Blogs on Visual Arts

Project-based learning can provide an intentional and effective opportunity to integrate the arts across disciplines and curriculum. While valuable as a stand-alone discipline, arts education can be given further power and value when used in a PBL project as part of the core curriculum.

Keynote speeches at educational conferences these days often identify that change is underfoot in education and that we must embrace different learning models. Most don't say how to set these changes in motion. So I got my hopes up when Carla Rinaldi was announced as the keynote speaker at the Winter Institute in Reggio Emilia, Italy this past February.

As a film and book lover, I always look forward to the end-of-the-year critics' picks. I also prepare my own, just to share with friends and family. But this blog gives me an audience (you!) to share my personal favorite films and books for educators and parents for 2012. This time I'm focusing on films. My book picks will follow shortly.

These days, integration in any area, be it STEM or the arts, seems to be the buzzword to curriculum designers everywhere. There are so many resources floating around out there with the claim of integrating content areas. Yet, true integration is often difficult to find. Indeed, integration is a rare yet seemingly "magical" approach that has the capacity to turn learning into meaningful practice.

Which of course, as any teacher will tell you, is anything but magic.