Teachers’ Early Development in Arts Integration Through Creative Routines in the Classroom

• In Event: Multidisciplinary Research Perspectives on Arts Education for Middle Level Learners

Abstract

Objectives
This paper explores an arts integration professional development (PD) approach focused on teachers’ early development in creative teaching and learning through brief multimodal creative routines that emphasize modeling, messaging, and reflection. This study aims to understand how teachers perceive and respond to students’ early experiences with creative learning routines and what this new understanding suggests for teachers’ creative development and preparation for arts integration.

Theoretical Framework
An objective of arts integration is creative engagement—meaningful creative learning experiences that develop students’ creative resources—creative attitudes, creative thinking skills, and creative behaviors (Author_Paper1, 2020; Lubart et al., 2013). Creative engagement draws on the universal need for learning in self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) alongside principles of embodiment and metaphor (Author_Paper1, 2023; Dewey, 1938; Gallagher & Lindgren, 2015) in creative development, and multimodal creative routines bring this framework to life (see Table 1).

Methods & Data Sources
Participating teachers engaged in a PD program designed to support integration of artistic and creative practices into everyday classrooms. The participating middle level educators (N = 120) were 49.2% non-White and came from 12 schools in a single large Northeastern U.S. urban school district. At the program midpoint, teachers implemented a creative routine five times in their classroom and reflected on this experience. These reflections serve as the data sources. Creative teaching and learning is a layered phenomenon (Jeffrey & Craft, 2004) encapsulating teaching for creativity, teaching creatively, and creative learning (Lin, 2011). These three components framed the thematic analysis which included coding and pattern-finding toward meaningful theme development (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Results
Teachers emphasized the importance of understanding the vulnerability students feel sharing creative ideas and work with others, as one teacher shared “…I think seeing that there really was no wrong answers helped the students to see that it was okay to take risks and that when I said mistakes are ok, they now trust that. This makes them more willing to be vulnerable.” Many teachers creatively adapted the routines in response to their students and in connection to their academic content. They balanced the discomfort of watching students struggle with the commitment to repeat the routine at least five times, often finding that student persistence through struggle amplified the joy and excitement. Teachers set and reinforced conditions for creative engagement through their own modeling and creative risk-taking.

Scholarly Significance
Middle school reluctance in creative engagement is likely tied to the role that social acceptance plays during this early adolescent stage (Dahl et al., 2018) and the outsized role social conformity plays, especially for boys (Marasco, 2018). Students’ reluctance is likely related to teachers’ own fears and anxieties for creative expression as well (Author_Paper1, 2022), so practicing creative routines together can offer teachers and students brief, low-stakes opportunities with different artistic and creative modalities before scaffolding toward more intensive and vulnerable creative expression, such as integrating theater. When teachers were given scaffolded and repeated experiences in PD, they scaffolded these routines for students, built trust, and witnessed joy unfold.

Author

• Ross C. Anderson, Creative Engagement Lab