Inspirations: PBS and Arts integration

Discipline-based art education, or DBAE, is one of the most common approaches taken to curriculum design and lesson planning in art classrooms in the US (Bertling and Moore, 2021). And, in order to avoid assigning projects that have superficial, loose connections to other disciplines, it’s important to consult resources that can inspire meaningful lessons. 

A free, open-access, and student-centered resource is PBS Newshour’s Student Reporting Labs. In this program, students across the nation work together to research, write and produce media about current events and the important issues facing students in the US (About Student Reporting Labs). 

Teachers can use the Student Reporting Labs (SRL) to discover what interdisciplinary topics or themes are relevant to students, or they can incorporate SRL videos into their presentations and lectures, stoking creativity and presenting accessible, responsible information from students to students. 

About Student Reporting Labs. (n.d.). PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs. Retrieved July 7, 2021, from https://studentreportinglabs.org/about/

Bertling, J. G., & Moore, T. C. (2021). The U.S. K–12 Art Education Curricular Landscape: A Nationwide Survey. Studies in Art Education, 62(1), 23–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2020.1858007

Foundational works: User Experience Design and lesson planning

Sometimes, lesson planning and curriculum design for art education are reactive; a teacher guides students through a method of wedging clay, but most of the students’ clay still has pockets of air, so the teacher has to reassess their demonstration to find what didn’t work. This process is, essentially, iterative design. 

But there are some flaws or problems that can be predicted before the lesson is ever taught, and tools that can be used to predict flaws in lesson design are valuable. Universal Design for Learning (or, UDL) is oriented around making accommodations for students before they are faced with something that’s inaccessible. Another design methodology that is particularly well suited to the art education classroom is User Experience (or, UX) design. 

UX Collective’s  “What does UX in education look like?”, by Alex Britez, guides the reader through possible applications of UX design in the classroom, and a reading that dives deeper into those ideas might help an art educator reflect on their own lesson design practices, teach new tools, and give names to things they already do.  

Image courtesy of UX Collective

Explainers: "Is Your Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND?"

Sarah Fiarman, Kristen Kyles-Smith, and Alison Lee's "Is Your Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND?" is a helpful, relatively quick read that could be helpful for school administrators and researchers in schools; however, it also clearly communicates how racial bias impacts a school's ability to help its students. So if you're working in a school, the topics discussed in the article probably affect you. 

Fiarman, Kyles-Smith, and Lee identify the colorblindness with which many schools approach continuous improvement and problem-solving, and offer a framework to help teachers and administrators work towards equity these tools focus on race, but could be used to address many different kinds of discrimination. 

1. Disaggregate data on race
2. Focus on impact
3. Avoid a deficit mindset
4. Identify root causes & ways to change

Unfortunately, this article is not easily accessible via open access; however, if you are a student or faculty at GVSU, you can read it after copy-pasting the title into the library's main search function. You can also find open access readings on continuous improvement in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. 

Fiarman, S., Kyles-Smith, K., & Lee, A. (2021). Is Your Approach to Continuous Improvement COLORBLIND? Educational Leadership, 78(6), 16–21.