Challenges and Supports to Elementary Teacher Education: Case Study of Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives on Arts Integration

Abstract

This case study investigates the factors that challenge and support preservice teachers' (PST) arts integration beliefs and practices. The participants include a total of 74 PSTs enrolled in a mandatory university arts course at a large Southern university across three consecutive semesters. Concurrent with arts class enrollment, PSTs are also enrolled in their capstone, semester-long, student teaching experience. The authors used PSTs' end-of-semester reflections and the primary data source. Findings illustrate that PSTs can be creative through arts integration within teaching and learning, while still acknowledging challenges at the school level. The authors detail how they revamped existing elementary preservice arts classes to focus on arts-integrated instructional practices. In addition, findings illustrate the need for strategic inservice training for mentor teachers on the efficacy of arts integration in elementary settings and for administrative support for the arts at the school level. Because teacher candidates must confront a variety of tasks necessitating creative and adaptive thinking in an era focused on standards and high-stakes testing, learning about, engaging with, and infusing arts-integrated learning into teacher preparation aligns with the ideals of a liberal arts education (Lorimer, 2012, p. 86). In the United States (US), complex questions confront public education in the 21 st century and require that teacher educators assume an active stance in improving teacher quality. Historically, political interests, spurred by the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) (2001) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (2016), both reauthorizations of the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (1965), have resulted in a preoccupation with formulaic, packaged, and scripted curricula (Altwerger, 2005; Coles, 2003) and high stakes tests (Garan, 2002, 2004; Johnson & Johnson, 2006) that silence teacher voices and stifle creativity, particularly in high stakes discipline-specific areas, such as literacy and math (Allington, 2002b). Within the past several decades, personal and political forces have intensified (Allington, 2004; Garan, 2002; Schneider, 2014, 2016), shaping the types of instruction public school children, especially urban elementary children, receive, narrowing curriculum and teaching to content specifically presented by a state high stakes test. Escalating mandates derived from NCLB (2001) and ESSA (2016) legislation have increasingly dictated how educators, especially elementary teachers, teach in the US. For instance, often the literacy "forced" on urban elementary children does little to foster creativity (Finn, 1999; Meyer, 2010). Within the last 15 years in many elementary schools, social studies and science have been short shrifted, simply because they are not high stakes tested subjects (An, Capraro, & Tillman, 2013; Center on Education Policy, 2006). Of particular note, 71 percent of America's school districts have reduced arts, science, and social studies in...

Educar por medio del arte en una escuela multicultural

“…Adicionalmente, como han demostrado algunos estudios (p.e., Hipp & Sulentic, 2019), estas actividades transforman las percepciones de los maestros sobre los recién llegados al poner énfasis en su fortaleza y en su capacidad de recuperación, sin negar sus vulnerabilidades, lo que contribuye al desarrollo de la sensibilidad intercultural.…”

Challenges, implications and the future of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts

“…Each of the Art forms have unique histories, language and approaches. Any discussion of the possibility of integrating the Arts with themselves or more particularly with other subject areas has traditionally been problematic because of fears that it will take time away from high-stakes testing, (Lingard et al, 2016 ; Moss et al, 2019 ), the lack of teacher self-efficacy with arts integration (Battersby & Cave, 2014 ; Burnaford et al, 2011 ) and limited teacher professional development (Hipp & Sulentic Dowell, 2019 ; O’Toole, 2018 ). Davis ( 2008 ) and O’Toole ( 2018 ) both argue that arts educators are also concerned that the integration of the Arts with other subjects will obscure the view of the Arts as unique disciplines: Every teacher of an art form has had their subject traduced into menial service as a handmaiden for another subject or even art form – music reduced to rhythm games for maths, visual arts co-opted into painting the sets for the school musical, drama diminished into little skits for history or school camp, media arts turned into critical literacy exercises in English, dance merely a back alley in physical education, and in primary schools all of them lumped together into an amorphous and ill-defined form of Friday afternoon relief called Expressive Arts.…”

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“…Quality arts education emerged as a challenge and implication that arose in the reflections of quality arts education by the participant researchers. The researchers’ concerns related particularly to the dearth of jurisdictional funding for teacher professional learning in the Arts, with huge disparities remaining in the provision of adequate arts learning time in pre-service teacher education programs as well as for early career and experienced teachers (Hipp & Sulentic Dowell, 2019 ; Russell-Bowie, 2013 ). Julie discussed the importance of ongoing vigilance required for all the Arts forms, and particularly for dance due to the perception that it is only for ‘talented’ students with a particular body shape and physical abilities (Russell-Bowie, 2013 ; Snook & Buck, 2014 ).…”

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“…More elementary classroom teachers might be apt to infuse music into their classrooms when additional opportunities are provided for learning this process (Hipp & Sulentic, 2019; Miksza & Gault, 2014). Byo (1999) found that Florida elementary classroom teachers requested more time to collaborate with elementary general music teachers to better understand national and state music standards.…”