Artist, Teacher, and School Change Through Arts for Academic Achievement: Artists Reflect on Long-Term Partnering as a Means of Achieving Change

Abstract

The purpose of the four-year Arts for Academic Achievement project is to transform teaching and learning through partnerships between schools and artists and arts organizations. The theory of action underlying the initiative is that when teachers and artists collaboratively develop instruction that integrates arts and nonarts disciplines, instruction in nonarts disciplines becomes more effective and student achievement increases. This report is one in a series of reports based on research conducted for the Arts for Academic Achievement project by the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. The purpose of this report is to describe artist perceptions of artist, teacher, and school changes that occurred as a result of long-term artist-teacher partnerships. Data were collected from individual and group interviews with twenty-three artists who had participated in the program for three or four years.