Overview

The Critical Links inquiry process is built around Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, a compendium of research studies that adds the "arts voice" to the national education debate. Both the inquiry process and the research compendium speak to those questions confronting every teacher and knocking on the door of public and private schools. How do teachers and schools:

Support all students in reaching higher levels of achievement?
Create the contexts and climates that best support learning?
Improve overall school performance?

Simply providing teachers with access to current research is not enough to improve classroom practices. Teachers must actively engage in research. Each of the seven steps of this inquiry process includes structured activities that support teachers as they actively engage with research to develop their expertise and improve their professional practice. By completing the activities in each of the seven steps, participants will complete the whole of the inquiry process and use the compendium as a resource.

The inquiry process was developed by the Minnesota Arts Best Practice Network, which is sponsored by the Perpich Center for Arts Education. The Critical Links compendium of research was developed under the auspices of the Arts Education Partnership. Combining these resources has allowed the creation of the web-based professional development tool.

Project Credits:

Financial Funding Provided By Kraft Foods, Inc. Site produced and developed by the Arts Education Partnership in cooperation with the Perpich Center for Arts Education.
Arts Education Partnership www.aep-arts.org	Perpich Center for Arts Education www.pcae.k12.mn.us/
Pamela Paulson, Ph.D. Pamela Paulson is Deputy Director of the Perpich Center for Arts Education. Previously she served as Director of the Research, Assessment and Curriculum Center (RACC) at the Perpich Center. In her current position as Deputy Director she is responsible for national relations with other arts organizations; the Center’s administration, including finance, communications, human resources and technology; and working with the Executive Director on legislative affairs. Dr. Paulson is one of the founding directors of the Perpich Center, which was created by the Minnesota Legislature in 1985. She is President of the Minnesota Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and Past-President of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). Prior to her work at the Perpich Center for Arts Education, Dr. Paulson directed the Dance Program at Apple Valley High School for five years, taught at Augsburg College for seven years and taught at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls.
Cheryll Ostrom Cheryll Ostrom is president of Ostrom & Elliott, an education consulting service that works with school districts and education agencies. Prior to starting a consulting business, Ostrom worked for the Minnesota Department of Education where she was responsible for statewide training programs in standards-based performance assessment. In her current work Ostrom specializes in school improvement including leadership coaching and professional development. She also co-facilitates the statewide Arts Quality Teaching Networks for the Perpich Center for Arts Education. Ostrom is a writer whose work has appeared not only in small literary presses but also in commercial publications at the national level. She received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant in 2004 for a creative non-fiction work-in-progress and was previously awarded a Loft Mentorship in fiction.
Acknowledgements We would like to extend a special thank you to teachers from the Minnesota Arts Quality Teaching Network (QTN), who provided wisdom, guidance, and encouragement as we developed this website. QTN teachers have helped to fine-tune the inquiry process since the group formed in 1998. This project would not have been possible without the dedication, passion, and rich depth of knowledge they each bring to the art of being a teacher. We would also like to thank the following Perpich Center for Arts Education staff for their help in this project: Rusty King for editing the website and coordinating the focus groups; Byron Richard for his meticulous work creating the Critical Links indices; Dan Markworth for his help filming the video segments; and Diane Aldis, Colleen Brennan, and Virginia McFerran for their feedback during the final stages of the site's development.