Abstract
This case study described how California public school middle grades teachers, arts specialists, and generalist teachers worked in self-managed teams at four different schools, funded through enabling legislation (AB 3494), to develop and participate in a multi-year professional development program for preparing themselves to make changes in their instructional content and practices for teaching the visual and performing arts. The study addressed five general areas: (a) the ways in which the self-managed teams used Middle School Demonstration Program (MSDP) resources, (b) the processes used to identify, organize, and socialize arts educators in the program to work as self-managed teams for professional and arts program development, (c) the effects of participation in the program on teachers' professional practices in visual and performing arts curriculum development and delivery, (d) the perceptions of participants in the program regarding the desirable characteristics of a middle grades visual and performing arts program, and (e) the effects of teachers' participation in the program on the visual and performing arts curriculum and on their professional enthusiasm in the participating schools. Data were collected from the four selected middle schools through an examination of existing documentation, a questionnaire, and with semistructured interviews of teachers during focus groups. It was shown that arts specialist and generalist teachers could work together as arts educators to regularly meet, learn, plan, and implement an arts curriculum respectful of the unique properties and content of the discrete arts disciplines (dance, music, theatre, visual arts), and mindful of the students to which it was being taught. This enhanced arts curriculum could best be delivered by the arts educators using integrated and correlated arts instruction strategies. Other findings included the difficulties even the most committed and well-funded self-managed teams of teachers had in determining appropriate times and locations for meeting together regularly either on or off campus. It was shown that in their arts curriculum development and delivery, of the four components of the California Visual and Performing Arts Framework, only creative expression was regularly included. Further examination of the data corroborates recent opinions related to professional development and school reform that for positive outcomes participants should both help plan and manage an ongoing professional development program; that for arts curriculum development national, state, and district generated research-based documents should be consulted; that the arts curriculum should be collaboratively planned, taught, and assessed; that the arts curriculum should provide opportunities for students to both do and learn how to understand and appreciate each of four arts disciplines, and should be taught in both specialized arts courses and within an arts-infused interdisciplinary curriculum; and, that arts curriculum delivery in the middle grades is most effective if it relates to the developmental characteristics of the young adolescent. Recommendations for further research included studying the relationship between: (1) Expectations for arts education programs among school stakeholders and the type and quality of an arts program, planned or existing; and, (2) the form and content of teacher preparation programs for arts specialists and generalist educators, especially for middle grades educators, and their inclusion of arts content and instructional strategies.