Innovative Strategies to Enhance Leadership Preparation for Deeper Learning

• In Event: 31.021 - Creating Strong School Leadership: New Conceptions of Principal Preparation and Development

Abstract

This presentation will share how using arts-based teaching strategies can enhance leadership preparation for deeper learning. By modeling and inspiring creativity as an essential part of leadership, aspiring leaders personally experience deeper learning and learn how to create deeper learning environments.

Researchers have proven the value of an arts-integrated curriculum. It engages students in school and motivates them to learn. Students who are typically disengaged in school are more likely to participate in arts and arts-integrated classes than in classes where the arts are absent, and students who receive arts-integrated instruction have higher attendance than those who do not (Barry, 2010; Ingram & Meath, 2007; Walker, 2011). The arts also facilitate cross-cultural understanding. Arts experiences foster pro-social behaviors and social tolerance that help prepare students for an increasingly global and culturally diverse world. However, leadership preparation programs have very few, if any, requirements to teach about the power of the arts or through the arts. In the Blueprint for Creative Schools; Core Reforms Engaging Arts to Educate (CREATE), the authors note that “Administrators at all levels…are key players in building and sustaining creative schools.... However, they are sorely lacking in preparation for administering successful arts programming ... none of the innovative and creative strategies necessary to build a creative school community are addressed….” (Agee, 2015).

The mission of the Principal Leadership Institute at the University of California, Berkeley (PLI), is to prepare, induct, and support a diverse community of equity focused school leaders who will improve education for vulnerable and historically underserved students in California’s public schools. In 18 cohorts, Berkeley PLI has prepared almost 600 educational leaders who are 50% people of color and 95% working in public education.

Practitioners from Berkeley PLI will share how it created a partnership with the campus performing arts department to give candidates an opportunity to study transformational learning and culturally relevant pedagogy in action. The presenter will share details of the partnership including how it specifically integrates art into courses, readings, and assignments. This presentation will include candidate artifacts, an analysis of pre- and post-program conceptions of art and its relationship to deeper learning, as well as photo and video documentation. In addition, data on the impact on students will be shared.

Given the overwhelming evidence that arts integration improves deeper learning through academic, social emotional, and cultural understanding in children, it is imperative that leadership preparation programs consider the implications of leading for deeper learning with and through the arts. Future leaders must experience the transformative nature of the arts during preparation so that they will be prepared to lead more equitable schools.

There is little to no scholarly work that focuses on the intersections of deeper learning through arts integration in leadership preparation. This presentation is an opportunity to provide a concrete example and develop interest in this topic for the field at large. Early data related to the impact on PLI students indicates that arts integrated preparation expands student conceptions of the arts and conceptions of deeper learning.

Author

• Rebecca Cheung, University of California - Berkeley