Integrated Learning: Teaching, Learning, Leading

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Enjoy Kate Cassada’s article from Forbes.com (original article). 

All right, welcome Rob and Kate. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Rob

Good morning. Good morning.

Susan 

All right, could each of you just start our conversation by sharing a little bit about your journeys and how you came into the current roles that you have at the University of Richmond.

Kate 

Of course, of course. So I have been at the University of Richmond in some capacity since 2010 and currently serve in a variety of roles. I chair our Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program, which is a master’s or post master’s graduate certificate for leader, master’s or post master’s certificate for leaders.

I’m Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the School for Professional and Continuing Studies. And prior to this, I had a wonderful career in K-12 education. I was a middle school educator. I still am through and through.

My mind is always on middle schoolers. And I was a teacher and finished as a principal in a local regional school. And in between there, I was an adjunct faculty member with a couple of local institutions and then also did leadership development work at Virginia Commonwealth University for regional school leaders. So a variety of roles that brought me here and glad to be here and work with Rob. 

Rob 

Yeah, and I have a pretty meandering path to this point, kind of approached education and my current role as director of partners in the arts, which is a arts integration education program also housed at the School of Professional and Continuing Studies. I did the not ready for college out of high school and gained a lot of experience doing different things. one of the…

the things that lasted more than two years was running a bar and, you know, working as a managing partner. And then I realized I was taking classes at community college that art was a thing you could study. So I started studying fine arts and went to VCU and got my MFA and then started working. And I had a three year stretch where I was working for nonprofits. So I was the president of 728 Gallery, which was a large local nonprofit, contemporary art space. And at the same time, I was the Richmond director for Young Audiences Arts for Learning of Virginia. So as a director working with the board and a board president working with the staff, I just had a really deep exploration into organizations. And my focus was always teaching and learning. So I started teaching in 2003 in grad school and then teaching art.

things everywhere, museums, colleges, and came to UR around 2010 as well with partners. And it was every little boy’s dream, went from coordinator to manager to director. So here we are.

Susan 

That’s amazing and so and I love hearing people’s backstories because the where where you’ve been shapes where you’re going next but doesn’t necessarily determine where you’re going next and I think both of your stories share that so so beautifully so Kate in your realm of educational leadership and Rob your realm of the integration of the arts how do you two intersect at the University of Richmond?

Rob McAdams (03:50)

So it’s great because we are approaching education from, you know, Kate’s role in the leadership and getting work done there. And then we’re really focused on the classroom teachers, as you know, from your work as well. So the ideal thing happens pretty frequently where we’re working with some math teachers or science teachers and they’re demonstrating competencies of their patient kind and adaptable and open to connecting. So if they’re going through our program, then it’s a nice feed into the leadership. So, you know, day one for us is it’s all about relationships and building a learning community based on equity, trust and candor. And that’s what we were talking about earlier that isn’t that step one for leadership as well.

Kate 

And the idea that for the type of work Rob promotes in classrooms and in instruction, it can be done without leader support, but it is much easier to do with leader support. so having building level and division level leaders that understand this type of work and this type of creative, really solid instruction needs to be supported.

And so that really fits into my space as well. And then building off of that is the idea that even in our meandering trajectories to get to where we are right now, we have met so many people around the region that if I don’t know them, Rob knows them. And if Rob doesn’t know them, I know them. And so it really is a lovely way for our work to kind of intersect and say, we are tapping into buildings and organizations from every level possible and trying to build that recognition of the good positive work that can be done.

Susan 

Yeah, there’s some things that I want to ping off of what you’ve both said, but I’m realizing before I do that, Rob, can you explain your program to our listeners who may not be aware of what Partners in the Arts is and what that cultivates for teachers in your region?

Rob 

Yeah, absolutely. So in 1992, the Arts Council of Richmond initiated a research, a regional research program from I think it was Artworks in Massachusetts did that. It was an 18 month regional survey and 150 stakeholders to schools. And they were looking at how do we make the arts, the Richmond strong arts and cultural sector, how do we connect that directly to all classrooms? So you know, in the nineties, a lot of that, this is really how we learn. Research started popping up and, we were formed as a, as a consortium of the six public school divisions in the region, the arts and cultural sector and community stakeholders. We had a three year pilot with a national endowment for the arts grant. So at the time it was one of the first ones. So, you know, like Cape in Chicago.

A lot of those kind of regional projects kind of came on the heels from what our pilot was. we started with implementing projects. So a team of teachers would submit a proposal. So the Richmond Ballet, I think in the late 90s, presented a teaching history through dance. And that was a Partners in the Arts project that

has become Minds in Motion, which is a huge, every kid in the region goes through that. so we’ve just been doing that. We started a summer institute in 1995. So it’s our 30th summer institute this June. And what we’ve done is we’ve combined those things. So the grants and the training we do together now. So instead of teachers being grant writers and grant managers and contract writers, we’ve taken all that burden off of them and they come and they attend the Institute as a team and then we support implementing whatever they design at the Institute.

Susan

Yeah, so you’re teaching teachers in the region essentially how to bring arts integration in their classrooms, right?

Rob 

Yes, yes, I guess I could have said it that succinctly.

Susan

No, it’s good. No, it’s so important to hear all of that because I also don’t think that people realize, I think people understand what’s available in their region. But nationally, sometimes what I find is that people don’t realize what’s been available across the country and what’s been happening in various pockets that they could pull together and who’s learning from everyone. I think it’s important to share all. So thank you. But now based on what you had shared previously, both of you, I’m curious the trajectory. So if someone starts in Partners in the Arts, Kate, do you find that they come into leadership programs in terms of like, I’ve learned how to do this now. I want to bring this to our school as a leader. So I’m going to enter the leadership program. Or do you find that you’re working with leaders and sharing with them

This is what good practice looks like, or both.

Kate

I would say both. We definitely have had some students who have come to us programmatically through Rob and through his work where he has said to them, wow, you’ve got some real leadership skills and talents here. You know, the idea of tapping, tapping someone on the shoulder and saying, hey, I see this in you. And we have definitely had some folks come through our program and then move into leadership roles because of it. But also in expressing to people in our programs or the regional work we do with leaders that is non credit bearing, but a lot of really important regional collaboration are ways of saying, this is the type of instruction that you can bring in. That instruction does not have to be stayed and it does not have to be desks in a row. And I’ve got to do this worksheet to meet the state standards that instruction can and should be creative and innovative and collaborative. And by doing so,  helping leaders see how they can make that happen. So for example, we run an institute or an organization called the Center for Leadership and Education. It’s a center here at University of Richmond, and we do a lot of regional leadership development work. And we run a program called NGLA, Next Generation Leadership Academy. We work with early career and aspiring leaders to build leadership skills and help them

both move their careers forward, but also impact instruction in their schools. And we partner with eight regional school divisions. And this past spring, last spring, I guess it was 2024, me, Rob came and joined NGLA and did a session on what is arts integrated instruction and how can you as leaders support this? And so was a way to make eight different regions aware of the work that we do.

And then that led to one of the regions, one of the school divisions bringing Rob in to do development work with their teachers. Am I telling that correctly? 

Rob

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we’re adding a whole division to our consortium. And I think that goes to when you’re talking about the national piece is kind of the refinements. We’re able to look at any community. So the tools and things we’ve developed, you know, we’re able to say to your county or your city, what’s going on that you want to connect to your community. So yeah, it’s a great reciprocal relationship.

Susan 

That’s wonderful. and I think we talked about this at the beginning that how necessary it is to have leadership on board because you can do it without your leaders, you know, necessarily supporting you. But it is really difficult to not have that. So, Kate, what are as you’ve watched and you’ve evolved this program and this reciprocal relationship over time, what are some of the qualities or skills that you believe are super important for today’s educational leaders to cultivate in order to move us, our students forward in the 21st century.

Kate 

Sure. It’s funny, Rob and I were just talking about that as we were preparing for today. All organizations seem to have their Cs, the four Cs, the five Cs, the six Cs, right? But those work not just for children and instruction, those work for leaders. I should be collaborative. I should be creative. I should be curious. I should be a good citizen, right? So you get your C’s in here and obviously communication. And that’s what good leaders should do. They should practice it, they should live it, they should model it, and they should promote it in their their organizations. So I would just go right back to all the same concepts work across the board in education.

Susan 

Yeah, yeah. Now, how do they, because I’m going to ask the practical question that I often hear from leaders, they might try to model that, but in the day to day, how can they, in your experience, support teachers who are using creative approaches like arts integration, or STEAM, or project-based learning, how can they support that in classrooms that are so packed with all the other demands that schools have on them right now?

Kate 

Yeah, that’s a good question. And one that we hear quite often, particularly early career leaders who are starting to experience this pressure and this tension between I’m supposed to be producing these things, but I know what good quality instruction should look like and are they incompatible? And they’re not incompatible. They’re actually inextricable, right? The idea of we have a set of standards for let’s say history, right? So we have eighth grade history, we have a set of standards. The best way to get to them is to integrate, not teach them in isolation one by one, but to integrate them and show the relevance to students in their lives. And the best thing leaders can do quite honestly is say, explain to me what you’re thinking and why, and yes, and how could I help?

The best things I can tell you that when I was a building principal, the very best things that happened in my building were the things that someone else brought to me and I was smart enough to say yes. That’s where the good stuff happens. Well, I think that’s how leaders can support it.

Susan 

So smart. So Rob, I would love for you to share a little bit more. You’ve talked about what Partners in the Arts do. Can you explain or share maybe an example of a transformation or a story about the impact that the teachers who have gone through your program have had on their students or their classrooms?

Rob 

Yeah, absolutely. There’s, think my, through that meandering path that got me here, the core thing of all the artwork I was making and everything I was doing and teaching was, and my superpower is the ability to connect anything to anything. So that manifested.

So I’m going to share two. know you asked for one, but I’m going just talk about two. So the big poster is we had a teacher out in a rural county and she had done a great project with architecture design and bringing in international architects to give the kids a design experience. After she completed that, she said, Rob, I got this idea, but it’s really crazy but people say no. And she’s like,

We have a literacy reading problem with fourth graders. So I want to bring in professional wrestlers to teach literacy to fourth graders and, and the yes administrator, the yes is how we get things done. So I was like, absolutely. So we did a project where, because she had a friend that was running a wrestling organization and, he’s like, it’s all storytelling. So they came in.

Every week the wrestlers would come in and they’d work with the kids and they created characters and masks and backstories. And then they scripted a whole wrestling event. And we have a great photo and I’ll send it to you if maybe you can pop it in of one of our teaching artists in the wrestling match is doing a back reverse flip to body slam another woman.

And the caption is, can your teaching artists do this? you know, I just, and I love that. And, and then another is like the sustainability. So we did a project with the whole school, which I love this model where. Again, a yes, administrator took Friday afternoons and they just, they took K through five kids and they mix them together and they put them with each teacher had a mixed group of K through five and.

The first expert that came in was a biologist. So they were exploring the watershed creek to the James River that was behind their school. So the biologist said, these are the native species and a non-native species. And the kids removed the non-native plants and they dried those up in the gym and they took discarded library books and they poked the non-native plants with discarded library books and made paper.

On the paper, they put an encyclopedia of all the native species that were in the watershed. And then they went in as archaeologists and they removed 300 pounds of trash and they would take a photo and then they would label it and they would write a narrative in science class. They would estimate how long it took to enter the ecosystem, how long it would break down. And then we made with community partners, 300 pinhole cameras and all the kids lined up and they took a pinhole photo. So there was this great year long exploration of the watershed that I feel like did what we would want to do as far as sustainability and climate and taking care of our planet.

Susan 

Yeah, that’s amazing. And the work that you do, I’m just, I’m in awe, like the projects that you work in. And I think it’s the power of arts integration, right? Like I know that I think I was first introduced to one of the projects you did with about redlining in our cities. And that can apply to anybody’s city that had that experience and being able to look at that historically and culturally and bringing the local aspect to what we’re working on, I think it empowers our communities, right? So I guess my question to both of you is since you’ve had such extensive experience in K-12 education, I’d love to know from your perspective, A, what are the biggest challenges we’re facing right now? And B, where do you feel like arts integration can help support those challenges and maybe where that is going in the future?

Kate 

So in my mind, the biggest challenges we’re facing right now, one of course is the teacher shortage. It’s everywhere. For example, I was just sharing these statistics a couple days ago with someone in the state of Virginia. 2017, 2018, we had just under 1,000 teaching vacancies throughout the academic year, which 1,000 is appalling to me. Right? That’s unacceptable. That means that there was not a stable qualified teacher in that classroom from start to finish. And we had a thousand of those. In 2024, we started the school year with 4,500.

So more than four times as many teacher vacancies. And teachers who are leaving the profession are citing a pretty consistent narrative. And one is the pressure, the unhappiness with the way teachers are treated publicly and often used politically as pawns. And also lack of leadership is one that they’re citing. And another is just the idea of not feeling respected as a professional and being able to teach in the ways that they know they should be teaching. So this teacher vacancy is rampant and that’s leading to a real challenge of folks who want to be in education and have the heart for education but don’t yet have the qualifications. So everybody welcome. If you want to be an educator, we want you to be an educator, but we want you to be a qualified educator so that the children are getting the best out of you and so that you stay in the profession and avoid the churn, right? So that’s one big one. And the second one is the absenteeism rates among kids are through the roof. And so that absenteeism feeds all sorts of things and is fed by things like lack of motivation and apathy and not feeling like their instruction is meeting their needs, which ties in with the teacher qualifications, right?

And so this type of instruction, the work that Rob just explained is remarkable. And that kind of instruction gets kids to come to school and see why showing up every day matters. I don’t want to miss the day that my wrestling lesson is, right? I might, I might learn how to do a move. So, you I don’t want to miss. And I also see the relevance in the real world, like the watershed.

 So to me, those are the challenges. And then for leaders, my big worry now is as teachers are leaving the profession, leaders are facing two big challenges. One is we used to know as a building level leader, the qualifications or the training of the teachers that we were hiring. They all had a pretty standard college prep program, right? That no longer exists.

I think it’s 16% of teachers in Virginia, I believe, do not have full certification right now. That’s a lot. That’s a sixth, right? So leaders don’t have a stable set of qualifications for the teachers they’re working with. So they have to adjust their practices to say, you’re brand new in the classroom, and you are on a provisional license, and you’ve never had an assessment class, or you’ve never had any sort of working with differentiated learners course. So my skillset for leading is different for that educator than it is for someone who has a master’s degree in teaching. So it’s that and also then just the pool for leaders. I’m really stressed about as our qualified teachers are leaving the classroom, who’s left to step into those leadership roles when necessary.

It’s complicated, convoluted, and all connected. A couple more Cs in there for you.

Susan

Yeah, well, and I think we certainly see this. I don’t know about you, Rob, but I know that in our certification program, one of the things when we revised it two years ago, it was because we had noticed that at Sprint one when we’re working with looking at standards and looking at developing lesson plans, we used to have all of that in just one sprint because we thought everybody knew how to write a lesson plan. Everybody knew how to assess, right? Because that’s what teachers do and what  we came to the very clear conclusion was that some people have never learned how to write a lesson plan or how to look at a standard or how to write an assessment. And so we ended up revising the entire first half of the program just to teach how to do those things, you know? Yeah, and I don’t know, like Rob, do you see that in the work that you’re doing with teachers and how has that impacted how you work with their training?

Rob 

Yeah, mean, it’s so, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I feel like we used to have the issue was our really good teachers were going into leadership, but, you know, as Kate was expressing, there’s just, it’s a vacuum now and, you know, our work, it feels rewarding because the teachers that do attend the Summer Institute, whether they’ve been teaching for a year or two years or 30, they, feel so reinvigorated. And I know you see that in your programs, like, this is why I became a teacher. that’s exciting. I think part of the what do leaders need to do, a lot of it seems like they’re shielding teachers from, you know, directors. And we’ve had this where the academic side of a school division is saying, yes, you can adapt the new curriculum that we’ve purchased and make it your own to meet your students. But then a director is going to the principals and saying, you can’t do any other initiatives come January. So you have to stop using arts integration. And, you know, to which the question is, well, how are you getting them prepared then for the the standardized test that’s coming? So it is is tough to find teachers as well and address those needs. 

One of the things we’ve been doing is really formalizing our training of teaching artists and any expert in the community that wants to work in K through 12. So when I’m interviewing or looking for people, again, I’m looking for those competencies of are they patient kind and adaptable and flexible? And, you know, are they an educator at heart? And we’ve been training those folks side by side with teachers, which is just a great mix because if you as a music teacher are naming your expertise and the science teachers naming their expertise and then a jazz musician from the city is naming their expertise, that’s where the integration part really happens. And we drill it down and we still have our education closet elements of music, dance, like those beautiful things you guys used to make and I’m sure are making where this is the core language. So body energy, space and time, tempo, pitch, duration, like that is the key that can connect everything. So it’s, it’s a lot of work and it is frustrating, but the rewarding part is when they show up and we get them, we can, we can help.

Susan  

Yeah, and I think both of you have seen that where when people are willing to take the step and they jump in, then it’s like the light bulbs go off and they start seeing like the possibilities, right? So I guess maybe my last question before we close out is since you both identified the passion that educators have for this and the results that they see, what advice would you give to educators who want to do this, who are passionate about this or like,

I would love to bring more of that into my classroom, but feel constrained by their traditional system or from the mandates that come down that say you can’t use any new initiatives. What advice would you give those educators?

Rob

Yeah, I mean, that’s tough, especially if the administrators are saying no. So I think it’s a time of resistance and rebellion. And we build a lot of tools. We started doing guides that help the teachers that show the alignment and they show how this meets the needs. If we’re bringing a wrapper into a school, here’s what you do before.  Here’s what happens when they’re there. Here’s what you do after and how you integrate content. And we develop those for administrators, for communities, family members, as well as peer teachers so that everybody can see the positive outcomes. But it’s, I mean, it’s tough because they have a lot of pressure and it’s naming the expertise again is we all have interests and passions and are good at things and connecting those dots and bringing those together are, I think, essential to making an impact. 

Kate 

Yeah. And you can tell the story. There’s plenty of evidence. There are plenty of stories out there that say this type of instruction is what works. And so making that argument, telling that story, and recognizing that our schools are better when our communities are involved.

They’re community schools, right? And so our schools are better when our community is involved. So when we bring in these teaching artists, when we bring in these levels of expertise out in the community, you are bringing knowledge that your teaching staff may not have. And so there’s a good argument for building that relationship between the school and the broader community and facilitating that and capitalizing on it because

There are folks who want to be involved in education, want to be contributing, have the skill sets, and are looking for a way to get involved. So I do think there are ways to make that argument and still meet your standards. 

Rob

Yeah, well, I mean, think the bottom, when you’re talking about connecting community, how do we learn? And for students is we need to contextualize the curricular content to what they’re doing in their world. And that’s why we talk about… 

I mean, we’re actually leaving the language of arts and arts integration behind a little bit and talking about integrated learning because the students need to be able to contextualize. So integrating their culture and community, what is happening? What are they listening to? What are they looking at? What things interest them from a school to work perspective? So if we’re using the artists and the things that they’re seeing, then they’ll be able to make those mental connections to this is what this science concept looks like if I apply it to making beats on ear sketch or soundtrack. 

Kate 

And you know, this does make me think about one thing that rolls around in my head quite often, which is the idea that we are educating children for a future we can’t even really imagine, right? So I did the math last night and I actually wrote it down because I thought this might come up. Students who started kindergarten this year, if they retire at 67, will retire in 2086. 2086. Can we even imagine what we’re educating them for in the future through today’s education? So it has to be through learning in these ways, right? It has to be how do we  connect and have critical thinking skills and creativity and all the skills that are going to work no matter what profession pops up. I we can’t even think of what we were educated for when we were in elementary school, right? There was no conception of what our jobs today would look like, that AI prompt generator would be a job, right?

Susan 

Exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you so much for both your time today. I would love to know where can our audience learn more about your programs and connect with both of you.

Rob 

We have a blog at blog.richmond.edu backslash PIA. But yeah, the Richmond.edu you can search us. We’re and we’re on all the socials as Partners in the Arts. 

Kate

 Absolutely. Yeah. And just the Richmond website and any of the work we’ve done in the community tends to land there in our newsroom or in our webpage.

Susan

Great. Wonderful.

Well, we will put links to all of that in our show notes to make sure everybody can find you and can get in touch. Rob and Kate, thank you so much for joining me today. It has been such a pleasure.

Kate

It’s been a treat, Thank you for the invitation.

Rob

Thank you, it’s great to see you. 

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