National Core Arts Standards: Distributing Arts Education Guidelines Nationwide
National Core Arts Standards were created as a guideline for arts educators in response to the more easily defined Common Core States Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy and Mathematics.
The National Core Arts Standards serve to inform curriculum, instruction and assessment nationwide. They improve student learning and achievement in the arts by defining artistic literacy; shaping policy and research; influencing teacher training, practice and evaluation; and clarifying connections between the arts and 21st-century skills.
The Arts Education Standards outline quality arts education for educators teaching pre-K through high school. Though implementation is completely voluntary, the standards’ impact is inclusive and widespread. The creation of the Standards themselves was the result of a series of conversations among its member organizations and the more than 130 arts educators and 6,000 reviewers who participated. In turn, the continued publication and circulation of the National Core Arts Standards results in rich dialogue between students, educators, administrators, policy makers, parents and community members about access and advocacy for the arts.
rayogram worked with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards to design and build a website to distribute the standards to inform curriculum, instruction and assessment nationwide.
To begin with, the new website establishes a brand and style guide for the National Core Arts Standards applied to all online and print materials. The visual approach of the brand was informed by familiar elements of education materials design: primary colors along with bold simple composition and visual flourishes referring to print materials all reinforce the educational aspect of the site. A persistent online glossary allows real-time lookup of terminology.
The website is designed to showcase four Artistic Processes (or anchor standards) including: Creating; Performing / Presenting / Producing; Responding; Connecting.
It also offers Model Cornerstone Assessments and sample student artwork in five arts disciplines: Dance; Media Arts; Music; Theatre; Visual Arts.
Additionally, the site allows educators to customize their own personalized National Core Arts Standards Handbook based on the artistic disciplines, processes, and grade levels they teach. These dynamically generated handbooks can be shared as a link, easily printed or emailed as a PDF.
