Session 7: Curriculum Standards: Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks

What are the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks?
In legal terms, the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks are documented policy (law) of the Massachusetts Department of Education.   In educational terms, they are standards, or worthy targets.  As such they are desirable levels or degrees of exemplary performance.

Why is it important to implement the Frameworks?
It is the right thing to do for educational, professional, moral, and legal reasons.

What types of standards are there?

• Content Standards: what students should know; worthy targets such as repertoire, concepts, skills, content, etc.
• Performance Standards: how well students should achieve; worthy levels of performance such as accurate, steady, etc.
• Task Standards: what tasks students should be able to do; worthy tasks such as concert performance, solo performance, class performance, project, demonstration, oral presentation, etc.

What is the core concept that underlies the Frameworks?
In dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts, people express ideas and emotions that they cannot express in language alone.  In order to understand the range and depth of human imagination, one must have knowledge of the arts.

What are the guiding principals behind the Frameworks?

• An effective arts curriculum provides a sequential program of instruction in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts for all students beginning in preschool and continuing through high school.
• An effective arts curriculum emphasizes development of students’ skills and understanding of creating, performing, and responding.
• An effective arts curriculum promotes knowledge and understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of the arts.
• An effective arts curriculum uses a variety of assessment methods to evaluate what students know and are able to do.
• An effective arts curriculum provides opportunities for students to make connections among the arts, with other disciplines within the core curriculum, and with arts resources in the community.

The Frameworks are divided into strands.  What are the various strands?
The specific disciplines, connections, and links to other disciplines are called strands.  The strands include:

• Dance
• Music
• Theatre
• Visual Arts
• Purposes and meanings in the arts
• Roles of artists in communities
• Concepts of style, influence, and stylistic change
• Inventions, technologies, and the arts
• Interdisciplinary connections (language arts, foreign languages, health, history and social science, mathematics, science, technology and engineering)

What is the basic content of the Music Frameworks?

• Students will sing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
• Students will read music written in standard notation.
• Students will play instruments, alone and with others, to perform a varied repertoire of music.
• Students will improvise, compose, and arrange music.
• Students will describe and analyze their own music and the music of others using appropriate music vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect their analysis to interpretation and evaluation.
• Students will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their meanings.
• Students will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts institutions in societies of the past and present.
• Students will demonstrate their understanding of styles, stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where art works were created, and by analyzing characteristic features of art works from various historical periods, cultures, and genres.
• Students will describe and analyze how performing and visual artists use and have used materials, inventions, and technologies in their work.
• Students will apply their knowledge of the arts to the study of English, language arts, foreign languages, health, history and social science, mathematics, and science and technology/engineering.

How many dimensions are there to the Music Frameworks?
There are four dimensions including:

• Performance
• Creation
• Critical Response
• Connections

Why are the Curriculum Frameworks important to music education?
They play an important role in addressing critical issues in music education including:

• Setting high standards of achievement for all students
• Promoting equity
• Promoting consistency
• Providing a basis for valid and reliable assessment
• Promoting accountability
• Promoting credibility by being grounded in national standards which, in turn, are grounded in industry standards, research, effective practice
• Reducing the perception of the arts as elitist or existing in isolation from the rest of the education world

What are some other important things I should know and understand about the Curriculum Frameworks?

• The Frameworks emphasize knowledge, understanding, and application in the arts.
• The Frameworks emphasize a broader perspective of what arts education can/should be.
• The Frameworks emphasize accountability through credible standards and assessment of performance against those standards.

The Complete are available at  Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks

Session 8 Class Notes
 

Top of Page