MUSC 448: Integrated Arts/Music is a course that focuses on the study of the value and practical application of integrating the arts across all content areas of the curriculum. In this class I learned how to play instruments such as the ukulele, boomwhacker, egg shaker, rhythm sticks, and more. Learning to play instruments was out of my comfort zone: I have never played an instrument in my life. Taking the time to learn, practice, and perform with different instruments taught me discipline and how to embrace my creative side. Other than playing instruments in this course, I also learned how to plan lessons that integrated the arts into regular classroom instruction. Integrating arts is a teaching strategy that merges arts standards with core curricula to build connections and provide engaging context. Integrating arts is not just having students draw a picture that relates to their writing or having students participate in a GoNoodle. It runs much deeper than that; Arts Integration is grounded in connected standards.  Integrating arts increases the opportunity to serve all types of learners in the classroom and helps decrease the wide distinction between academics and the arts.

 I had the opportunity to work collaboratively with my peers to practice this process of Arts Integration. We were assigned a “planning team” in which each team had specific specialized teachers. For example, there was a language arts teacher, a science teacher, a history teacher, and a music teacher all in one group. We simulated the process of what group planning among teachers would look like. I learned a lot about the importance of standard alignment in lessons as well as how important the arts were through this process and was able to share my knowledge with the rest of the class. 

Here is my group’s  integrated arts lesson plan in PowerPoint form. 

(Fall 2021)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19by4G9sP1RsQR8aJ1E9OmNWbT5ZjTtMgeroaof9iOVM/edit?usp=sharing

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