Curriculum Support - Visual Arts

Colorado's District Sample Curriculum Project:

The Standards and Instructional Support Team worked with educators across the state of Colorado to build curriculum support resources for the successful implementation of the Colorado Academic Standards. To date, 116 school districts have participated in the authoring and/or refining of the processes and products of the Colorado District Sample Curriculum Project.

The Project, whose origins and goals are firmly grounded in standards-support requests from Colorado educators, had four phases:

Phase I – Curriculum Overview Samples (Fall 2012) Colorado educators translated Colorado Academic Standards (CAS) into curriculum overview samples.

Phase II – (Area) Refining Workshops (Spring 2013) Colorado educators provided feedback on the project, the curriculum overview samples, and directed future work of the project.

Phase III – Instructional Unit Samples (Fall 2013-Winter 2014) Colorado educators developed instructional units based on the curriculum overview samples developed in Phase I. 

Phase IV - Reflective Lesson Planning (Summer 2016) Colorado educators came together to discuss instructional shifts within their discipline and engaged in reflective lesson planning. 

Arts Integration and Title Programming Resources

With the current educational focus on 21st century skills and Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness, it is imperative to identify key benefits and constraints of arts integration models within Title I programming. The following documents provide information related to the Arizona case study for Title and Arts programming, share the benefits of arts education, identify the alignment between arts programming and Title requirements and review downloadable resources available for arts integration planning within Title I schools.

2010 Title I and Arts Education Resources

• Colorado Arts and Title I Guidebook 
• Title I and the Arts PowerPoint Presentation
• Varieties of Arts Integration Models

In addition to the Colorado resources above developed in 2010, please consider the following valuable documents:

• The California Alliance for Arts Educations has recently (2013) released a comprehensive guidebook outlining strong practices for using arts education to meet Title 1 Goals.
• U.S Department of Education to State Title I Coordinators letter outlining the parameters for using arts education in meeting Title I goals

Curriculum Design Tools:

• Vertical Progressions
• Standards Graphic Organizers
• Concept Connections (Kindergarten - 5th Grade)

For further assistance, please contact: