AEP and ECS Are Bringing the STEAM This Summer!
04 July 2023
Connecting Dots, Making Connections, Finding Partners
12 January 2022

How do partnerships for professional development in arts integration take shape?  In this posting we’ll look at the avenue down […]

How to Create Meaningful Arts Learning Experiences Through Community Partnerships
12 October 2021

Fifth House Ensemble has been refining the design of our educational programming since our founding in 2005. With a mission […]

Novel Music Partnerships Foster Creative Performance Opportunities
05 October 2021

When live music performances and in-person art shows came to a halt during the pandemic last year, many arts professionals […]

Centering Latinx Studies in Arts and Humanities Curriculum and Pedagogy
28 September 2021

Like many district leaders across the country, in recent years Lawrence Public Schools administrators in Massachusetts moved to create more […]

Impact Stories to Inform Arts Learning Practices
21 September 2021

AEP is excited to launch the Juvenile Justice Series: Broadcasting Arts Experiences this month. Each blog post in the series […]

4 Big Takeaways From Virtual Arts Learning During the Pandemic
09 September 2021

Educating amid the pandemic has been a whirlwind for teachers, who have faced a myriad of challenges — from technology […]

Observations from the Field: How the Pandemic Impacted Arts Assessment
12 August 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the educational landscape dramatically as teachers quickly transitioned to instructing, guiding and assessing in a digital […]

How to Sustain Cultural Art Forms in Arts Education Equitably
25 May 2021

We were co-teachers of neo-traditional West African dance in an urban elementary school. Avalon, the classroom teacher, trained in the […]

Blurring the Lines: Expanding Literacy and Arts Education
27 April 2021

The impact of Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem was undeniable. The visual effect of red headband, yellow coat, updo with gold […]

What We’ve Learned About Innovations in Arts Education During a Pandemic
15 April 2021

AEP recently published a series of success stories featuring partners’ and affiliates’ pandemic-related innovations. We asked common questions of each […]

A Long Game Leads to Arts Education Policy Change
23 March 2021

Over my years as an arts educator in California, I have learned that making significant changes in arts education policy […]

Using STEAM to Support Remote Learners
02 March 2021

Since remote and hybrid learning are dominant modes of teaching for the foreseeable future, educators and students alike can benefit […]

Embracing an Enriched Literacy Approach in Quarantimes
03 November 2020

Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline, says, “No significant learning can occur without significant relationships. Connection is the key.” Students […]

Integrating the Arts to Ensure All Students Can Engage in Learning
08 September 2020

In our uncertain times, it is critical for all students to have access to arts education — provided by a […]

Partnering to Bring the Arts to Students in Rural Communities
06 November 2019

A trip to a museum provides opportunities to experience the world at different points in time — to look back […]

Supporting Student Agency, Engagement and Success Through Inclusive Folk Arts Pedagogy
04 April 2018

As a folklorist, I know that narratives based in racism, sexism and other ideologies of power and control act insidiously […]

Supporting Growing Music Programs in Public Schools
31 January 2018

Starting a new music program is quite an undertaking, especially for a school principal who does not have a music […]

Linking Learning and the Arts in ArtsConnection’s DELLTA Program
02 November 2017

What is the nature of teaching and learning in dance and theater; and, in what ways do they influence second […]

Student Achievement Through the Arts in Education
21 June 2017

Education has transformed over the past several years, motivated by the understanding that today’s students must be prepared to succeed […]

Promising Practices in Arts Education
20 July 2016

The Arts Education Partnership (AEP), the newest center at Education Commission of the States, continues to be showcasing the promising practices […]

Title: 2280 Pasos Bajo un Cielo Nublado | Artist: Hernán Jourdan | Medium: Film

When I was asked to create a work of art exploring literacy, I wanted to create a dance but I had no dancers or a studio, so I chose to use my own body in the space I had, my yard. Fluent Nature is video of micro-choreography that explores what cannot be expressed with words, how nature has its own language, and how placing the human body in nature changes the story.

Title: What Is Me and What Is Not Me | Artist: Alex Chadwell | Medium: Music

My thinking on arts and literacy centers around the concept of literacies and artmaking as both sense-making and meaning-making processes that organically and inevitably overlap, intersect, and reciprocate. Compositionally, What is me and what is not me is a sound collage of sorts (there is no notation for the piece, and I'd be hard pressed to recreate it accurately) that abstractly and aurally represents the relationships between literacies and artmaking.

Title: A Curious Honeybee | Artist: Gideon Young | Medium: Film

Offering welcome through traditional and digital elements of literacy, A Curious Honeybee provides an experiential learning environment by activating visual, musical, natural, and emotional literacies.

Title: Tercera Llamada | Artist: Karilú Forshee | Medium: Audio

La Carpa Theatre is a project that I am currently directing in the Detroit Latinx community. The project aims to strengthen and uplift youth voices through devised theatre, in the style of the Mexican Carpas. This audio was created in the theatrical environment envisioned for our project. The ways in which literacies are re-defined are at the heart of La Carpa Theatre's mission.

Title: Literaseas | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite and ink on paper with digital edits

Title: A Riddle | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits

Title: False Binaries | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits