Category Archives: STEAM

Why it Matters

Accessibility, Education, Getting Started, STEAM

In a traditional sense, Art education looks like finger painting, marching band, and musicals. For ages, Art has been separated from the typical classroom, it is seen not as a way of learning but as a break from other subjects. This way of thinking has caused damage to our students learning and prevents our schools from teaching the best they can. I believe that Art not only has a place in classrooms, but Art integration is also the way we can offer higher quality accessible education to the most students.

My research focuses on the ways in which STEAM instead of STEM can create classroom settings that encourage students of many different backgrounds and abilities to participate in learning on a level deeper than what is currently common practice. Through informal interviews with Arts and education leaders and reviewing modern and critical academic literature I can confidently conclude that non-English speaking/English-learning, disabled, and low-income students are able to engage with lessons on higher levels when taught with Art integration instead of typical methods used today.

Spring Poster Symposium

Getting Started, STEAM

May 20th is Oregon State Univeristy’s Spring Poster Symposium, where myself and other students who were apart of the URSA engage program will be presenting our research and findings to peers and the public. Traditionally, research is presented via a poster and short description of the research and findings to create intrest in the work being done. I’ll be presenting from 9 am to 10:30 am with a poster of my own.

I want to take a moment though to describe how the exclusion of the Arts isn’t just having a harmful impact on K-12 education, but how STEM instead of STEAM based education even made presenting my own research significantly more difficult than it needed to be.

OSU hosts poster workshops where students can get help creating their posters and working on pitches to present our research. While attending one such event in hopes to get some clarity on what our posters are meant to look like, I had asked for assistance on what kind of infographics and images to include. I was told to make a graph based on my work- something that wasn’t possible since my collected data was from informal interviews and academic literature on the topic. When I brought this up, I was met with disblief and told that should have some sort of quantitative research. Similarly, when I asked for assistance on what to include in a brief pitch of my work, I was told to open up with my most catching and interesting numbers, something I still did not have since my research is not merit based.

Through years of excluding the Arts in acadmeic spaces, people are left confused when approached with something other than numbers. My research on accessibility and the Arts is just as important as someone else’s research on water cleanliness or sheep DNA. Though because our world has shifted focus from all subjects to just those that can present numbers, we exclude important facts that could shape our futures. This is exactly why it is crucial that children are exposed to Art intergration as early as possible in their education, so their world view isn’t limited to just the numbers but also how these numbers changes lives.

How can the Arts introduce equity to schools in low-income communities?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

In previous posts, we’ve touched on the idea that Art in schools currently is not accessible to students. Generally speaking, it is low-income students who are the most excluded when it comes to creative spaces, Arts integration, and STEAM in education. Despite this, if the Arts were given a fair chance in K-12 schools, education could become more accessible to low-income communities as a whole.

From personal experience, I know what limited funding looks like when it comes to public education. I grew up in rural schools that had to decide if they wanted their budget to go towards making repairs to the school or buying textbooks that weren’t from twenty years ago. It can be difficult for students to get the level of attention they need since teachers are working with so little. Students fall behind their peers in higher-income communities because teachers don’t have access to educational resources that are constantly changing. This often results in teachers sticking to one type of teaching method that excludes many students’ thought processes and preferred ways of learning.

The National Education Association (nea) finds that Arts integration might just be the answer to offering a more accessible and equitable education to low-income/low-socioeconomic (SES) students. In their article on what Arts integration looks like in classrooms, they describe how introducing the Arts in classrooms over many topics of education helps to create multiple access points to the lessons. By offering more ways to interact with lessons from many different perspectives the content is made more approachable to students who don’t learn their best in traditional ways and improves overall engagement for all students. Edutopia, a blog on modern education trends, and Education Week, a news site by and for teachers on K-12 education, both agree with the nea and report that low-SES students preform just as well if not better than their peers when given higher access to Art. Education Week describes how this creates equal opportunity in their article, and Edutopia explains how this closes a national achievement gap between low-income students and their higher-income peers, leveling the playing field in their post on closing the achievement.

The funding to create seperate Art and STEM lessons just isn’t present in low-income schools, but by intergrating the two ideas and using STEAM to teach students we can offer the Arts to our students and improve their overall education all at once.

How can the Arts bridge language gaps in classrooms?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

As discussed in a previous post, accessibility does not just account for students with disabilities. Classrooms within the US need to be accessible to non-English speaking students and English-learning students. This poses a challenge to many educators since most lessons, textbooks, curriculum, and traditional methods of teaching are written strictly with English speaking students in mind.

The Institute for Arts Intergration and STEAM, a professional development organization focused on providing teachers with the means to integrate the Arts into accessible lessons for their students, finds that using the Arts to teach common core makes all students able to engage with the lesson regardless of personal educational needs. In their article on Arts and English learners, they state that English-learning students learn STEM based lessons better when they’re taught with the Arts. The inclusion of the Arts helps expand English-learning students vocabulary by connecting words to images in a way that’s simple to comprehend.

Pairing visual, musical, and preforming Arts with STEM also helps non-English and English-learning students grasp abstract concepts without needing to rely on proficiency in English for lessons to make sense, according to the Spanish-American Institute. They found in their study done on Art as a tool that English-learning students are able to connect more personally to lessons through Art.

By intergrating Art into lessons in classrooms, English-learning students are able to egage with lessons on the same level as their English speaking peers.

How can the Arts make a classroom accessible?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

When addressing how to make a classroom accessible, introducing Arts to the curriculum might not seem like the most obvious answer. Most ideas around accessibility that advocate for one group of people end up making something even less accessible to another group. Think about introducing computers and online lessons to students- sure more kids with computers are able to access educational content outside of the classroom but kids with limited internet access or no personal computers are suddenly left out of the loop. The same idea applies to most other ways of tackling accessibility. Art, however, might be the exception and could work as a way of bridging education to as many students as possible.

Alpha School, a special education school for students with disablities, found that in their classrooms using visual and tactile Arts improved their students engagment with STEM topics. Alpha School reported in their article on STEM and Art intergration, that by using the Arts, students learned and engaged with topics on a personal level that created a positive connection between education and the students. The lessons that included the Arts allowed for more self-emotional regulation and helped studented connect their lived experiences to the classroom in ways that are typically difficult.

The Kennedy Center similarly found in their education and Art integration report for STEAM that using the Arts in classrooms clarified abstract and complex concepts that typically were difficult to understand to student who didn’t have access to educational resources outside of school. This type of Art integration in classrooms is connected to the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which is a type of learning, which is a standard of education that attempts to offer equal access to all students. By using Art to meet current UDL standards, classrooms can include as many students as possible in lessons.

Currently all over the United States there is a push towards better quality education for more students. By using the Arts as a way to improve accessability in classrooms, students of all kinds are able to get involved in education in ways that were previously impossible.

The Big Picture

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

Since February, we’ve looked at the crossroad of education, accessibility, and the Arts. We discussed the importance of STEAM and art integration in k-12 classrooms; including the positive impact that the Arts has on academic achievement and how Art shapes good futures for our children. We touched upon education, what STEAM looks like within the United States today, and who is excluded from a quality public education. We used our definition of accessibility to assess current school standards and what organizations, foundations, and Universities are doing to improve accessibility.

But why? Reading research and collecting articles and resources for what? How can this information be used?

By following these stories and collecting the data that might be overlooked, we can closely examine the way our education, the Arts, and access to these things are intertwined with one another. The connections we’ve researched opens up new questions and begs us to find a way to stop separating the issues of Art, education, and access. By looking at what we have discovered and recorded, I wonder how we can connect these ideas even more.

So, I hope to look at my research through the lens of answering this question:

How can schools use the Arts and Art integration as an accessibility tool to teach other STEAM topics?

What role does Art play in accessibility to students?

Accessibility, Education, STEAM

Art can look like a lot of different things. Most think of the Arts as drawing, painting, acting, singing, dancing, and other ‘fine Arts’. The broader definition used in STEAM includes the fine Arts and writing, reading, history, psychology, and many other topics excluded by the strict term, STEM (Which is just Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

But how can Art be accessible, and how can it make other aspects of education more
accessible? Typically when we think about the Arts, accessibility isn’t the first thing to come to mind. After all, not everyone is a masterful painter, a lively musician, or a natural-born historian, so just like STEM topics, the Arts shouldn’t necessarily be accessible, right?

To understand how Art can help schools be more accessible to a variety of students, we must first understand the differences between Art and typical STEM standards. Unlike STEM, where there is normally just one right answer to a given problem, the Arts engage with subjective matters that can’t easily be boiled down to one thing. Art allows for many different perspectives to be correct, allowing for a space that feels more safe to students. Children can explore many different ideas and topics in Art without having to be worried about being wrong. Not only this, but Art also engages with more students’ personal lived experiences and backgrounds, unlike STEM which might not be as personal to kids. Art, especially historical topics, constantly engage with lots of cultures which can make students feel more seen and represented. STEM on the other hand rarely expands on topics about the history and culture of what it is teaching, meaning unless the students have a connection and history with Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math, they aren’t going to feel well represented in the classroom.

Now back to accessibility; Art can be used as a tool for accessibility because of the ideas mentioned above. Art creates inclusive spaces that encourage students of many backgrounds to participate in lessons and interact with educational content.

Art can be used in many ways to cater to a lot of different students. One example being plain old coloring sheets. I’m sure many of us recall the days of elementary school where a teacher would explain the water cycle, or something of that sort, and they’d pass out a coloring sheet directing students to color one part a certain color and another part something else. This is an example of Art integration and STEAM in the classroom. Not everyone might understand what is being told to them, whether that be because of a mental or physical disability or because they don’t speak the language or understand it very well, but regardless of that almost every kid is capable of coloring on a sheet of paper. When the main ideas of a lesson are drawn out for students, it can become easier for a larger number of kids to understand and grasp the ideas. The use of Art and STEAM makes the classroom more accessible to students and helps kids engage with educational content on a personal level.

What does Art and STEAM in education look like now?

Education, STEAM

We’ve come a long way from what education used to look like, and these days there is ample research about the amazing benefits of STEAM and the Arts involvement in k-12 education. But what does that look like in the classroom? What are our current standards of education for STEAM and Art related topics?

In the state of Oregon, while the public push for STEAM in schools is pretty large, the actual engagement is pretty low. The Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) reported, in a research paper detailing the Arts education in k-12 Oregon schools, that most examples of good Art education and STEAM happened rarely and only because of non-profits filling in the funding gaps. The OCF found it was difficult for some students to engage in the available Art programs provided because of ‘student body fees’ or other costs to join in the classes that aren’t deemed necessary for their education. This means Oregon’s current standards of Art education aren’t accessible.

But it isn’t just Oregon. All over the United States, students are struggling to take part in offered Art courses for a variety of reasons. The Arts Education Data Project found in their survey of the US’s Art education standards that in big cities, remote towns, and rural areas, students have significantly less access to Art. Their research also shows that schools on indigenous reservations have extremely limited access to the Arts and that 26% of their students never interact with the Arts inside the classroom, in clubs, or on fieldtrips. Their data also tells us that over 5,000 schools in the US don’t have reliable access to the Arts.

So, what’s up with the gaps? If so many researchers and schools claim that STEAM and Art education greatly improve community and academic achievement, why are schools all over the country unable to present their students with the Arts? The answer comes down to funding and accessibility. Public schools already have a difficult securing funding to preform regular duties, like paying for lunches, keeping the school clean, and getting enough supplies for each classroom. So, when researchers tell schools to ‘just introduce more STEAM’ without the schools getting more funding, the projects revolving around the Arts get left behind because they’re deemed ‘less important’ despite all the data proving otherwise. The schools that are able to provide Art and STEAM education typically put a price tag on it that the students and families must pay so the school can financially cover the cost of Art. This price means students unable to find enough money get left behind academically. So, while our schools are headed in the right direction by generally presenting more Art and STEAM in their education, we have a lot of work to do to ensure all students have equal access to these programs.

What does Art do to our Academics?

Education, STEAM

Briefly touched upon in my previous post, Art, and how students engage with it in the classroom, has an impact on the academic achievements met by said students. The Oregon Community Foundation (OregonCF) reported that those taking more Art classes more frequently than other students had better fluency, originality, and overall better “academic discipline”. OregonCF also found improved grades and SAT scores among students taking more Art focused classes.

The Nation Endowment for the Arts found similar correlations in their research between Art engagement and academic scores. They found improved Social Emotional Learning in younger children who participated in the Arts at an early age, and that High Schoolers who participated in the Arts had higher average grades and greater “post-graduation outcomes” than students who did not.

Marcia Gibson and Meredith Larson found in their report on the visual arts and academic achievement that along with improved social skills, younger children who read with Art integrated as a part of the story have significantly improved reading abilities when compared to their peers without Art integration. Along with this, they found education is more engaging for students of all ages when art in incorporated. Art provides another way for more students to engage with academic material, thus improving a school’s overall test scores and grades. The inclusion of Art in education is integral to making the classroom more accessible and enjoyable for all students.

What can Art in schools look like?

Education, STEAM

Art in education can look very different depending on the way in which it is approached. In a report done by The Oregon Community Foundation (OregonCF), the way art is incorporated into learning can fall into one of three categories. The first is ‘Arts Exposure’, which is described as limited or occasional art experiences. This can look like a field trip or an assembly featuring the Arts. Art Exposure causes students to become more interested in and engaged with the topic being present to them, though the OregonCF report suggests it’s most impactful on students when Art is also being discussed and explored regularly in the classroom.

The second way of bringing art to students is referred to as ‘Sequential Arts Instruction’. Sequential Arts Instruction is the act of teaching Art in Art settings, or basically ‘the art class’. Sequential Arts Instruction includes traditional art classes, like painting, drawing, preforming arts, and also non-traditional Art activities like art clubs and bands. This is the most common type of Art engagement inside of Oregon schools, and it provides kids with observation, reflective, and developmental skills. OregonCF finds that Sequential Arts Instruction also serves as an emotional outlet for students who feel anxious or stressed about traditional education (think math/science/writing/history).

The third and final category of education and Art is ‘Arts Intergration’, and it is the category that OregonCF suggests has the largest impact on students. Arts Intergration is the act of including Art-based activities in non-art classes. This looks like making historical posters for a history class, creating 3D models of atoms for a science class, or being allowed to include creative writing instead of just essays in a writing class. OregonCF and Oregon teachers praise Arts Intergration for six main reasons:

“1. The Arts makes content more accessible.

2. The Arts encourage joyful, active learning.

3. The Arts help students make and express personal connections to content.

4. The Arts build community and help children develop collaborative work skills.

5. The Arts help students understand and express
abstract concepts.

6. The Arts stimulate higher-level thinking.” (OregonCF)

While OregonCF finds this final category to be to most impactful on students when it comes to increasing engagement and grades of students, they propose that the best way for art to be included into education is to implement it wherever and whenever possible. OregonCF claims that when students are able to constantly engage with the three kinds of Art education, they see better Social Emotional Learning (SEL), improvements to the community in the school, improved patience with difficult topics, and many other academic benefits including increased SAT testing scores and grades.

Art looks different for everyone. Some prefer to sculpt, others to dance, and many just enjoy a small doodle on the edge of their notebook. By having more art in school of many different kinds and disciplines, students are able to express themselves in safe regulated ways which results in positive outcomes for the rest of their academics.