National+Coaltion+Writers+to+Meet

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writing teams will meet
The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) writing teams representing dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts will meet in Reston, Virginia, June 19-22. The five teams, convening in-person for the first time, are drafting the Next Generation Arts Standards. They will gather, along with NCCAS Leadership, at the offices of the National Association for Music Education, the National Arts Education Association, and the College Board for a series of high-focus writing sessions in each of their disciplines.

The meeting will feature a live video broadcast session entitled Embedding Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions and Cornerstone Assessments into the new Core Arts Standards, on Wednesday, June 20, at 3:45 p.m. EST. The session will be streamed from the NCCAS wiki at http://nccas.wikispaces.com; questions and comments will be accepted on a companion live blog.

NCCAS is committed to developing a next generation of voluntary, researched-based arts education standards that will build on the foundation created by the 1994 document (and the 2005 Standards for Learning and Teaching Dance in the Arts), support the 21st-century needs of students and teachers, help ensure that all students are college and career ready, and affirm the place of arts education in a balanced core curriculum.

Writers from around the country were chosen in 2011 in an open call to the arts fields of dance, music, theatre and visual arts. In January, a media arts team was added in recognition of the growing interest in the diverse 21st-century media tools that have created new modes of expression and teaching in public education, NCCAS leadership is relying on the media arts writing team to create a set of standards that will be equal in rigor, breadth, and depth as those of dance, music, theatre and visual arts, while simultaneously recognizing that media arts will be embedded within each of the traditional forms as a pathway for knowing and understanding.

Guided by the current overarching organizing framework designed by the team chairs, the writing groups have been meeting virtually since January of 2012 to define what K-12 students know and can do in their arts areas. An updated version of the framework is planned for public release following the Reston meeting.

Project Director Philip Shepherd said that NCCAS leaders, chairs, and the writing teams are excited about the opportunity to come together and move the work forward. “We all know that an in-person meeting creates a different kind of dynamic from that of working online,” he said. “I expect the intense focus and synergy that naturally evolves in these kinds of sessions to advance the work by leaps and bounds and for the momentum to carry the writers into the next months with resolve. We have outstanding teams and I think they fully recognize their joint goal—to create standards and model assessments that will help guide educators toward the highest quality in arts education.”

Based on the work of consultants Jay and Daisy McTighe, the standards will be grounded in cornerstone assessments: illustrative examples of student learning and gathered student work samples that will be housed in a virtual web-based environment using a database that allows easy user access to a wide range of tools and resources. According to Shepherd, the cornerstone assessments are intended to articulate what students should know and be able to do, while simultaneously providing examples of effective practice.

The Next Generation Arts Standards Project follows in the footsteps of other curricular subjects, including English language arts, mathematics, and science, in an overhaul of their learning standards. Council of Chief State School Officers Executive Director Gene Wilhoit affirms the value of new arts standards as a key to student success. “I’m very glad that there is now a coordinated effort underway within the arts community to write new national arts education standards,” he said. “In our re-imagining of how education is delivered in this country, standards that clearly articulate what students know and can do in the arts will be a key component to ensuring that they become the creative and innovative citizens we need to succeed and compete in the emerging global economy.”

To view the most current information about the project, including the five College Board research reports underpinning the new standards, visit the coalition’s wiki at http://nccas.wikispaces.com.