CAPE Research & Action Research in Arts Integrated Education

LIVING LABORATORY CAPE believes that the intersection of formal research and action research is an essential element of school transformation.
CAPE works to be a learning organization – moving from an arts education program delivery model to a living laboratory in which practitioners and formal researchers collaborate to both develop new understandings of their own practices, as well as to contribute to the discourse in the field.

CAPE'S PRIMARY RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What are the effects of arts integration on teachers and students?
What strategies of integration lead to positive results in students?
What are the transformative interactions within arts integration instruction that actually cause teachers to change their practice?

PURPOSES FOR ENGAGING IN RESEARCH WITHIN CAPE

To examine how and why educators are able to change their understandings.
To examine how changed attitudes translates into changed practice.
To contribute to the collective knowledge about arts in learning.
To contribute to models for alternative assessment.
To participate in sharing research with a wide variety of audiences.
To be able to make statements about the relationship between arts integration and student learning.
To be able to make statements about the relationship between formal research and practitioner research.
To establish a theory of action that will include novice and experienced teachers and artists.

DOCUMENTATION IS CRITICAL
Over the past several years, CAPE teachers and artists have developed a practice of documenting their work and their student's work based on action research questions.

CAPE not only works to develop effective programming, but also works to contribute to knowledge in the field. CAPE develops innovative research strategies to investigate the "living laboratory" of practice.

INNOVATIVE RESEARCH
This is research in active dialogue with and useful to practitioners, and that grows out of practice, based on the principle of participation-involving dynamic and reciprocal learning; research that recognizes, honors, respects, and engages the action research of teachers, artists and students.

TEACHER/ARTIST PARTNERSHIP
A partnership that connects teachers and schools with artists and artistic resources. A collegial relationship evolves between artists and teachers that by its nature changes teaching practice. These partnerships develop sustainable, coherent, challenging curricula through collaborative planning and teaching.

ACTION RESEARCH
Teachers and artists reflect critically on their teaching practice, develop and pursue paths of inquiry within the classroom, and engage actively in their own professional development.

COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY
This practice has artists, teachers and students working together to develop and answer provocative questions that enhance learning, while informing teaching practice.

RICH DOCUMENTATION
Documentation that goes beyond presenting outcomes and artifacts to present the evolution of the work from the inquiry stage through process stage to the final production and subsequent reflection.

PROCESS PORTFOLIO
A collection of work that reflects the process, steps and stages of artistic development. A portfolio that demonstrates learning in the arts and other curricula, over time.

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