Mosaic Method

Resource Download

Enjoy this free download of the Mosaic Method activity.

Hello, friend, and welcome back to another episode of Artworks for Teachers. I’m your host, Susan Riley. I am so excited to be back with you. Welcome to February, everyone. We are just rolling right along in 2024, aren’t we? I don’t know about you, but things have been moving quickly. And one of the most exciting things for me is when we get to February. Couple of things. One, I’m a sucker for Super Bowl and I am crossing my fingers now at recording this in January and my Baltimore Ravens are in the divisional championship so I’m like really hoping that they’re gonna make it to the Super Bowl and if they don’t I’m gonna root for the Bills but either way or I’m sorry the Chiefs but either way I’m a sucker for a good Super Bowl and so I get to look forward to Super Bowl.

My mom’s birthday is in February, Valentine’s Day is in February, even if it’s a made-up holiday I still love that we get to celebrate love. And maybe most exciting for me is that certification launches in February. And if you’ve been with me for any amount of time, you know that our Arts Integration Certification Program is our flagship program. It is the thing that we offer at the Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM that shows the most progress for people, that sees the most transformation for educators, that has hundreds of alumni, and that we are just getting started. And so, and I can’t wait to open it up for you guys this year because we have some amazing bonuses that are gonna change the program for the better. Things about artificial intelligence and how to use that with arts integration as a support as a specialist, we have a whole bonus package on that. We have a bonus package on careers and how to use your certification as a jumpstart to a possible new career and what that could look like. We have an entire consulting bonus that I love that gets people up and going with consulting businesses. So if you’re looking for a new career or even a side hustle, this’ll work. And also, we’re providing a very brand new bonus that I think is going to be a game changer. And it’s all about how you move across the Arts Integration Continuum. I told you earlier in January that the Continuum is going to be one of our focuses as the Institute this year for providing resources for educators. And that’s almost entirely free.

For our certification bonus though, I’m actually gonna go a bit deeper in that continuum for our certification enrollees. And I’m gonna walk you through how to showcase each area of the continuum, how to move across it, how to use some research-based strategies like CBAM, the Concern-Based Adoption Model, to help others move across that continuum so that you are providing the very best arts integrated experience possible, and it will personalize your certification experience. Because let’s be honest, many people who come into our certification program are not necessarily already doing arts integration all the time. Many times people come in and they actually find out that they’ve been using arts enhancement, or maybe theme-based learning for quite a while thinking it was arts integration. And so there’s this whole transformation moment and then there’s a, well, what do I do now? And so this bonus actually is gonna prepare you and set you up for success within certification by tailoring it to where you are on that continuum. It’s amazing, I love it, I think it’s super helpful. And so I can’t wait to open this up for you. Certification opens officially.

February 12th, 2024, and it will stay open until February 26th. That is when we’re taking applications for enrollees. It’s really risk-free to apply because we’re going to tell you very plainly whether or not this is a good fit for you. We are very honest when it comes to that because we don’t want to waste your time and we want to make sure that you’re successful.

And so I love open enrollment season because I get to meet so many people and I get to share so many different experiences with everyone. And one of the things that’s happening, it is the first of February, we’re kicking off and I wanted to share something with you prior to our certification opening to help you no matter what you decide, whether you wanna move towards certification or if you’re good where you’re at, a tool that’s going to help you to maximize your arts integration experiences for your students because at the end of the day No matter what? That is the most important thing right, making sure that our students have the very best high quality Arts integrated experiences possible, right? So today’s whole episode is going to be a framework that I have never taught before

This is coming up in our upcoming workshop, Teaching Transformed. I’m gonna be teaching it there. It’s also gonna be available for our certification people who enroll this year. But I wanted to give you a little sneak peek of some of the things that we’re using to enhance our certification experience this year and really make this tangible for you so that not only are you working in theory and getting some good understanding of the background of arts integration and some theory work you are putting that theory into action. I’m gonna say this a thousand times this year, but transformation is greater than information. Transformation is greater than information. If there’s anything that I want you to remember this year, it’s that. It’s not enough to just consume information. We gotta do something with it. So in today’s episode, I’m walking you through something called the Mosaic Method.

This is a framework that I have used since the very beginning of starting with Arts Integration that I’ve never taught before. And fun fact, I actually thought about this a lot as we were coming up to our upcoming enrollment season. And when I say enrollment season, you have to know our team plans for open enrollment for months ahead of time.

We break down everything in the program. We fix things that need to be fixed. We make sure the bonuses are on track. We make sure that our messaging is clear and that we are attracting and inviting the right people who are ready for this program. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into it. And I remember I was sitting with my Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Tiffany Harris, shout out, woo woo!

And we were planning, right? We were in the midst of planning for this enrollment season. And she said to me, she was like, you keep talking about this process that you use that makes it so easy for you to create an arts-integrated experience. What is it? Because you’ve never actually taught it. We go into very specifically in lesson design the components you need to have, the order you need needs to be in order for it to be successful, the sequence that you need to have, the assessments that you need to have, and all that’s really good. She’s like, but you can come up with an arts-integrated experience in like 30 minutes or less. How do you do that? And I shared with her the process. I was like, well, here’s the four steps that the framework that I essentially that I use. And then we just flush it out in way more depth in certification. And she said, why in the world haven’t you ever taught that? That simple framework makes so much sense and it’s so much easier. It’s how the, it essentially captures how your brain goes through it. And I thought, well, there you go. I should definitely do that. So that’s what we’re doing today. I’m gonna teach you my Mosaic method for creating an arts integrated experience. You can use this no matter what level you’re at, whether it’s arts enhancement or all the way over at arts integration. And you’ll see success with it. And honestly, it does, it simplifies the process so much. You can create an arts integrated experience in 30 minutes or less. I mean, it’s, and it will work. So I’m excited to share it with you today. If you are watching the video, I’m gonna share my screen.

If you are not watching the video, you can always go back to it on our website at artsintegration.com forward slash artworks. Just look for episode 70. And while you’re there, I have the Mosaic Method freebie handout over there. So you can just print it off and keep it in your binder, in your planning binder so that you have it as a reference.

So definitely head over to that spot, artsinnovation.com forward slash artworks. And episode 70, you will find the download and you can also watch the video of this as well. Okay, so Mosaic Method is simple, right? We’re keeping it simple, four steps, okay? Step one is called you pick two, much like your favorite Panera order that you’re gonna get, um you’re going to select two items you’re selecting a content and an arts area that you want to connect and it can literally be anything it could be um it could be world war ii and photography i mean that’s a really easy one right that’s an easy connection that you could make with a lot of different um spokes off of that wheel you could do uh fractions and music you could do um main idea and theater and be studying a play. There are so many different ways that you can make connections, right? So, but the first step, very first step is to decide, what do you wanna connect, right? What do you want to have as your experience? Easiest way to do that is to consider what lesson is coming up for you that you know is gonna be a challenge for your students, right? And so if you know you have a fraction unit coming up, and you know that the idea of numerators and denominators is tricky for your students, you’re going to maybe want to select that lesson because those lessons, the ones that are most difficult, most challenging, are often the best ones to use for arts integration. Because you’re tapping into a different area of the brain than we normally tap into in traditional lessons.

And because we’re making that switch, your students suddenly open up to different possibilities that they weren’t seeing before. So you pick two, that’s step number one, easy. Step number two is called two sides, same coin. Now I want you to think about this, this actually, the title for this actually came from a Mae Jameson quote when she’s, Mae Jameson is a woman astronaut.

And she talks about arts and science being two sides of the same coin. So I want you to think about a penny or a quarter some kind of coin, okay? The coin itself is a coin, right? But it has two sides heads and tails, right? Same idea here. Once you have your content in your arts area that you want to connect picked out, then I want you to think about the big idea that you want students to know at the end. What do you want them to accomplish at the end? That’s your coin. Okay, so let me give you an example of this. Let’s say we wanted to study World War II through photography, and at the end I wanted my students to capture a scene or recreate a scene from a World War II battle using their own photography method.

Right? So it could be, they could look at it a whole lot of different ways, but I want them to be able to capture in that photo to show me an element of a specific battle through their eyes, through what they’ve learned about photography. So when we study, when we pair these two things together, what’s important? They need to know specific battles from World War II. And they also need to know the elements of photography, the key to light, and using maybe the elements of art to shape, design the form of the picture that you’re taking. The rule of thirds, there’s so many things that go into taking a really great photograph. They have to know both of those things, right, in order to produce a picture that represents a battle from World War II using the elements of photography that we’ve worked on. So that, that piece, what I want them to end up with, that’s the coin. Okay? Now, once you decide what that looks like for each area, that’s your two sides of that coin. So let’s say heads is your content, that’s your World War II battle. That’s your, the head side is they have to know information about a specific World War II battle and be able to show that in their photograph. That’s the flip side, that’s the tails, right? So the tails is that they, understand the elements of photography and they’ve used them purposefully in this photograph to best showcase the representation of the battle that they’ve chosen. So two sides, I’m looking at two things. Do they know the battle? And do they know the elements of photography? But the coin is putting it together, is the photograph that represents both pieces. Does that make sense? See this is the biggest piece that people miss.

It’s this step two. This is the hardest one, because this is your assessment. Oftentimes when we start in an arts integrated experience, we start with you pick two, and then we just start to plug away, right? At, okay, well, we’re gonna introduce it this way, we’re gonna use this strategy and keep going. And the problem with that is, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to get lost along the way, right? You’re gonna take a lot of detours and you might get stuck some places, and you might have to turn around because you got lost. So it’s really important that our second step be where you want to go, right? Be the end of the journey. And that’s your coin, and that it addresses both sides of that coin, okay? That’s the other piece that people get tricked up on, is that, okay, I know where I want my students to go, but it’s only addressing the content area or it’s only addressing the arts area, and we’re not addressing the other piece. So to make sure that we’re on the right track, we have to know where we’re going, and we have to know what does it look like from the content side, and what does it look like from the art side of that coin? Okay? So let’s review. We’ve got you pick two. You’re gonna pick a content and an arts area. Then two sides, same coin. You have to pick what is the end goal that you want students to produce or the process that you want them to understand. And what does that look like from the content area side and from the arts area side? Okay, step three. This is called the seesaw technique, okay? Now, once you know, here’s the pieces that I wanna put together and here’s where we’re going. Now it’s just a matter of mapping, how do you get from the beginning to the end, right?

And the best way to do this is to think about a seesaw. So you wanna move between each area, if you can, like a seesaw to get from the beginning to the end. So for example, you might view a piece of art or view a piece of photography, right, from World War II era. Then, and you might analyze that piece, that photography. What about this photograph is meaningful to us. And you can go through a thinking routine about that. What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? Or what are two things that puzzle you about this? Or I noticed cubes, like I noticed this and this and this stand out to me. And then we talk about what this photo is of and what it represents and who took it. And then we start taking a look at, like we just kind of break that photograph down, right?

Then we might read a piece of text about the battle that was represented by that piece of artwork. So now we’re moving into a historical text document about that particular battle, right? Then I might read a piece of artwork, another photograph, maybe a different battle, maybe the same battle, but it’s from a different angle.

And now, instead of just viewing that artwork, now I’m reading it. Now I am looking for what is the main idea? What are the details that are demonstrated here? I might be given a list of elements of photography and how did the photographer choose to portray this particular side of the battle, right? So I’m gonna read that piece of art. Then I might write about that particular battle based on those two photographs and compare and contrast them in that writing. Then I might assign students to go find one of the battles on a list and do the same thing. So find another photograph of that battle, read the artwork, that photograph, read about the battle itself, and then create a photograph that represents that battle in a different way. And you might put pieces in there like, you might have students try taking some photographs and analyze them themselves before they do their final project. There’s a lot of different ways that you could take that and expand it or narrow it down depending on your understanding of it, but do you see the seesaw of it, right? You wanna keep doing that seesaw until you get to the coin, until you get to that big idea or takeaway.

So the idea is that you could start with the content area if you wanted, instead of starting with the artwork, right? If you want to, but the idea is that you go back and forth and back and forth, and you’re continuously doing this back and forth and adding components and pulling them together until finally they start weaving themselves together really tightly into that final coin, okay? And then, step four is called simplify to amplify. So this is when you start to consider, you look at your whole process that you’ve written down and you consider, is there anything extra that I’ve added in here that’s not needed in what I’ve outlined? Here’s why this is important. We educators have a tendency to throw the kitchen sink at a project. We want so many different opportunities and so many different choices and so many different ways to experience something, right? That sometimes a project that could take 45 minutes ends up taking an hour and a half. And you probably didn’t need all of the extras that you added in order for it to be a really cohesive unit. Some of those things might actually cause confusion. Some of them may be necessary, but I want you to go back into through your process and consider is this as tight and connected as it possibly can be. And if it’s not, cut some things out, simplify it, because what you’re looking for is the most simple way to get to a really high quality experience. Okay, we don’t wanna overcomplicate these things. Simple is better. So, let’s go through that four step process one more time. So, and you again, can use this at any stage. You can use it for an arts enhancement idea or project. You can use it for an arts integrated project, you could use it for a STEAM project, you could use it for a Cotot lesson. There’s so many different opportunities with this. The only difference is that for each stage, each of these steps has some additional components to it. So for example, in step one you pick two. If you’re just doing arts enhancement, it’s just going to be the photography and the World War II battles, right?

Those are the two things that you might be putting together. But if you’re in arts integration and you wanna really make it an arts integrated lesson, you’re gonna start looking at what are the standards that I could connect there? What amount are you thinking about students doing, right? For the two sides, same coin? What standards address those things? So it’s same process, you’re just deepening it to depend on what level on the continuum that you’re working on. I hope that makes sense. 

So we’ve got: Step one is you pick two. So you pick a content and an arts area. Step two, two sides, same coin. So before you move on, think about what do you want at the end of the day? What do you want students to produce? Or what process do you want them to focus on? Either one. What’s the big idea that you want them to walk away with? And then how is that represented in the content area and in the arts area? Step three.

Now you get to use the seesaw technique. So you’re going to move between each area, teaching each area like a seesaw. And so teach one part of the content, then an arts area, then the content, then the arts area, then maybe start to blend the two of them together until you get to a fully developed coin at the end where students are working on that process or product that you’ve outlined.

And then step four is to go back through your steps that you’ve outlined for yourself and simplify to amplify. So think about, is there anything extra in here that’s not needed? Is there anything in here that would be confusing if I keep it in there? Do I need to cut anything? And then you just get to try it. Then you get to put it into action and see what happens. So.

I hope that this explanation of the Mosaic Method was helpful for you today. I really hope this is my whole goal for you today is that you will put this into action this week. Think about something that’s coming up that might be a challenge for you students. Go grab the freebie artsintegration.com forward slash artworks episode 70. Grab the freebie and then use it to help you outline an upcoming arts integrated experience for students. And when you do that.

Let us know how it goes. Come on over to our social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram. You can find us on all of the major channels. Just DM us. Let us know. Hey, I tried the Mosaic Method. Here’s what happened for me. And if you have questions, if something happens and you’re like, I wasn’t anticipating this, what happened here? Or what do you suggest for this? We’re going to share and help you out with that. We wanted this to be a two-way conversation. So definitely.

If you aren’t already, I invite you to like our social channels, Facebook.com forward slash arts int edu, A-R-T-S-I-N-T-E-D-U, same for Instagram, YouTube, the whole deal. So visit us on one of our social channels, let us know how the Mosaic Method worked for you, and I look forward to seeing you again next week for another episode of Artworks for Teachers.