Texas Cultural Trust Responds to State of Emergency by Providing Online Arts Curriculum to All Texas Educators
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Designed for high school art, dance, music, and theatre classes, Career Exploration in the Arts identifies how arts education prepares students for success in all careers.
WHAT: To support distance learning, the Texas Cultural Trust (TCT) is providing early access to the pilot of their Career Exploration in the Arts curriculum to all Texas educators as part of their response to our community’s state of emergency. Career Exploration in the Arts is a unit of study designed for high school art, dance, music, and theatre classes. The unit explores career opportunities in the arts and identifies how arts education prepares students for success in all careers.
Lessons are TEKS-based, 7E-aligned, designed for grades 9 -12, and can easily be adapted for grades 6 – 8. These fine arts lessons can easily be implemented into existing digital classrooms (e.g., Google Classroom). Teachers have the option of using Zoom, or another platform to video-capture teacher-led instruction and post those videos to their district’s learning portals to augment the online student-led research portions of these units. Lessons are heavily student-centered: the bulk of each lesson can be made available for immediate student use without much time-intensive adaptations by teachers.
This curriculum is currently being piloted across the state with the support of TCT’s partner, the Center for Educator Development in the Fine Arts (CEDFA). The Career Exploration in the Arts curriculum is scheduled to officially launch in June 2020, but with the urgent need for distance learning, TCT is offering this free curriculum to Texans immediately.
Additionally, the Trust continues to provide its Arts & Digital Literacy curriculum online at no charge to educators across the state. TCT, in partnership with The University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts, created an innovative suite of classes that bridges the gap between traditional fine arts education and technological instruction. The Arts & Digital Literacy Initiative is a project-based fine arts program that integrates technology into the creative classroom, giving students all the benefits of an arts rich education, while preparing them for the modern workplace. All courses are aligned with the current Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards for fine arts and count as fine arts credit for graduation.
Educators can register for Career Exploration in the Arts and Arts & Digital Literacy Curricula on the TCT’s Canvas website. For more information on how to register for TCT’s Canvas platform and access tutorial videos, please visit https://txculturaltrust.org/arts-education/curricula/.
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About Texas Cultural Trust
Texas Cultural Trust is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and increasing access and awareness for the arts across the state. Programs of the Texas Cultural Trust include the Texas Medal of Arts Awards, Art Can, Texas Young Masters, Texas Women for the Arts, Partners in the Arts, and Arts Access. Texas Cultural Trust efforts are amplified by its partners who are instrumental in the success of leading a cohesive voice for the arts in education, advocacy, and economic impact in Texas, spotlighting the artistic excellence of our state. For more information on the Texas Cultural Trust, please visit www.txculturaltrust.org.
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