Your Art Matters: Perspectives of Arts Integration in Teacher Education.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This arts-based dissertation explored elementary preservice teachers (PST) beliefs around arts integration and how they plan and teach arts-integrated lessons during the Spring 2023 semester. Through an arts integration professional learning experience and study underpinned by Weems' Imagination-Intellect Theory (2002), the study analyzed two participants' experiences using artmaking interviews, teaching observations, art, reflections, course assignments, and researcher journal. Employing an ethnodramatic approach, findings of the study are presented as three short plays that discuss topics such as belief in their own artistic capabilities, supportive structures in place within student teaching placements and teacher education programs, and challenges presented by arts integration. Through this arts integration experience, the PSTs also began to articulate a dual identity of teacher and artist. Implications for future research and practice related to the artistic and imaginative development of PSTs are also discussed. The standardization and sterilization of school curriculum & schools requires liberatory, artful, and transformative pedagogy that sees students and teachers as powerful vehicles of experiential and embodied knowledge. This study adds to the understanding of the role that arts integration can play in teacher education programs.