Incorporating Art into Core Classes
Author: Hsin Tzu Mighall
Embedded Files
Learning Targets:
1. Explain why incorporating art into core subjects is essential for student learning.
2. Demonstrate strategies for integrating art that increase student engagement and support diverse learners.
3. Analyze how incorporating art into core classes enhances both academic achievement and creative development in students.
Why is incorporating art into elementary classrooms important?
Why is incorporating art into elementary classrooms important?
Improve engagement and motivation
Improve engagement and motivation
(Peppler et al., 2022)
Promotes equity, identity, and cultural connection
Promotes equity, identity, and cultural connection
(Peppler et al., 2022)
Strengthen brain function
Strengthen brain function
(Tyler & Likova, 2012)
Engagement
Showing active participation and focus
Activity:
Students create a diorama or mural section depicting an ecosystem important to them or their community
Understanding local ecosystems, identifying living and non-living things, food chains/webs.
Identity
Encourage self-expression and connection
Activity:
After writing or illustrating a personal narrative (e.g., "A Day I Felt Brave," "My Favorite Family Tradition," "A Time I Helped Someone"), students design a book cover for their own story.
Cultural connection
Learning geometric patterns from diverse traditional art forms
Activity:
Look at the shapes, patterns, or repeating designs in a traditional art piece (like Islamic tiles, Celtic knots, Navajo rugs, or African Kuba cloth). Try to copy a small part of the pattern using a ruler and compass, and write a short note about the math you see in the art.
Brain Function
Builds spatial reasoning, measurement, and cultural understanding through hands-on design.
Activity:
Design and build a model of a building (could be a dream house, a culturally significant structure, or a building from a historical period being studied). Requires planning dimensions, scale, and aesthetic choices.
How does Art Integration Improve Student Learning and Engagement?
How does Art Integration Improve Student Learning and Engagement?
Scenario of incorporating art in Science class
Sources:
Ecosystem Topic: Gemini
Picture generate: Gemini
Dialogue: Hsin Tzu Mighall
In what ways does art enhance both academic and creative development?
Reflection & Conclusion
According to this research, incorporating art into elementary classrooms is fundamental for comprehensive student development. As Hardiman et al. (2014) demonstrated, arts integration significantly improves long-term retention of academic content through multi-sensory learning approaches, proving that art strengthens how students process and retain core academic concepts rather than functioning as just a supplementary activity.
Additionally, James et al. (2024) provided evidence that structured arts participation enhances both academic and creative capabilities simultaneously, with music programs improving executive functions and visual arts enhancing visuospatial memory and originality. In conclusion, art integration represents a powerful educational tool that supports academic achievement while fostering creativity and engagement, creating more effective learning experiences for diverse students.
Some students may find it difficult to absorb information through reading text alone. When teachers present concepts visually—through animated graphics, photographs, or by having students create their own artwork related to the subject—visual learners can grasp the concepts more easily and better visualize real-world contexts.
In my future classroom, if I teach science, geography or any specific topic that will be helpful for students to understand the concept more. I will provide visual resources or giving students opportunity to build their own project. I have seen one of the elementary school in LA, their science class will ask each student find a topic (related to natural disaster prevention) and make a 3D project and present the concept and how to prevent the disaster to students and teacher. This can shows how multi-sensory, visual or even real artworks they made will help strengthen their brain function and give them creative ways to express their understanding, which supports what Hardiman et al. (2014) found about arts integration improving long-term memory and engagement.
How I used AI:
List the AI tool(s) used to help you create the content for your lesson (this includes tools you used for the initial research assignment as well as tools you used to write/revise/edit your essay, draft, and final lesson) and explain how you used each tool.
ChaptGpt:
During research
- Search for academic sources that suitable for my topic
- Evaluate sources for credibility (check if they are peer reviewed)
- Summarize sources to determine if they are suitable for this assignment
- List out the key points from the article for me to quickly decide which one can be my reference before actually diving into the article.
Lesson Essay
- Helping me find key points from long article for me to grab key points
- Using a study guide feature from ChatGPT to make sure I actually understand the main concept.
- Ask deeper questions about why the author thinks incorporating art in education can improve __________.
Wikibook lesson page
- Grammar check for my paragraph
- Organized the huge amount of the sources
Gemini:
Wikibook lesson page
Create the image of the imaginary class activities and some ideas of related class activities.
I also ask gemini about how to use Genially to create logical, organized, concise and visual pleasing infographic
2. Write a 2-3 sentence reflection on your use of AI in this assignment. How did AI affect your process? Did it make it easier, harder, longer, shorter? What effect, if any, did it have on your writing? What effect, if any, did it have on your understanding of your lesson topic? Do you believe it enhanced your lesson overall?
AI makes me find out the main points quicker and grasp the key points to my essay and lesson. When it comes to image, it is really hard and take a long time to generate the suitable or actually relevant picture you want on google gimini. But having related image showing what you are imagine for your classroom not only helps you visualize if that's actually you want but also let reader easily resonate with your idea.
References
Carpenter Estrada, T., Graham, M. A., Peterken, C., Cannon, M., & Harris, A. (2023). Teacher collaboration and elementary arts integration: Policy and possibility. Arts Education Policy Review, 124(3), 187–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2022.2037482
Hardiman, M., Rinne, L., Gregory, E., & Yarmolinskaya, J. (2014). The effects of arts integration on long-term retention of academic content. Mind, Brain, and Education, 8(3), 144–148. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12053
TEDx Talks. (2015). How art unlocks students’ diverse abilities | Michael Bingham | TEDxUSU. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkSeG8wBacA
James, C. E., Tingaud, M., Laera, G., Guedj, C., Zuber, S., Diambrini Palazzi, R., Vukovic, S., Richiardi, J., Kliegel, M., & Marie, D. (2024). Cognitive enrichment through art: a randomized controlled trial on the effect of music or visual arts group practice on cognitive and brain development of young children. BMC complementary medicine and therapies, 24(1), 141. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-024-04433-1
Peppler, K., Dahn, M., & Ito, M. (2022). Connected arts learning: Cultivating equity through connected and creative educational experiences. Review of Research in Education, 46(1), 264–287. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X221084322
Tyler, C. W., & Likova, L. T. (2012). The role of the visual arts in the enhancing the learning process. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 6, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00008
Page updated
Report abuse