Greetings, arts educators!

This week on Wisdom Wednesday, Michael from the CommonTime Education + Outreach team discussed ways you can use CommonTime to create a career-focused Arts program.

Giving students the opportunity to learn about careers in the Arts is so important to a 21st century arts education. Parents and school administrators alike are increasingly worried about student success in the job market. Students need real world skills that can translate directly to a career in the Arts. For some families, college is not an option. These students especially need that something that will prepare them for the job market after their k-12 education.

When it comes to other subjects like Science, Math, and English, real world applications tend to be easily visible. Students know their doctors, maybe a dentist and a pediatrician. Students know about coding and engineering. And students know that people write books and newspapers. But students are rarely exposed to the career potential in the Arts. Let’s learn how to use CommonTime to change that!

Watch the full webinar below, or read on:

Here are just a few ways that you can use CommonTime to create a career-focused Arts program:

Use GRASP Tasks

We have spoken about GRASP tasks before on the CommonTime blog, but they are so important in creating concrete connections in learning. GRASP stands for Goal, Role, Audience, Scenario, and Product. What is the goal of the assessment or activity? In what role is the student serving? The key here is that the Roles in this project often represent a real career. When assigning a Role to your students, use CommonTime to build cultural connections to people living their learning in real life. Through that CommonTime connection comes a deeper link between the student and the learning.

Representation!

For everyone on Earth, representation matters. Students need to see things to believe them. In our favorite subject, the Arts, we know that art imitates life. People must become aware of things, or ideas, in order to achieve them. So, bring in CommonTime guest artists to help represent careers in the arts to your students. 

Research Careers in the Arts

Have students take some ownership over which CommonTime guest artists they want to work with. By using the intuitive search functions on the platform, students can research what careers are available in the Arts. To take it one step further, once students highlight a career they are interested in they can use the platform to make a personal connection with people who live that life!

Have a Career Fair

The career fair is a classic school event that aims to show students what careers are possible. The speakers at these events are usually local people from the community. Every year, we see the same cast of characters: doctors, police, maybe a business owner. But teaching the Arts becomes so much easier when you can visualize the end goal. Use CommonTime to host a virtual Arts-focused career fair event with professional artists from all around the world! These artists are all world-class in their fields, and can provide valuable insight to encourage students to pursue careers in the Arts.

Service Learning

In an earlier Wisdom Wednesday, we discussed how to use service learning to provide opportunities for deeper learning in the Arts classroom. An important part of the service learning cycle is the action. When students take action it is important to define their roles. Are they performers, marketers, composers, sound engineers, resource finders, directors, actors, producers, choreographers, etc. Just like the GRASP tasks, once you define these roles it is important to allow students to collaborate with people who live these roles. 

Streaming on CommonTime

Your visual art showcases, your theater performance, your music concerts, and your dance recitals can all be streamed live on CommonTime. Not only can they be streamed, but they can also be monetized. By turning your Arts program into a CommonTime Arts Organization, your students are streaming, running cameras, promoting concerts, selling tickets, creating artists, budgeting and more! These are all bonafide careers for today and tomorrow.

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