Transcript of The numeracy of the creative arts
Speaker: Did you know that the creative arts and numeracy are closely related?
Explicit teaching in the creative arts will not only teach arts learning, but also numeracy.
'The patterns in all the arts are the key to learning.' Plato.
Think about Leonardo da Vinci. He combined the arts with numeracy and the technologies of his day to produce some world-changing inventions.
Because, to get the most from STEM, we should look to the power of STEAM.
The creative arts enable personal expression, enjoyment, imagination, and emotion.
Visual arts, music, drama, and dance offer students and people of all ages opportunities for personal expression, enjoyment, creative action, imagination, emotional response, aesthetic pleasure, and the creation of shared meanings.
Not only that, successful learners are creative, innovative, and resourceful, and are able to solve problems in ways
that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines.
As a general capability, we need to embed numeracy in all that we do.
Here are just some of the ways you can incorporate numeracy when teaching the creative arts.
Music.
Music is the sensation of counting without being aware you were counting.
Count beats and rhythm patterns in a song, graph the structure, explore musical symbol systems, or learn about
and measure the tempo of a song.
Visual arts.
A line is a dot that went for a walk.
Use origami to explore fractions, draw and sculpt shapes to explore line explore shapes using a variety of art-making practises, experiment with symmetry and fractions, examine perspective, proportion, and measurement
through art-making and appreciating.
Drama.
Notions of sequencing and ordering, estimation, measurement, spatial awareness, and proportions are just some of the numerate skills and knowledge that may be explored through the content and processes of drama.
Importantly, these numerate skills may be addressed in a highly imaginative, creative, fun and engaging manner, increasing the real-world relevance of mathematical instruction.
Explore the use of space and patterns within improvisation.
Creatively solve improvisation problems, highlight spatial requirements as a way of developing spatial awareness, shapes, and following directions.
Playbuild around a mathematical scenario, such as shopping.
Dance.
Dance is the mathematics of the soul.
Use choreographed, numbered steps to travel in a direction in a particular way.
Or building a dance routine that involves a change in tempo or inversions, where the steps are mirrored.
Explore lines, shapes, and develop spatial awareness. Not only are the creative arts a great vehicle
for teaching vital competencies included in numeracy, learning in and about the arts is essential to intellectual development.
The arts also provide opportunities to enhance general skills in areas such as numeracy.
The arts inspire outcomes.
It may just be the key to our survival.