Creative Arts
Margaret Bradley
Creative Arts Unit, Curriculum K-12
Focus on creative arts
o Teaching and learning in creative arts
– what is it?
o Explicit teaching in the arts-what does
it look like?
o Assessment in the arts-how do you do
it?
o Support for COGs and creative arts
The arts…
o play a significant role in how meaning is
made in people’s lives.
o provide opportunities for personal
expression, enjoyment, creative action,
imagination, emotional response,
aesthetic pleasure and the creation of
shared meanings.
o provide opportunities to explore cultures,
traditions and to interpret experience.
BOS Creative Arts K-6 syllabus
Music activity
Abba Dabba
COGS STRING F
Powering on
Stage 1
Explicit teaching in music
Teaching and learning experiences:
o Performing
- singing
- playing
- moving
o Organising sound
- experimenting, imitating, improvising, arranging,
composing and notating
o Listening
- aural skill development
- awareness, discrimination, memory, sequencing,
imagination
The concepts of music
o Duration
o Pitch
o Dynamics
o Tone colour
o Structure
Repertoire
oVocal music
oInstrumental music
oStudent compositions
oMovement
Assumptions
Drawing/ performing/ dancing/
singing is based on talent and cannot
be learned.
2 The arts should be primarily about
having fun.
1
The arts are good activities for
students of lower academic
ability.
3
More assumptions
The key outcome in the arts is the
performance/ exhibition.
4
The key outcome in the arts is selfexpression.
5
6
Assessment in the arts is subjective.
Assessing student artworks destroys
confidence.
7
Progress in creative arts
o Related to child development
o Related to exposure and experience…how
many different opportunities have they had
to develop their skills? (range and depth)
o As students progress they should be able to
complete tasks with increasing skill,
complexity and independence.
In creative arts …
o What do you want students to learn?
o Why does it matter?
o What are you going to get the
students to do?
o How well do you expect them to do
it?
In creative arts …
o What do you want students to learn?
DANCE
DRAMA
MUSIC
VISUAL ARTS
Knowledge, skills, understandings in
foundation statements
Foundation statements …
o What must be taught
o Common curriculum requirements in
creative arts
o Encompass outcomes
o Allow selection of content for your
context
DANCE
DRAMA
MUSIC
VISUAL ARTS
In creative arts …
o Why does it matter?
Cognitive and affective learning
Artistic and cultural
understandings
Equity
Choice
Research
In creative arts …
o What are you going to get the
students to do?
Planned activities and
explicit teaching
of skills and knowledge
COGs
Scope and sequence
Capacity building
I can sing or play a musical
instrument well.
I can dance well.
I can act well.
I can draw or paint well.
EXPLICIT TEACHING IN THE ARTS
o Facilitating
o Modelling
o Participating with students
o Investigating with students
o Building confidence through practice
o Not having to be an expert
COG unit: ME (ES1)
Consider:
How did explicit teaching
affect the learning outcomes
here?
Assessing the creative arts …
o How well do you expect them to do
it?
Establish relevant criteria
Criteria acknowledge a range of creative
responses
Assessment practices apply to visual arts,
dance, drama and music
Assessment of/for learning
o assessment should be an ongoing process
of gathering evidence over time
o the evidence is drawn from both the
processes and finished artworks
o it also includes what students say and write
about their own works and others' works
o assessment should not be based on
finished artworks alone
Assessment strategies
o Observation
o Discussion
o Assessment of process
o Assessment of student work samples
o Record keeping
Music example – STRING F
Outcomes and indicators (Stage 1):
MUS1.1 Sings, plays and moves to a range of music, demonstrating an
awareness of musical concepts
• performs chants and accompanies with ostinato patterns.
MUS1.2 Explores, creates, selects and organises sound in simple structures
• vary text to create a new chant.
MUS1.3 Uses symbol systems to represent sounds
• create rhythmic ostinato patterns and notate using a beat grid.
MUS1.4 Responds to a range of music, expressing likes and dislikes and the
reasons for these choices
• experiences the relationship between beat and rhythm patterns while
performing
• identifies use of tempo and dynamics in student performances.
Assessing within this COG
Assessment strategy
The teacher:
• observes student’s participation in class activities.
Assessment criteria
The student:
• performs chants
• accompanies chanting with body percussion and other
ostinato patterns
• performs and creates patterns using a beat grid
• performs and creates own chants
• recognises variations in tempo and dynamics.
These criteria relate to outcomes
MUS1.1, MUS1.2, MUS1.3, MUS1.4.
Support for COGs
For work samples, additional strategies,
professional learning opportunities
Curriculum K-12 website: creative arts
www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au
Support for COGs
We would like to include you on our
network, so we can continue to support
you in your teaching of COGS and the
creative arts in your schools.
Contact
Margaret Bradley
PHONE 9886 7530
FAX 9886 7655
EMAIL margaret.bradley@det.nsw.edu.au