Posts Tagged ‘National Coaltion for Core Arts Standards’

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Connections: Arts and Common Core Standards in ELA and Math

October 4, 2012

Let’s put this in perspective

Recently I have received emails asking about our role as arts educators and the Common Core Standards for ELA and Math. My colleague from Arizona, Lynn Tuttle, was asked to write a blog post for ARTSblog, Sept. 10, 2012. Lynn is not only the Director of Arts Education for the Arizona Department of Education but she is also the President of my national organization called SEADAE (State Education Agency Directors for Arts Education). Her post was so fabulous that we reprinted it on our SEADAE blog. The blog post is called Common Core is Here – Don’t Panic. It provides an overview and how and where the arts connect. Lynn also reminds us of the importance of the each states arts standards. Of course in Maine we have the 2007 document Maine Learning Results: Parameters for Essential Instruction that are our responsibility to teach.

My colleague, Joyce Huser, the Fine Arts Education Consultant from Kansas conducted a webinar last year for SEADAE called The Arts, Common Core, and 21st Century Connections. She collaborated with her ELA and Math colleagues to develop the webinar that is available for you on the Maine Department of Education site.

Also underway are the re-writing the national arts standards. You can keep abreast of that work at the wiki National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. I will be traveling to Washington DC next week to meet with my colleagues from SEADAE and the chairs of each of the National Core Arts Standards writing teams. At this point the new standards are due out during the summer of 2013. I will provide a blog post on my return to share what I have learned.

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National Arts Standards Update

August 25, 2012

Writing teams work on EUs, EQs, CAs

Earlier this summer the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) writing teams met in the Washington D.C. area to continue their work on the writing of the the national standards. They discussed the Enduring Understandings (EU), Enduring Questions (EQ), and Cornerstone Assessments (CA).

This was their first meeting face to face since they started the work electronically. This meeting with the leadership team of the NCCAS was possible  thanks to the generosity of the states, national arts education organizations (NAfME, NAEA, NDEO, AATE, EdTA), and the  partners at the College Board.

You can view (and hear) the highlights of the work on the NCCAS wiki at:
http://nccas.wikispaces.com/Reston%2C+VA+June+2012.

The site has a document that is updated periodically with questions and answers. Here are a couple:

  1. Are there continued efforts to understand where the arts are already in alignment with the Common Core State Standards? I would imagine I would be interested in knowing this for the purpose of articulating the possible standards for Arts Integration techniques.  If so are there efforts to articulate how Arts Integration techniques can help meet the CC standards as well as to understand where arts and creativity processes are cognitively parallel to skills and tasks that are laid out in Common Core?                                                                  Project Director Phil Shepherd: Yes there are continual efforts to make connections to the Common Core. Not only do we have some research conducted by the College Board, but as the work continues comparisons are brought forward in each of the writing teams.
  2. How does this document address the important process of creative thinking? This is the leading characteristic CEO’s say they are looking for in a 21st employee. The learning of this process I believe could be one of those elements that could connect all the art forms. The creative thinking process can be taught, but are we teaching it in K-12 schools? Rarely have I seen it specifically addressed in my 35 years of art public school teaching. So….If not in this domain, where? Project Director Phil Shepherd: A goal established by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards is to bring creativity to the forefront. Alignment with the 21st Century Skills framework is a part of the process. The College Board has done research to support this effort as well and our writers have reviewed that research. Additional work has been done to review creative practices and provide an overview of how those practices play out in the artistic processes.

You can keep up with developments on the new national standards by checking the NCCAS wiki site at: http://nccas.wikispaces.com

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