“Why hasn’t your group completed the task in the allotted time?” “What is so challenging about this step?” “You look frustrated. What is causing you to feel that way?” “I notice no group has moved on to step 3. Why not?”

Each circle identifies what students do. Students 1) imagine, examine, and perceive; 2) explore, experiment, and develop craft; 3) create; 4) reflect, assess, and revise, and 5) share their products with others. The arrows indicate the ways teachers can guide students through the creative process.

Arts integration is naturally engaging. Opportunities for individual choice, autonomy, and self-regulation abound. Students are engaged in collaborative learning experiences with peers in which they share and build on each other’s ideas, consider options, make decisions, compromise honorably, and learn to work together to achieve a shared goal. Coping skills and strategies are embedded in the process.

Through the creative process, students build and express their understanding of an area of study and the art form, using the wide variety of languages and formats that the arts offer. Each art form has a myriad of adaptations to accommodate various learning needs5

When students are engaged in arts integration, they develop skills in accessing and evaluating information (in both the art form and the other curriculum area).

how to create “a new learning environment consistent with the cognitive and expressive demands of the 21st century.”3