Arts Advocacy
This microcredential represents knowledge, skills, and practices needed to effectively advocate for the arts in an elementary school setting. Arts advocacy includes leadership skills related to communication (writing, public speaking, sharing your story, etc.), strategy (alignment of standards and programs), and building relationships (parents, communities, admin, etc.).
To earn this microcredential you will need to collect and submit two sets of evidence showing how you advocate for arts education. You will also complete a short written or video reflective analysis.
This microcredential represents more than a teacher’s ability to create a portfolio or make a presentation at a state or national conference. This microcredential focuses on displaying evidence of a teacher's ability to effectively advance the value of the arts in schools by sharing the impact of arts education and arts integration on student learning in their community, school, and/or classroom.
Arts education refers to the teaching and learning of skills, processes, appreciation, and application of dance, drama, music, media arts, literary arts, and visual arts.
Arts Integration:Arts integration refers to teaching in which students are engaged in creative processes by exploring, reflecting, interpreting, connecting, applying and demonstrating knowledge of specific objectives in multiple content areas. Integration occurs when learned and applied skills in multiple content areas synergistically and authentically connect to each other. Authentic integration reflects students' life experience and prepares them to contribute positively to society.
Arts Advocacy:Arts advocacy is advancing the value of the arts in schools by promoting the impact of arts education and/or arts integration on student learning in schools. Arts advocacy includes promoting student work, the work of local arts and arts education organizations, and arts-based instructional practices.
Mr. Price has used basic drawing and mind-mapping instructional practices to help his third-graders comprehend, discuss, and make connections to his reading instruction. He has seen students’ reading comprehension and critical thinking skills improve. Mr. Price also integrates the district reading program into the activities that prepare students to draw in their mind map. He shares the impact of this strategy with his principal via a white page/report with information on student growth and delivers it to her office. The principal is intrigued and asks to observe these ideas in a lesson in his classroom. This leads the principal to invite Mr. Price to conduct workshops on this strategy during faculty professional development. As this is related to a district-wide goal and program, he is asked to present at the district’s PD conference as well the next summer. His visual arts mentors who provided professional development at the beginning of his journey learned of this success and invited him to co-present with him at the National Arts Education Association conference in Washington D.C. as an example of how the arts support deep learning in the elementary classroom.
Ms. Paulsen teaches 6th grade. During her first five years teaching she discovered the necessity of arts instruction in her classroom. She produces a Shakespeare play with the students in the fall, helps them create their own 3-D sculptures in the winter, and co-produces the Family Arts Festival for the entire student-body and their parents in the spring. Other schools in her area are impressed with the culture of the community at her school and want to know how they can implement something similar in their school. Ms. Paulsen shares her online arts portfolio with her counterparts at the other school and provides guidance for securing rights for a play along with production considerations for a Family Arts Festival. The other school adopts and adapts Ms. Paulsen’s vision for the arts and the middle school that these two schools feed into develop theatre and dance programs to meet the arts needs of the students now coming to their building.
Ms. Summer is looking for more opportunities for her high school students to perform their own choreography and receive feedback from professionals in the field of dance. She believes other dance company directors in her district have a similar need. She builds a relationship with her District Arts Coordinator who then connects her with the other dance educators in her district. She leads the group in developing an annual district-wide dance festival for the high-schools that then inspires the middle-schools to create a similar festival. Ms. Summer’s high school students begin to share their experiences at the festival on social media. As the middle school students experience their own festival and see the value of the high school festival to their older peers, enrollment numbers in the high school program begin to grow. Ms. Summer is invited to serve as a high school representative on the Utah Dance Education Organization board and now shares her story with other dance educators and school and district administrators across the state via social media and conference presentations.
Category: Preparation and Planning
Select ONE of the evidence options below to demonstrate your preparation and planning to advocate for arts education.
Submit a 1-2 page word or google document that describes your intentions, success criteria, and rational for your arts advocacy goals. Include the strategy you intend to use for communication and relationship building to achieve your advocacy goals. Include how you will assess your goals and determine your efforts were a success
Submit a 1-2 page word or google document that describes and reveals data collected that supports your particular advocacy need and how you plan to address that need. Include one section on the evidence of a need and another section on your plan to serve that need through advocacy activities.
Category: Implementation
Select ONE of the evidence options below to demonstrate your effective advocacy for arts education.
Option 1: Submit a 3-5 minute video documenting your efforts in arts advocacy that includes evidence of your work and reflection on the impact of your advocacy activities.
Option 2: Submit a 3-5 minute video advocating for your particular arts program, event, pedagogy or concept. Submit the video with a one page reflection describing how the video was published, where it was disseminated, and how it was received.
Option 3: Provide a recording or transcript of a presentation you shared with colleagues, administrators, or district curriculum specialists about how you’ve aligned arts integrated teaching with different programs within your school, district or state. lesson plans, curriculum maps, slideshows, or articles that show how you have aligned your arts integrated teaching with priorities from different programs within the school, district and state.
Submit white pages, research papers, newsletters, event programs, or fliers you used as part of your advocacy activities with a brief (1-2 paragraph) description of each artifact, how it was used, and its effectiveness towards your advocacy goals.
Submit a letter of recommendation from a colleague, community arts advocate, or school or district administrator who can write about the quality and impact of your arts advocacy knowledge and skills.
Submit a 1-2 page word or google document that describes the results of a survey or focus group discussion in relation to your arts advocacy activities.
Submit a 1-3 page word or google document with testimonials (at least five) from students, parents, colleagues and/or administrators written in regards to your arts advocacy knowledge and skills. Include the voices of at least three different stakeholders (not just colleagues or students).
Submit a link to your website that houses your advocacy materials or documents your advocacy activities. Along with the link, submit a paragraph describing what the website is, what we should be looking for, and how it demonstrates your arts advocacy knowledge and skills.
Create a presentation about the value of the arts based on current research and information. Present it to your principal, faculty, parents or district leaders.
Acquire the funding and bring a teaching artist to your school for a residency. Submit a 1-2 page reflection describing this experience.
Share a link to an article you wrote for a magazine, newsletter, blog, website, or journal that shares your story and the impact the arts have had on you and your students.
Share a social media handle that demonstrates continued and impactful arts advocacy activities.
Provide a report of your participation on the school community council and your advocacy efforts to advance the role of the arts in that venue.
Provide a report detailing your leadership contributions to a school arts team.
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The evidence demonstrates strategic alignment of the advocacy activities with the advocacy goals.
Criterion 2: The evidence demonstrates that the arts advocacy strategies were effective in reaching the individual’s advocacy goals.
Criterion 3: The evidence demonstrates that this individual embodies arts advocacy as a way of being a leader in the educational system.
Describe how you participate in arts advocacy as a consistent part of your leadership in your school, community, district, state, or nation.
Discuss how your students benefit from your arts advocacy.
How do you plan to develop your advocacy skills in the future?
Review Criteria
Criterion 1: The educator provides compelling evidence that arts advocacy is a part of their consistent practice as a teacher.
Criterion 2: The educator provides compelling evidence that arts advocacy effectively serves students and their communities.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tips-providing-students-meaningful-feedback-marianne-stenger
This article gives you the research behind feedback and the ways to effectively give feedback to your students.
Build an Arts Rich Schools
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/67
This website covers several strategies for educational leaders to nurture the arts culture within their school(s).
Involve Parents
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/69
These resources provide information on how parents can play a role in the effort to increase access to arts experiences for children in the state of Utah.
Utilize Community Partners
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/70
This website provides a list of community organizations that provide professional development, conferences with an arts education focus, links to professional associations, and organizations that offer in-school arts experiences.
Work with Administration
http://advancingartsleadership.com/node/68
This website provides resources and ideas for working with administration to support arts programs in schools.
Melissa Deletant
Lori Nickerson
Bethany Struthers
250 East 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84111-3204
Phone: 801.538.7807