ArtsSmarts' impact on students is two-fold. Our projects are designed to improve student engagement and cultivate 21^st century learning skills.

Across Canada there is increased attention to the important relationship between the quality of learning environments and student achievement.  Concern is growing regarding the number of students who are fading out or dropping out of school and about the gaps in achievement among different groups of students.

Research shows that many problems such as disengagement, dissatisfaction with schooling experience and dropping out are significantly linked to the learning environment.

By high school, up to 60 percent of all students - urban, suburban and rural - are chronically disengaged from school (Klem and Connell, 2004). It is estimated that 12 percent of Canadian students do not finish secondary school (Bushnik, Barr-Telford and Bussière, 2004).

Disengagement is disproportionately experienced by students living in poverty, students with disabilities, and students from ethnic minority and Aboriginal communities.  Increasingly, disengagement in and from school is linked to school violence, social exclusion, and a polarization severe enough to pose a threat to social cohesion in Canada (Willms, Friesen and Milton, 2009).

Furthermore, many education policy makers and researchers argue that, among other things, the 21^st century learning agenda must foster the development of creative and innovative habits in both the instructional practices and outcomes we strive for in schools today.

The process of inquiry, design, expression and reflection applies equally to all disciplines, however, the arts focus on the development of creativity. That makes the arts central to post-industrial education whose objective has to be the development of human resources and natural creativity.

ArtsSmarts is uniquely positioned to address the challenges of student engagement and the requirements of the 21^st century learning agenda.

Student Engagement

As a pre-requisite for improved student achievement, student engagement occurs when students make a personal and psychological investment in their learning.  At ArtsSmarts, characteristics of meaningful engagement for young people include:

• Demonstrating enthusiasm, curiosity and interest in learning
• Persisting despite challenges and obstacles
• Taking pride in accomplishing work
• Making independent connections and sometimes continuing with the work after the assignment is complete
• Having a sense of belonging at school
• Attending school
• Participating in school life both inside and outside of the classroom
• Self-motivated in efforts to learn

ArtsSmarts uses a multi-dimensional framework of engagement to measure the impact of ArtsSmarts projects on students' experience of learning across the three domains: doing, feeling and learning.  Our research results show that ArtsSmarts' projects significantly improve engagement for 30% of children and youth.

ArtsSmarts Composite of Engagement

21st Century Learning

The educational change agenda for 21^st century learning identifies the specific skills, capabilities and understandings required of young people in our knowledge-based economy.  ArtsSmarts projects focus on learning through artistic inquiry to help students develop these necessary skills.

Think Creatively. The process of developing and executing creative ideas requires time to brainstorm, explore and critically reflect.  By exposing students to artists and models of artistic inquiry, ArtsSmarts actively engages students in the steps of the creative process.  Given the opportunity to experience this process, students develop deeper knowledge and a capacity to think creatively as a way of learning.  

Understand Deeply. In the knowledge-based economy, what students know is becoming much less important than what they are able to do with what they know.  Students need a deep understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with them creatively, to generate new ideas, theories, products and knowledge.  The capacity to understand deeply is cultivated through ArtsSmarts which is reflected in the experiential, project-based collaborative learning that students experience.

Take Control of Learning. When students become active agents in their own learning they develop a capacity to integrate personal experiences, identities and complex subject matter into their thinking and expression of learning.  ArtsSmarts projects use student-designed inquiry to explore the BIG questions. Artists model and invite students to take ownership of the creative process through hands-on opportunities to develop novel ideas, propose tentative solutions and bring them to life.

Work Collaboratively. The pervasive model of education is based upon a transmission-and-acquisition approach.  Here, the teacher is assumed to possess all of the knowledge and classroom activities are designed to facilitate the teacher-to-student transfer of knowledge.  During ArtsSmarts projects students often work in groups where collective knowledge building thrives.  Collaboration also extends beyond learning with and from peers as students gain expertise through cooperation with the classroom teacher and artist, experiences with elders and community leaders, at the library or on field trips.

Ability to Reflect. Effective learning takes place when students are able to articulate their understanding and continue to reflect on it throughout the learning process.  Learning scientists have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of reflection for metacognition.  ArtsSmarts projects invite students to reflect or think about the process of learning, inquiry and knowledge.  This reflection is demonstrated through products such as reflective journals, digital records, websites, essays, drawings, three-dimensional models, exhibitions of works of art, photographs, blogs, visual and multimedia displays, and audio and video recordings of rehearsals and performances.