ARTinED online: A new approach to education using the arts

Project summary

The development of creative abilities is vital to survive. Teaching in a creative way is essential to make learning a process that all students can enjoy and benefit from. European education has a critical need to find a way to weave creativity within education settings. Teaching and learning by embedding the arts into school curriculum is the answer. As more teachers use motivation and communication powers of the arts, reports of increased concentration, more cooperation, better comprehension, and greater self-esteem among students are increasing. Significant arts involvement changes how children think and how they feel about learning. This is reflected in test scores and in vast quantities of survey, interview, observation and anecdotal evidence. This is because arts integration creates a highly stimulating learning environment featuring arts materials, tools, and strategy to increase the possibilities for sensory inputs. In arts integration it is common for students to work in groups and to be out of their seats. For instance, drama and dance allow students to move and learn kinesthetically. Furthermore, the arts become a tool to retain the curriculum’s learning contents. The arts are arguably the most important tool a teacher has to engage the emotions. E-ARTinED aims at creating innovative didactic tools to enable teachers to use the multiple forms of art to teach curricular subjects. Examples of using the arts to teach curricular subjects: teaching maths through sculpture, chemistry through dance, history with painting, science with music, geography with drama. Project objectives: e-ARTinED expands the research and the resources created in the ARTinED project 2011, also by providing a much awaited distance learning course. ARTinED was extremely successful, receiving praise and maximum score by the experts of the European Commission. The project activities were tested by a crowd of enthusiastic teachers who are waiting for updates and new resources. . Exploitation of the project was very effective indeed. A result is visible in Sweden where the leader institution of the present application is currently working along with the Ministry of Education, regional and local authorities, on developing a school in Sweden based on the ARTinED methodology. The school would act as a catalyst for innovation for the entire country and would contribute to include new concepts in education. E-ARTinED will organize the previous didactic materials in a systematic didactic set, expanding also on two new subjects: “Social inclusion through the arts” and “Exploring nature through the arts”. Collective piloting events will help to test and evaluate the new resources. E-ARTinED will create and deliver a 4-month online course for teachers across Europe allowing them to experiment the project’s exciting, inspiring and effective methodology and practices. The ARTinED Community of Practice will also be created and will contribute in a substantial way to the project sustainabiility. Partnership: The partnership has come together to share their experience and capabilities in the different fields of arts in education, multimedia in education, pedagogy, environmental studies, teacher training, and research, development and teaching in the areas of distributed information systems so that their existing, core professional skills, knowledge and experience will be expanded in to new and related fields. Project workflow and Outcomes: The project will include: • Research and report on the state-of-the-art art integration in schools /Repository of articles, academic papers / projects on the subject • Expanding the didactic resources • Creating the e-ARTinED Educational programme for teachers, trainers, artists • Piloting in schools and in nature settings • Evaluation and analysis of piloting • Case studies and collecting best practices • Preparing the 4-month e-ARTinED Online Course and delivering • Evaluating the Online Course • Setting up and developing the e-ARTinED Community of Practice • Dissemination online (website, social network, e-newsletters) and offline including 6 multiplying events such as workshops, presentation and artistic performances and attendance in international conferences. Organization of the e-ARTinED International Conference in Sweden. • Sustainability • Quality Assurance Impact: The project will reach the wider community of teachers, trainers, artists, school authorities, curriculum experts, educational decision makers, through dissemination campaigns that will reach the target groups across Europe, starting from the partner countries with 35.000 estimated participants to online and offline activities, which include an International Conference in Sweden and a series of multiplying events. The website and the ARTinED Community of Practice are intended as major sustainability tools and the e-ARTinED Online Course will be expanded and mainstreamed to additional geographical areas.