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Want to learn more about how to take the amazing lesson plans and resources you work hard to develop, share and implement in your classroom with the world as Open Educational Resources? Want to find out more about how to share them on Oregon Open Learning?
Contact us at: OregonOpenLearning@ode.oregon.gov
Do you know of other educators who would be interested in receiving Oregon Open Learning’s Monthly Newsletter? If so, send them this link: OOL Monthly Newsletter or use the QR code to the right.
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Arts education in our schools is an incredibly important component to all students’ success, whether we’re talking about academic, social, or emotional outcomes. Decades of research have shown this repeatedly. To kick off the New Year, the Oregon Open Learning team is celebrating Arts Education by highlighting lots of cool things going on in the Arts, including showcasing some amazing arts educators and some arts-centered Open Educational Resources (OER).
By the way, did you know the Oregon Open Learning (OOL) hub on the OERCommons website includes well over 200 high-quality arts OER separated by grade level?
It's true! Check out the Oregon Arts group if you haven’t already.
One Oregon arts educator we are thrilled to include in this month’s COOL is Shannon Johnson; she is ODE’s Education Specialist for the Arts and part of the Well-Rounded, Integrated & Digital Learning (WRIDL) team. Shannon was the lead author of the recently released Arts Access Toolkit.
Shannon explained that the toolkit is “part of the Well-Rounded Access Program (WRAP) initiative to increase access for Oregon students to Arts and STEAM learning opportunities.” She went on to explain that the toolkit “is organized into an accessible digital collection, highlighting both agency-developed and externally developed resources to assist districts in offering and sustaining high quality, standards-aligned arts programs.”
The purpose of the Arts Access Toolkit is:
- To raise awareness about the benefits of arts learning opportunities for students, with the aim of increasing access to arts learning opportunities in all Oregon schools.
- To support new and emerging arts programs with clarifications around the requirements for arts programs and resources for standards-aligned, comprehensive arts program planning.
- To support existing arts programs with resources to refine and further develop their arts offerings to provide accessible and high-quality arts learning experiences for their students.
Be sure to check out our calendar of events below which includes a number of arts and arts education-related events across Oregon and beyond!
I am the Arts Education Specialist at ODE, on the Well-Rounded, Integrated & Digital Learning team (WRIDL). I am currently working on an exciting project called the WRAP program, to increase access to arts and STEAM programming for Oregon students. Before coming to ODE, I taught visual art for about 13 years, in both Minnesota and Oregon. I’ve worked with all ages, and have really enjoyed my K-8 positions because I got to grow and learn alongside my students for 9 years!
Passions in Education
I really think learning in the arts is the foundation of humans learning to be human, and to care for self and community. We need so much right now to provide opportunities for students to connect and support each other. Students today are sorting through amazing amounts of information and stimuli. Opportunities to learn to process and interpret this information, and express their own unique ideas, can help them grow into their identities and build so many important skills – the arts are absolutely essential!
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Arts News
There are many creative opportunities to use the arts as a community building experience in our schools. The arts have so much power to develop a shared sense of purpose, care and connection. In artmaking, we have to be vulnerable, and share our stories with others. If you don’t consider yourself an “art person,” it will say something to your students if you are willing to share these kinds of learning experiences with them. Also there is nothing better than getting artistic gifts from students. 😊 Through the Arts, Care & Connection program, we are hoping to bring more of these opportunities to educators, students, and schools across Oregon.
Open Educational Resources in the Arts
The Oregon Arts Group newsletter recently highlighted a PBS Neo-Folk Art lesson with Kristin Farr. Summary: “Watch this step by step video as artist Kristin Farr demonstrates how to paint your very own "Magic Hecksagon," which is a colorful, geometric design inspired by folk art. She uses a plethora of different colors to bring a sense of motion to her work.”
Contact Information
You can reach me at Shannon.johnson@ode.oregon.gov, Phone: 503-863-6237, and please sign up for updates and resources for arts education in our ODE Arts Education Newsletter.
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Katie is a Music Teacher from Mountain Heights Academy. Never heard of Mountain Heights Academy? It's in Utah…that's probably why. So, why would we highlight a teacher from Utah? Because A. Katie is an amazing music arts teacher and B. Mountain Heights Academy (MHA) is the first secondary school in the world to use OER as their curriculum in all content areas and in all grade levels.
Mountain Heights is a tuition-free, online public charter school available to all Utah students in grades 7-12. A lot of their OER are available online and for free. More about their efforts can be found at mountainheightsoer.org. Want to know a bit more about the history of OER from MIT and MHA? Check out this short video.
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Katie currently teaches Music Appreciation, Music Connections and Ukulele online. Before coming to Mountain Heights Academy, she taught for six years in Elementary and Junior High School Music programs, where she led General Music, Band, Orchestra, and Choir classes.
She is very passionate about bringing music to students. As she put it,
“My heart will forever be in instrumental education. There is magic and beauty in seeing your students enter your classroom without any music skills, and then watching them leave your class with a new skill.”
She loves to see her students grow in their ability to independently read music, count, and play that music on their instrument. She has found that she really enjoys teaching in an online setting and it has really opened her eyes to how much her students can progress musically.
“I work a lot one on one with my ukulele students. These students are usually working from their home, and it's so fun to hear them talk about their love for their practice time, and their "breaks" from their traditional core classes it provides.”
Katie on OER and Mountain Heights Academy:
Katie has done a lot of work and a lot of sharing of her music-related OER in and out of Mountain Heights Academy (MHA). As she explained:
“There isn't much out there for teaching music online; however, it has certainly been growing as more schools are sharing since 2020. OER Commons provides a great place to access material shared from other teachers and professionals throughout the world. I'm still working to add more of my own material. I have always loved the goal behind OER, in that Education should be accessible to all students everywhere. No matter their location or background, education should be a right to everyone. In my opinion, this impacts our students because they are part of something bigger than themselves.”
A number of MHA teachers, including Katie, continue to share their own projects not only on the mountainheightsoer.org site, but also at OERCommons.org. Katie said they are all really proud of the work they have contributed and rightfully so! This is an aspect that doesn’t get mentioned much when thinking about OER in our schools.
While one huge benefit is of course the ability for any teacher to quickly find free high-quality materials that they can legally edit, revise, remix and republish… maybe the biggest benefit is the ability of that same teacher to take their own time, knowledge and expertise to publish new OER for educators around the world to find and use. Each time that happens, the momentum of global OER grows by just a little bit - eventually helping to create a world where high-quality materials can be found in every classroom. As Katie stated, the teachers at MHA want to give their best, knowing that others will be able to see and use their work into the future.
If you want to learn more about Mountain Heights Academy, check out their website for a lot more information and if you want to access their OER go to mountainheightsoer.org.
Some of Katie’s music OER is also available on OERCommons.org:
The OMEA All-State Conference is in person at the Graduate Eugene hotel located at Eugene, 66 E 6th Avenue in Eugene, Oregon.
When: January 12 - 14th, 2024
Where: In Person
Register Here
“Dr. Tina Holmes-Davis will share her experiences with making band work for persons with disabilities. Topics of her research include teaching students with special needs in the music classroom, music program advocacy, trauma-informed and culturally-responsive teaching strategies, and the roles of women composers and conductors. Dr. Holmes-Davis is a stroke survivor and plays a one-handed adaptive clarinet. Hosted by Dr. John Franklin of LCL Mentors.”
When: January 9, 2024 4 p.m. PST
Where: Online
Register Here
“Modern drill design includes more than just marching from one drill form to another. Now visual designers include staging moments and free form drill. We all see the effect of these moments, and the advantages of this freer style of staging the visual elements of the show, but how does one chart this and implement on the field? Four accomplished drill designers will share their methods, explain how they chart these moments, and even show their work on Pyware during the webinar. With Joe Huls, Stephen Alia, Justin McAdams, and Hunter Dugie.”
When: January 30, 4 p.m. PST
Where: Online
Register Here
“The best teachers are…students? Learner-led education nourishes intrinsic motivation and amplifies problem-solving. In this webinar, Idaho art educators share learner-led models that work.”
When: January 16, 3 p.m. PST
Where: Online
Register Here
“This presentation explores the impact of artificial intelligence on today’s art education practices. It also provides suggestions for art educators interested in the incorporation of AI technology into art curricula, or those concerned about ethical issues involving the use of AI. Recently, many educators, engineers, and administrators have addressed the need to prepare for the changes AI may cause, but many art educators may also feel unprepared for these changes as they pertain to the intersection of AI, visual arts, and creativity. Using machines as a creative agency is a relatively new concept, and, in some ways, AI-generated art challenges traditional definitions of creativity. In this presentation, three art educators who teach in secondary and postsecondary education settings will share their thoughts and experiences related to AI’s impact on K–16 education.”
When: January 10, 4 p.m. PST
Where: Online
Register Here (FREE for NAEA members; $49 for nonmembers)
Pre K - 2
Students will observe dance movements depicted in a drawing and a painting. Partners will use simple lines to draw their partner's movements and paint dance costumes on the figures using various brushstrokes. Students will write a persuasive speech to the school superintendent explaining why they believe dance should be a regular part of the curriculum. They will then model dance movements for classmates in teams of four and recite their persuasive speech to the class.
Children find favorite words, phrases, and sentences from familiar stories. Working together, they combine their words and phrases to create a poem. The poem is then shared as performance poetry.
Upper Primary
This unit, developed by Northshore School District in Washington, contains four days of lessons with suggested extensions that connect with SEL Standards 1, 2, 4, and 5 and Music Standard 2, 3, 4 and 11. The class will create the verses to the song “Floating in Space”. Students will engage in activities where they analyze emotional characteristics of music, practice emoting without words, review “song form” and rhyming patterns, and review space vocabulary words.
Students create a class composition of a thunderstorm by exploring expressive qualities of crescendo / decrescendo and accelerando / ritardando.
Middle School
Students will learn about the Impressionist painters' use of color and how it connected to early 19th-century scientific theories about color. They will explore combinations of primary and secondary colors, experiment creating secondary colors, and create a landscape using complementary colors.
Learn how to make lightweight, flexible 3D printed masquerade masks! These are great masks as they make it look like the design is tattooed on your face or floating on your face.
High School
Students will analyze scenes from the Trojan War that are visually depicted in an ancient object and an 18th-century painting. They will research an epic poem inspired by the Trojan War and write a literary response analyzing how themes and values in the poem reflect the historical context in which they were made. Finally, they will work in teams to reframe a tale from the Trojan War in a contemporary context -- visually and in poetry -- and recite the tale in a poetry slam.
This lesson created by Oregon teacher Charis Martin is an introductory lesson to screen printing and how screen printing is used for social activism. Further study of the historical background that shaped these screen prints (in the extensions section at the end of the lesson) includes topics relevant to Mexican American communities and raises awareness about important historical events in Mexican-American history in the United States. The main focus of this unit is to learn about the background and history of Mexican Americans through studying these and other Chicanx artist screen prints.
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