KC
Katelyn Cecchetti
  • Special Educ
  • Class of 2013
  • Kane, PA

Katelyn Cecchetti helps team integrate arts program at Carpe Diem Academy

2014 Feb 13

Educators and student-teachers at Carpe Diem Academy will introduce a contemporary teaching method called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) into their lesson plans come spring.

Funded in part by a $5,000 ArtsErie grant, the progressive afterschool program will integrate critical response in visual art, partnering with language and literacy.

Katelyn Cecchetti was one of 12 graduate students and five undergraduate students at Mercyhurst University who worked as a team to make this arts integration possible under the supervision of Mary Elizabeth Meier, Ph.D., director of art education at Mercyhurst, and Amy Bauschard, director of Carpe Diem Academy.

Designed to spark student-initiated discussion via observation of visual art reproductions, VTS helps learners hone their critical thinking and language skills. This method prompts learners by asking them "What's going on in this picture?" and "What do you see that makes you say that?"

This teaching strategy will not only benefit Erie's kindergarten, first and second grade students who attend the academy, but it will also further develop the facilitation and active listening skills of Mercyhurst students who are studying to be teachers, said Meier.

"This arts integration initiative through Carpe Diem Academy allows us to explore opportunities for integration of visual literacy and language development in curriculum used throughout the Erie school system," said Meier, a former elementary and middle level art teacher who has taught in schools in Erie County and East Hartford, Conn.

Visual Thinking Strategies is a method of critical response to art and visual culture that was born in the mid-90s, stemming from research in museum education (Philip Yenawine), visual thinking (Rudolf Arnheim) and aesthetic development (Abigail Housen).

Carpe Diem Academy, funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, was launched in 2012. Hundreds of students from Edison, McKinley, Lincoln and Jefferson schools receive additional lessons in math, reading and the arts. Open four days a week from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., students also participate in daily fitness, while receiving a healthy snack and dinner.