Youth benefit from involvement in the arts. At the same time, youth from families with low incomes are about half as likely to have access to arts instruction as youth from families with more resources, due to cuts in arts education which disproportionally affect schools in under-resourced communities that have been economically and socially…

Targeting students in grades K-8, Art in Action's program consists of 12 age-appropriate lessons per year led by parent and teacher volunteers. The curriculum is based on historically significant artists and their works of art. Through semi-structured discussions, students examine a variety of masterpieces, learning about the artist as well as…

A collaboration between youth in a refugee camp in Malawi, U.S. college students, and a professor of folklore has produced a website and forthcoming book manuscript. The project augments opportunities for the artists, all of whom are refugees or asylum seekers, to share their work, bring visibility to the talent in the camp, raise awareness about…

Targeting students in grades K-8, Art in Action's program consists of 12 age-appropriate lessons per year led by parent and teacher volunteers. The curriculum is based on historically significant artists and their works of art. Through semi-structured discussions, students examine a variety of masterpieces, learning about the artist as well as…

The arts offer a cost effective and appealing approach to healthy aging. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the development and implementation of three creative aging pilot programs led by professional teaching artists in multipurpose senior centers. The process of recruitment focused on professional teaching artists, senior center…

This article reflects on ongoing research-led teaching in the area of creative industries in higher education. Specifically it reports on key work-integrated learning strategies designed to better prepare graduates for the employment sector. The creative industries sector is complex and competitive, characterized by non-linear career paths driven…

This Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project was a 2-year exploratory study focusing on differentiating the curriculum in response to individual learner differences. The project was designed to explore learning and teaching of differentiated scientific content through observational processes and the expression of that learning…

The Artist-Teacher Collaborative (ATC) program is a partnership between the Armory Center for the Arts and Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). A central goal of this program, which is supported by the U. S. Department of Education, is to provide sustained, rigorous professional development to 3rd through 5th grade PUSD teachers, instilling in…

In 2010-2011, students in twenty-five classrooms from eleven schools in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area participated in The Children's Theatre Company's Neighborhood Bridges (Bridges) program. The Children's Theatre Company contracted with the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) to…

This interim progress report provides a look at Turnaround Arts schools in their first year, including: (1) a summary of the evaluation design and research questions; (2) a preliminary description of strategies used to introduce the arts in Turnaround Arts schools; and (3) a summary of school reform indicators and student achievement data at…

This handbook demonstrates a practical approach for establishing and presenting quality in-school programs that bring students, teachers, and professional artists together. The first of five chapters presents a rationale for arts education, emphasizing that art can "turn on" children to the pleasure and excitement of aesthetic experience,…

San Francisco sculptor Ruth Asawa discusses her own artistic development and describes the Alvarado Arts Workshop, a community-based arts education program begun by herself, other parents, and community leaders in the San Francisco schools. (Author/SJL)

How do you make something better? This is a fundamental question of professional development the national network of Young Audiences (YA) undertook to answer about its artist residency programs. The basic question assumes that those asking the question know what the "something" is, how effective it is in its current state, and what "it" is…