Numeracy in the creative arts
Unpacks the links between the creative arts and numeracy through research and examples of numeracy embedded in the creative arts.
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Watch 'The numeracy of the creative arts' (3:38).
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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.
[End of transcript]
Numeracy in the artforms
How can creative arts support students in developing numeracy skills?
In dance, students can develop numeracy skills through:
- spatial awareness, dance elements (such as time) travelling, counting beats, simple sequences use specific steps to travel in a set direction such as marching forwards 8 counts
- combine dance sequences such as performing movement 1 then adding movement 2
- counting beats within different metres, tempos, groupings, patterns and algebra, sequences and structures
- stepping to the beat and creating movement sequences in duple, triple, quadruple metre
- performing set steps to a variety of tempos (speeds) such as in Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
- repeating a particular step as a pattern or repeating a combination of steps as a larger pattern.
- additive steps and sequences such as expanding, condensing, retrograde, inversions and repetition
- using a variety of patterns as sequences and ways of composing dances. Repetition involves repeating a sequence
- inverting steps, using retrograde (backward steps), expanding steps or condensing them
- analysing routines and dance sequences, then turning findings into graphs
- mapping out dance sequences through movement diagrams or maps.
Resource
In drama, students can develop numeracy skills through:
- exploring body, spatial and shape awareness, and direction by using their body to create shapes or numbers individually or in groups
- moving left or right, forward or backwards with a practical body movement
- using body awareness and the entire space in the room.
- using drama elements such as symbol and time in role-play or other dramatic forms
- role playing morning and evening routines, the weather, month or season, or life stages such as being a baby or a senior.
- sequencing and structure in play building
- for example, creating a sequenced dramatic story, using ordinal language to sequence drama, time particular scenes, and plan and order performances.
Resource
In music, students can develop numeracy skills through:
- speech, chants and songs using musical concepts such as counting beats and rhythm patterns
- rhythm in music links to patterns and algebra, whole numbers, multiplication and division in mathematics
- musical concepts such as duration (beat, rhythm, metre, tempo), dynamics, structure and own symbol systems (graphic notation)
- exploring the division of beats using graphic and stick notation, dynamic symbols, identifying and mapping formal musical structure.
- playing and recognising patterns in music such as a riff (or ostinato)
- using formal symbols (notation) and more complex musical concepts such as groupings, accents, metres, patterns and sequences
- exploring the difference in measurement between large and small-scale sized instruments and their tone colour or pitch/tone
- listening, responding and arranging pieces using addition and subtraction of instruments and exploring musical texture and structure.
Resource
In music, students can develop numeracy skills through:
- using artistic forms to explore shapes, symbols, textures, lines, graphs, patterns and numbers
- drawing or using clay to create 2D or 3D shapes, numbers and arrays
- drawing lines, symbols or making patterns. using artistic techniques to investigate shapes, perspectives, volume, mass, dimension, solids, 2D or 3D shapes
- creating models to measure volume and capacity and estimating measurements through making or appreciating artworks such as still life
- using artistic techniques to visually represent fractions, decimals, patterns, and percentages
- using ratios, angles and fractions in various media forms to create artworks by dividing space into fractions of a whole such as folding, measuring, and drawing portraits or structured drawings
- exploring proportion and ratio through expanding patterns by 2X, 4X, 20X.
