Episode Details

Randy Barron, a Kennedy Center teaching artist who works in dance and choreography, explains arts integration: students build their own art piece to show what they understand about another subject. A teacher does not have to be a dancer, only set a creative problem and turn the class loose.

In a fifth grade lesson, students built dance phrases for the water cycle, performed them, and explained their choices. Barron has them draft, watch, give feedback from evidence, then revise. He says this is efficient because students never forget what they put in their bodies.

What you'll learn

• Set a creative problem for students to solve in an art form, then let them construct and show their understanding.
• Match an art form to the subject where the link is strong, like dance with science and poetry, and expect math to connect through concepts, not drills.
• Treat first drafts as a start: have students perform, give evidence-based feedback, then revise.
• Look for a Kennedy Center partnership workshop in your state as a way to get teachers started.
• Give teachers room to move furniture and let kids move around, and make time for them to collaborate with a partner.

Chapters

• 0:00 What a Kennedy Center teaching artist does
• 1:37 What arts integration is and is not
• 3:56 Connecting dance with science, poetry and math
• 6:48 Dancing the water cycle in class
• 8:35 First drafts, feedback and revising dances
• 13:52 How Barron became a dancer and teacher
• 17:34 Is there time? Uncover, don't cover, curriculum
• 23:41 How principals and teachers can get started

Times are for the episode without ads. Your player may be off by the length of any ads.

Questions this episode answers

What is arts integration in the classroom?
Barron cites the Kennedy Center definition: an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students use a creative process to connect the art form with another subject and meet objectives in both.

How can you teach standards through dance when time is short?
Barron says arts integration is efficient. He compares an hour of reading and video about the water cycle to an hour of students putting it in their bodies, where they will never forget it. He also says dance brings in vocabulary and language.

What can principals do to support arts integration?
Barron tells principals to give teachers a little breathing space despite testing pressure, and to trust that kids who are up moving furniture are learning. He also says to create time for teachers to collaborate and watch each other.

About Randy Barron

Kennedy Center teaching artist in dance and choreography, on the Kennedy Center roster since 1995, who has led this work in 37 states.

Links and resources

• Randy Barron Kennedy Center profile
• Kennedy Center
• Email Randy Barron
• Randy Barron website

Working on this at your school? Get a free preview of a 10-week leadership pathway built from episodes like this one at transformativeprincipal.com/start.

Thanks to our Sponsor Broadcast Made Easy who help you start a news broadcast at your school by having everything you need in one easy-to-download place. Check it out today and get your kids creating. 

We’re proud to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s compre