Math Art Projects

Why blend math and art?

The philosophy and research behind Math Art Projects.

A simple idea

This book has a simple title because a simple idea led me to write it. In the summer of 2006, I decided that my math instruction must be enhanced through integration with art. Not that it could be enhanced, or that it should be. It must.

I had just finished my first year as a math "enrichment" teacher in the central Bronx. Rather than have my own classroom, my job was to teach supplemental math to third, fourth, and fifth graders. Every week for ten months I rotated among ten different classrooms consisting of more than 200 students. There was no pre-determined curriculum, so I was asked to piece one together using lessons from whatever sources I could find. Not surprisingly, my first year was characterized by classroom discipline problems, unmotivated students, concerned supervisors and colleagues, and ineffective math lessons.

Fortunately, my principal asked me to come back for a second year. Believing the upcoming year might be my last chance to prove myself as a teacher, I decided that incorporating art — a subject elementary students already loved — into my math lessons had a good chance of solving most of my problems.

Objective: build a thing

A tenet of good lesson design is ensuring that students understand the "objective" of a lesson from its start. So I decided that if my students believed the objective of a math lesson was creating an art project — in addition to learning a math concept — they would be more motivated to work hard and less motivated to misbehave.

This is why every lesson in this book requires that the teacher construct the required art project before starting the lesson. Most students, in order to get excited about completing an art project, need to see a prototype before beginning the work.

Other reasons

Other ideas also led me toward art-integrated math instruction. The simple axiom "a picture is worth a thousand words" supported my belief that visual representations of math concepts — even if they took multiple class periods to construct — would save instructional time in the long run. This is especially true if the construction process improves students' retention of the concepts being taught.

An art-integrated curriculum, with a visual rather than verbal emphasis, also seemed likely to improve my instruction of English language learners, who made up a large portion of the students I taught. To further assist in this regard, I gave each lesson a simple, one-word title ("Time," "Symmetry," "Place Value"), which I always wrote on the board at the beginning of each lesson.

My desire for simplicity influenced not only the title of each lesson but also its content. Many of the students I taught were far below grade level in math. To help them catch up, I needed to target fundamental concepts directly, even if that meant temporarily glossing over some complexities. Lessons that tried to teach too much would risk jeopardizing the sense of accomplishment that students received from finishing a project and mastering a core math concept. I developed Math Art as a supplemental curriculum meant to enhance math instruction, not replace traditional lessons.

It worked

When I introduced the new curriculum at the start of the 2006–2007 school year, the response from colleagues, supervisors, and most importantly students, was overwhelmingly positive. I only needed to reintroduce myself to students — many of whom knew me from the previous year — to see a change in their attentiveness: "Last year, Mr. Brewer was your math teacher. But this year, Mr. Brewer is your math art teacher!" Whereas during my first year I would enter a classroom and sometimes hear groans, during my second year I often heard cheers.

The research

My evidence at the time was anecdotal. But in the process of putting the curriculum into book form, I discovered significant research that supports the integration of art into other subjects:

Where the field is now

Over the last few decades, funding for art instruction in schools has steadily decreased because of a greater concern for academic fundamentals. Rather than view art education as separate from academics, schools should be combining the two for the benefit of both. Integration of art into traditional subject matter is one of the most obvious ways to improve academic achievement in underperforming schools while simultaneously making them more pleasant places to teach and learn. Not every art-integration curriculum needs to look like Math Art — but every curriculum needs some form of art integration.

References