About the episode:
Arts integrated learning can be a powerful instructional approach to help learners construct deeper understandings by engaging in evolving objectives in both an arts subject and another subject. When music educators additionally consider the connection to learners’ frames of reference, it’s clear that arts integration can additionally be a powerful approach to enact cultural responsiveness in music education by utilizing the artistic process.
Listen to the audio-only version:
Highlights from the episode:
- Using bigger ideas and conceptual understandings & responding to them creatively
- Education structures and systems that focus too much on facts and skills, and the need to instead focus on the natural integrations of disciplines
- The creative process bringing purpose to the learning
- The alignment of arts integration and cultural responsiveness
- Taking inspiration from the world and connecting music to the human experience
- Self-awareness and being more human 🙂
About James Dorsey:
James Dorsey, NBCT, is an artist and educator from the Maryland/DC area. He serves as an elementary vocal/general music teacher in Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), and, as a proud alumnus of UMBC, currently teaches music education classes at UMBC.
Dorsey engages students of varying ages to investigate life-based concepts (change, identity, social justice, etc.), through a creative process. His commitment to social justice is through helping students to respond critically to our world using the arts. His students’ products and processes include original music and accompanying videos, original stage productions combining student-created dance, drama, and media arts, and student portfolios that reveal their creative process: all of which empathetically express diverse perspectives.
He has supported schools as an arts integration lead teacher, helping homeroom teachers lead creative experiences for their students. He was awarded grants from Crayola, LLC and Bowie State University for arts integration implementation and action research.
Dorsey has served as a music curriculum writer, assessment teacher leader, and teaching mentor. Through his work with Maryland Centers for Creative Classrooms, he helps educators cultivate creativity in their personal and professional practice. He has facilitated similar learning as a teaching artist and instructor for courses with UMBC, Loyola University Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park, and Towson University. He has also led collaborative curriculum/project planning with Prince George’s and Queen Anne’s Counties, and Baltimore City Schools.
Dorsey earned a B.A. in Music (UMBC, 2005), M.Ed. in Kodály Music Education (Loyola University Maryland, 2015), and National Board Certification (Music, 2013). A chapter member of the National Association for Music Education and the Organization of Kodály Educators, he was recently recognized as an Outstanding Music Educator by the Maryland Music Educators’ Association.
Show Transcript
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