Abstract
This study examines what pre-service elementary teachers learned from an art methods course and how they later applied it to their teaching. Interviews were conducted and lesson plans collected from seven individuals who participated in the same art methods course. The methods course proposed three visual arts integration strategies: learning with, learning through, and learning about visual arts as useful instructional strategies for integrating visual arts with other subjects. The findings of the study indicated that participants embraced the strategy of integration of visual arts in the teaching of other subjects. However, the participants’ lesson plans reflected that these participants viewed the visual arts as a means of teaching other subjects rather than as an integral part of each subject area. Although participants did learn about the three visual arts integration strategies taught in the methods class, most only superficially applied learning through visual arts in their teaching, and they seldom employed learning with and about visual arts when teaching their elementary-level classes.
