smART stART Research

smART stART Research
 

  • smART stART is an arts-integrated approach to early literacy that supports a student’s ability to tell and retell a story, including sequencing and narrative elements.
     
  • A team from Roanoke College designed a smART stART assessment plan that was implemented from 2012-2015. The purpose of the assessment was to measure student gains in meeting the Common Core Georgia Performance standards in English Language Arts and the effectiveness of training strategies for the classroom teacher. The findings reported in the spring of 2015 were consistent with findings from previous years of the assessment plan. They included the fact that students showed positive gains on literacy skills of +5.77, almost one level of competence on the evaluation scale. All teachers participating in the smART stART Professional Learning workshop “Agreed” or “Strongly Agreed” to survey questions regarding the workshop’s effectiveness. Teachers implementing the smART stART program “Agreed” at a rate of 100% that arts integration can increase student appreciation of and interest in the arts.
     
  • The methodologies used to obtain these findings include on-line pre-and post surveys from classroom teachers, classroom implementation ratings by classroom teachers, student pre/post rubric scores, classroom observation protocols that follow a structured protocol format, and semi-structured focus group interviews with classroom teachers and students.

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