New Research Examines How Hands-on Arts Training Improves Teaching

Participants learn to center joy, expose perfectionism, co-create shared knowledge

September 3, 2025   |   By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications

A new working paper from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison investigates how professional learning in the form of embodied arts experiences can help schoolteachers understand, design and deliver better social-emotional learning practices in the classroom, such as increased educator empathy and student-centered instruction.

The research, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts in a two-year initiative, found educators grow in their ability to support students’ learning when they balance structure with joy in their classrooms and become learners themselves.

This study advances a growing body of literature on the intersection of arts education and social-emotional learning by offering a replicable model for integrating arts-based methods into teachers’ professional learning. It also shows how such experiences can shift educators’ perceptions of their role and relationships with students.

Preliminary report findings suggest that arts-based embodied professional learning enhances social-emotional learning by humanizing teaching, fostering educator empathy, and creating safer, student-centered learning environments.

The researchers define social-emotional learning as the capacity to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve goals, feel and show empathy toward others, maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

The study, conducted by the UW–Madison School of Education’s Arts Collab, engaged seven elementary and middle school teachers and one school resources coordinator in a series of structured arts-based workshops. The sessions drew from signature Arts Collab youth art programs—Drum Power, Whoopensocker, and visual arts models—and were followed by guided reflections in participant journals and interviews, with supplemental data recorded through observational field notes.

Participants engaged in and reflected on the activities to explore concepts such as agency, identity, and belonging, the researchers said. In so doing, the teachers also experienced an inside look at how their students may feel trying new things in class.

“Creating an environment where it’s safe to try made all the difference in helping me engage more deeply in the work,” noted one teacher.

Participants were exposed to the same “joy, collaboration, personal growth and struggle their students experience,” the report said.

“Participants used their experiences to reflect on their own teaching and learning practices, expressing intent to bring components of the work back to their classrooms,” the working paper reported. “The data we collected from participants illuminates their experience—centering joy, exposing perfectionism as the enemy of creativity and artistic expression, co-creating shared knowledge, and building and holding safe space to try novel things, make mistakes, and feel seen, heard and valued all the while.”

Principal investigators for the study are Arts Collab co-directors Yorel Lashley and Erica Halverson. The other study authors are project manager Stephanie Richards, project assistants Tracey Bullington and Emily Nott, and researchers John Samuels, Lindsey Kourafas, Leila Rahnamanoabadi and Audriana Ryann Zeuske.

Arts Collab, part of the School of Education’s office of Professional Learning and Community Education (PLACE), works to extend the knowledge and research of UW–Madison faculty to support community goals in the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea, which holds that higher education should benefit communities across Wisconsin and beyond.

The full working paper, including detailed findings and implications for practice, is available through the WCER working paper library.