CCA TI Pedagogy
The CCA Teaching Institute (TI) operates within a greater ecology of county and national initiatives focused on community arts, equity and systemic reform in public education, collectively working to advance the arts in society.
Two pedagogical frameworks inform TI's approach to curriculum design, developed by Project Zero researchers and educators at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Through combining these approaches, TI enables participants to develop effective curricula that will contextualize their students’ efforts within historical and contemporary traditions and a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and cultures.
Teaching for Understanding (TfU) is a framework that guides educators’ efforts in designing effective, efficient and relevant instruction. By focusing on fundamental questions, this tool points to generative, necessary decisions for planning, reviewing and assessing curriculum. The end result is that students develop a genuine understanding of important subject matter, concepts and topics, and have the skills to flexibly apply knowledge in diverse contexts. TfU grew out of the progressive education tradition, which assumes that learning occurs through sustained efforts, active engagement with authentic challenges and rigorous inquiry.
The Studio Thinking Framework (STF) illuminates the idea that the practice of making and looking at art develops students' minds, and it provides a common language for educators who are integrating the arts in their curriculum. The framework emphasizes the habits of mind, or dispositions, that teachers want students to internalize, cutting across differences in disciplines, media, perspectives and grade level. Generalist teachers are supported in focusing instruction toward serious goals in art disciplines; arts teachers are supported in communicating their intentions to students and assessing what is made, said and done in relation to those intentions. The model organizes teaching into three structures, on which to base class time and interactions:
- Demonstration/Lectures
- Students-at-Work
- Critique
Outcomes
Qualitative and quantitative data point to the fact that students who learn in environments where art is an integral, active part of their daily education are more engaged across subject areas, more easily find entry-points to learning and are better problem solvers. By empowering teachers to integrate arts into their curriculum, TI enhances immediate learning goals while also offering students an opportunity to shape and interpret complex visual communication. For more information about the results of learning through art, visit the California Alliance for Arts Education.
