Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9566-9837

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

College of Creative Arts

Department

Art Education

Committee Chair

Terese Giobbia, Ph.D

Committee Member

Annie McFarland, Ph.D, ATR-BC

Committee Member

Patrick L. Jones, MA, MFA

Abstract

Preparing elementary school students to succeed in a learning environment that was significantly transformed by a global pandemic will require a major investment in new curricula that focuses more on social and emotional learning and less on standards that primarily emphasize just knowing and doing. This research investigates how the implementation of social emotional learning and SEL-based art activities in the art classroom can help to lower student stress levels in the elementary school art classroom. By providing learners with an opportunity to grow socially and emotionally, teachers may help students understand their feelings and use artmaking as a way to help better understand, adapt, and relieve stressful emotions.

Across the United States, educators are seeing a rise in the mental health crisis and need for more Social and Emotional Learning being implemented into the curriculum. The need for SEL implementation in schools and students needing help regulating and working through their emotions has been heightened by the COVID 19 pandemic and the virtual schooling over the last two years. Students are having trouble managing, expressing, and regulating their emotions because students are more stressed than ever before. Studies have shown that including SEL into the curriculum has benefited students and evidence that supports SEL practices being implemented in the art education classroom. There are still gaps in research with much of the research following SEL in the fine arts classroom focusing around music, dance and theater, and little written about the implementation in the art classroom. While there are some SEL art curriculums written, like Art with Heart, there is a gap in research backing up SEL-centered art curriculums. This mixed methods study promotes the implementation of SEL art curriculum and how it can help reduce stress in students. This research centers around four case studies focusing on SEL completed in first, fourth and sixth grade art classrooms. Finally, this research examines the benefits to implementing an art curriculum focusing on SEL to promote stress reduction in students and help students to begin to regulate and manage their emotions in the school setting.

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