arts Integration in Schools.

Studies In Art Education: A Journal Of Issues And Research In Art Education, 56(1),

370-383.

Costantino, T., Kellam, N., Cramond, B., & Crowder, I. (2010). An Interdisciplinary Design

Studio: How Can Art and Engineering Collaborate to Increase Students' Creativity?. Art

Education, 63(2), 49-53.

Garrett, C. E. (2013). Promoting Student Engagement and Creativity by Infusing Art across the

Curriculum: The Arts Integration Initiative at Oklahoma City University. About Campus,

18(2), 27-32.

Guyotte, K. W., Sochacka, N. W., Costantino, T. E., Walther, J., & Kellam, N. N. (2014). Steam

as Social Practice: Cultivating Creativity in Transdisciplinary Spaces. Art Education,

67(6), 12-19.

Hartle, L. C., Pinciotti P., Gorton R. L. (2014). ArtsIN: Arts Integration and Infusion Framework.

Early Childhood Education, 43, 289-298.

La Porte A. M., (2016). Efficacy of the Arts in a Transdisciplinary Learning Experience for

Culturally Diverse Fourth Graders. International Electronic Journal of Elementary

Education, 8(3), 467-480.

Riley, S. (2013). Pivot Point: At the Crossroads of STEM, STEAM and Arts Integration.

Edutopia.org

Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Oxford: Capstone.