The Region 12 Comprehensive Center conducted a national scan of formative assessment supports provided by state education agencies. The report presents common themes in formative assessment support, a series of supports by content and grade area as well as by modality of professional learning, and illustrative examples. It also examines…

The importance of visual literacy development is demonstrated using social studies examples from an innovative, collaborative arts program. Discussion of the Visual Thinking Strategies approach, connections to the Common Core State Standards, prompts for higher-order critical thinking, and the application of historical and social science ideas in…

Developing students' understanding and fluency of the visual arts is one of the central goals of arts education for all students, regardless of grade level (Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, 1994). Yet, as many educators and arts advocates are quick to point out, the arts have consistently been cut from educational budgets and…

This paper discusses the concept of character formation as it can be positively impacted by folk arts in education. A long-standing tradition in U.S. education is for the teacher to take a leading role in molding the character of young people, as outlined through the years by such scholars as Thomas Jefferson, Horace Mann, and Rachel Davis DuBois.…

This guide provides teachers with background information and teaching activities to prepare students for a visit to the Spanish Quarter Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. It is designed to familiarize students with some of the concepts and words they will encounter in the open-air living history museum where interpreters in period clothing re-live…

Seven teachers, part of an Arts Integration Community of Practice, used rubrics to measure student learning and artistic skills. Examples from five sites, across a variety of academic content areas and age levels, and with students of varying disabilities, are included in this article. Results suggest that rubrics may be a useful tool for…

This article addresses an arts-integrated social studies curriculum for grades three through five entitled Artful Citizenship, designed by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant program, the design and implementation of the program…

This study documented elementary teachers' reported practices in mathematics, science, social studies, literature, art, and music. The study also identified the extent to which teachers espoused instructional goals and practices associated with teaching for understanding compared with basic skills approaches. Respondents were 678 elementary school…

This course of study was written as part of a total effort to revise curriculum to fit the quinmester (five 9-week periods) administrative organization of the Dade County Schools. The major intent of this publication is to provide a broad framework of goals and objectives, content, teaching strategies, class activities, and materials all related…