Urban Arts Partnership’s programming is targeted to address specific aspects of
the ever growing achievement gap. Arts integration resides at the very core of our
work as we inspire education in the schools and communities that need it most.
Our Theory of Change approach is arts integrated, student centered, and
data driven to motivate positive student outcomes.
Arts integration is an approach to teaching and learning in which the arts provide different entry points to engaging in academic content and demonstrating understanding. Students access a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both (The Kennedy Center, 2010). Our model brings the arts into core curriculum across all grade levels and academic subject areas with a collaborative teaching and curriculum design approach.
A student-centered approach to education puts students at the core of the classroom experience. As opposed to traditional approaches, which create an information bottleneck by putting the teacher at the front of the classroom, a student-centered approach treats the educators as facilitators responsible for fostering an environment that promotes student engagement.
Through relevant curricula, activities and performance-based assessment, UAP teaching artists and partnering teachers create learning experiences that give students choice and diverse opportunities to explore and show their understanding.
Students find the learning process more meaningful when topics are relevant to their lives, needs, and interests, and when they are actively engaging in the arts as a lever to increase academic achievement.
Collaboration is integral to our approach on every level. In the classroom, all arts activities include group work, partnering, discussion, reflection, and community building among students and between students, teaching artists, and teachers. In order to integrate the arts effectively, teaching artists co-plan and co-create curricula with classroom teachers. UAP administrative staff work closely with school leadership to ensure fidelity to our models and to fit programming with a school’s individual goals.
Through continuous assessment of its work, UAP demonstrates how and to what extent arts-integrated learning improves student outcomes. Regular data collection and review, with support from internal and external evaluators, guides us to systematically enhance the quality of programming. In the classroom, teaching artists informally assess student understanding through observation, reflection activities, written work, artistic work, presentations, and performances.
At the program level, evaluators collect administrative data, academic assessment data, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and structured observations. Together these data sources provide a holistic and comprehensive view of programs’ strengths and challenges, and directions for improvement.
The arts offer a unique approach to learning about and engaging with students to provide multiple entry points to academic content. Through scaffolded, intensive, and collaborative professional development that includes workshops and classroom-embedded coaching, we disseminate the practice of integrating the arts into teaching.
Participating classroom teachers gain comfort with arts integration, increase the frequency with which they integrate the arts into their practice, and deepen the ways that they use the arts: to engage students, encourage students to take creative risks, and teach specific academic concepts.
Our co-teachers adopt arts-integrated practices through our professional development models:
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions (CASEL, 2015).
Through the arts-based approaches, students build on their competencies in creativity, critical thinking, self-efficiancy, communication, and interpersonal skills.
In 2017, 42% of students across programs showed growth in critical questioning and curiosity, a statistically significant finding.
60% of students across programs showed growth in collaboration and learning from critiques, a statistically significant finding.
Inspiring excitement is the first step toward achieving learning outcomes. UAP transforms the learning environment by providing multiple entry points using a variety of art forms to engage – different types of learners (visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and tactile) and encouraging connection among peers. Through the arts, students play, imagine, and respond to class content from their own experiences.
Through activities rooted in artistic inquiry, UAP engages students in a process of discovery that increases the depth of their understanding and confidence about their choices. By asking questions, collaborating and brainstorming, students are able to develop and amplify their unique self-expression and exert influence over their own work. Celebrating successes and examining failures encourages students to actively explore and contribute to their world.
By aligning our curricula and lesson plans with subject-specific learning standards and the Common Core, as well as establishing collaborative co-teaching relationships with partner schools, we ensure that students gain a deep understanding of academic material.
This is demonstrated through both traditional and alternative forms of assessment. UAP students have shown progress in reading, writing, critical analysis, and social studies content, among other academic outcomes.
Our co-teachers value arts-integrated instruction because it helps students learn academic content through acquiring language and writing skills, connecting academics to their lived experiences, developing analytical skills, and increasingly valuing academics.
Our co-teachers value arts-integrated instruction because it helps students express themselves in a safe environment, through a different entry points to learning.
Our co-teachers value arts-integrated instruction because it helps students learn academic content through acquiring language and writing skills, connecting academics to their lived experiences, developing analytical skills and increasing valuing academics.
The following are a few examples of the academic outcomes that our programs achieve:
In 2016, 75% of seniors in Fresh Prep who had previously failed Regents exams in Global History, U.S. History, and/or ELA passed their exams. Students gained an average of 27 points on the ELA exam and 18 points on the Global History exam. Of the graduating seniors 82% received a Regents diploma.
A study of Fresh Prep forthcoming in Urban Education found that Fresh Prep students had higher graduation rates than comparison students.
In 2017, Everyday Arts for Special Education (EASE) helped 86% of students with special needs progress toward reaching goals in their Individualized Education Plans, through creating opportunities for multisensory learning, and providing fun and engaging activities which encourage students to participate, try new things, and stay on task.
A recently published study of EASE in Evaluation and Assessment found that EASE students performed significantly better in reading skills and social- emotional learning than comparison students.
OUR LONG-TERM GOALS
39 WEST 19TH STREET, 5TH FLOOR, NEW YORK NY 10011 |
212.966.5881 | WWW.URBANARTS.ORG
