Developing 21st Century Skills Through Arts Integration

There is growing concern and discussion about 21^st century skills, and how to best prepare today’s students for success in the global economy.  Associations and organizations, such as The Partnership for 21^st Century skills (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/), are being founded to take on the task of advocating for this set of learning and life skills and to develop frameworks, standards and other guidelines for teaching critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration.

Paul Herbert, an edweek.org blogger, recently posted his thoughts on the matter:

The 21^st century economy will rely, more than ever, on workers creative capacity –the ability to think unconventionally, question established practices, imagine new scenarios and produce astonishing work.
So how can thinking be taught without impacting on the time given to traditional subjects and affecting the content requirements of our curricula?

The key is integration.  By using a framework that teaches students to 1) work together to create an end product, 2) reflect on and revise their work, and 3) think of many ways to arrive at an answer, teachers can improve students’ learning and life skills while also teaching math, science, history and literacy.

Developed by a team of researchers at the University of Washington, Arts for Learning (A4L) Lessons is an arts integrated literacy program that is based on a framework grounded in the science of How People Learn (HPL), a publication by The National Research Council under Dr. John Bransford’s leadership.  A4L utilizes carefully selected arts integration techniques that naturally enhance, or “leverage,” students’ literacy learning, helping them acquire deeper understanding and facility for challenging literacy concepts and skills for thinking and working.

While students are learning to read and write, they are also learning how to collaborate, to plan ahead, and to think critically and creatively through the arts, effectively addressing both curriculum requirements and the need for 21^st Century skills.