Science and Art Teaching Practices for Oregon Elementary Teachers: Results of a Landscape Survey

Abstract

An Evaluation Report for the Oregon Department of Education. In collaboration with classroom teachers and WRAP personnel we developed and implemented a survey to collect baseline data on the science and arts teaching practices for ALL elementary teachers. This included “regular” classroom teachers (those teachers with an assigned physical classroom and set of students), art teachers, music teachers, PE teachers and other educators or administrators. In December 2022 we recruited three (3) elementary teachers to assist us in survey development, in particular framing questions around frequency of teaching time for both arts and science instruction. One important outcome was that we formulated questions around “dedicated” teaching time where instruction was only focused on science or art content and “integrated” teaching when teachers combine science or art with other instructional areas (such as math or literacy). We also learned that there was a lot of nuances in trying to capture the science and art teaching data; for example, some schools have large blocks of time when they have a particular focus on a science content area and then equally large blocks when science teaching is replaced by instruction in other fields, such as social science. It can be difficult to reduce this instructional framework to a weekly allotment of science teaching.