WGU D703: Elementary Fine Arts Methods

Teaching the Arts When You Don't Consider Yourself an Artist

D703: Elementary Fine Arts Methods asks you to bring dance, drama, music, and the visual arts into an elementary classroom — even if the last art project you finished was in fifth grade. WGU's course description frames it as an examination of best practices for teaching the elements of the fine arts to young learners, with attention to the creative process, developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive strategies, and integration with other content areas. In the Master of Arts in Teaching, Elementary Education program it sits in the term 6 methods block and carries two competency units.

Direct answer: Learn the vocabulary cold — the creative process and the specific elements of dance, drama, music, and visual art — because that terminology is what knowledge questions turn on. Then build any submitted work directly on the rubric language, choosing one clear academic standard from another subject and one clear arts standard, and showing exactly how the two support each other. Precision beats artistry here; evaluators are checking alignment, not talent.

One thing worth knowing before you start: a near-identical course runs under the code D695 in WGU's undergraduate elementary education programs, weighted there at three competency units. The catalog description is word-for-word the same for both codes. D703 is the graduate version, and the MAT guidebook lists one competency the undergraduate guidebooks do not: designing an independent fine arts learning center that connects to standards in other disciplines. Notes labeled D695 are almost certainly still useful to you — just check whether the learning-center piece is covered.

The course also matters more than its credit weight suggests: in many elementary schools the classroom teacher carries most of the arts instruction children get, and the habits you build here reappear in student teaching.

What D703 Actually Asks You to Know and Do

WGU publishes the competencies for this course in the Master of Arts in Teaching, Elementary Education program guidebook. Paraphrased, D703 expects that you can:

• Describe the creative process as it relates to fine arts instruction — the stages a young artist moves through and what a teacher does at each one.
• Identify the elements of the fine arts across four domains: dance, drama, music, and the visual arts. This is the most vocabulary-dense part of the course.
• Plan instruction in visual arts and music that is integrated with other disciplines, rather than taught in isolation.
• Design an independent learning center in the fine arts that promotes interconnection and alignment to standards in other subject areas.

Around those four competencies the material also covers developmentally appropriate practice by grade band, culturally responsive selection of artists and repertoire, accommodations so every learner can participate, and the practical side of arts teaching: materials, safety, space, and time. If you have not yet met the National Core Arts Standards — the public framework built around creating, performing or presenting, responding, and connecting — spend an hour with it. That structure is the common language of the field.

The competencies split cleanly into knowledge outcomes (describe, identify) and production outcomes (plan, design), and most study material circulating for this course references both an objective assessment and a lesson-plan task. WGU does not publish the mix on a public page, so treat that as the likely shape rather than a certainty, and confirm it on your own course page before planning your weeks.

Is D703 Hard? A Realistic Look at the Workload

Students generally describe fine arts methods as one of the lighter stops in the elementary methods sequence — lighter than the math and literacy curriculum courses, and much lighter than anything with a clinical component. The reading is approachable, the concepts are concrete, and there is no quantitative content to fight through.

That said, "light" is not "instant." Two things reliably slow people down. The first is the number of discipline-specific terms: the elements of dance are not the elements of drama, and both differ from the elements of music and of visual art. Confusing them is the classic way to lose questions you should have had. The second is anything you submit for evaluation, where work that reads beautifully still comes back for revision because one rubric line — an alignment statement, an accommodation, a citation — was thin.

A reasonable plan for most working adults is one to three weeks of steady evening effort, which fits the two-unit weighting. If you already teach, or you have an arts background, you may move faster. If lesson-plan templates are new to you, give yourself the full three weeks and pace it against the rhythm you would use for D702: Elementary Health and Physical Education Methods, its two-unit sibling in the same term.

A Study Plan Built Around the Four Arts Domains

Days 1–2: take the pre-assessment first, then sort the vocabulary. Sit it cold, before studying, so the coaching report tells you which of the four domains is weakest. Then build four short term lists — dance, drama, music, visual arts — and keep them physically separate. Mixing them into one deck is what causes cross-domain confusion later.

Days 3–6: active recall, one domain per session. Close the material and write out every element of music you can name, then check yourself. Repeat for the other three domains on later days so retrieval is spaced rather than crammed. For the creative process, do not memorize stage names in a list — describe out loud what a second grader is doing at each stage and what you as the teacher say or provide.

Days 5–8, overlapping the recall work: draft your integrated lesson early. Pick a grade level you can picture and a content standard you already know well, then find the arts standard that genuinely supports it. Write the alignment sentence before the activities: "Students demonstrate [content standard] by [arts process], which meets [arts standard] because…" If that sentence is vague, every later paragraph inherits the problem.

Days 9–12: rubric pass, then practice retrieval. Read anything you plan to submit with the rubric open beside it and highlight the exact sentence satisfying each line. Any line you cannot point at is a line you have not met. Keep short recall sessions going on the vocabulary, and take a practice attempt under quiet, timed conditions. That "point at the sentence" discipline pays off in D184: Standards-Based Assessment and in methods courses like D693: Elementary Mathematics Methods and Interventions.

Use your course instructor. A ten-minute call on whether your standard pairing is defensible can save a full revision cycle.

Where Students Lose Time in This Course

• Treating art as decoration. "Make a poster about the water cycle" is a science lesson with markers. Integration means the arts standard is genuinely taught and assessed too.
• Blending the four vocabularies. Elements from dance leaking into a drama answer is the most common avoidable error on knowledge questions.
• Naming a grade band, then ignoring it. Kindergarteners cannot manage a multi-day mixed-media build; fifth graders will not accept a two-minute task.
• Skipping accommodations. Arts activities have obvious access barriers — fine motor demands, hearing, mobility, sensory sensitivity to materials. Naming specific supports is an expectation, not a bonus.
• Vague assessment of a creative product. "The teacher observes" is not an assessment. Say what evidence you collect and what criteria you judge it against.
• Leaning on downloaded sample submissions. Work you submit must be your own. Beyond the integrity risk, borrowed plans rarely match the current rubric and get returned.

D703 Readiness Checklist

• Can you describe the creative process in fine arts instruction, and say what the teacher does at each stage?
• Can you list the elements of dance, drama, music, and the visual arts separately, without mixing the four sets?
• Can you pair any elementary content standard with an arts standard that authentically supports it?
• Can you explain in one sentence why your lesson teaches the arts standard rather than merely using art supplies?
• Can you describe how the same activity would change for kindergarten versus fifth grade?
• Can you name two specific accommodations for learners who face barriers in your chosen activity?
• Can you state what student work you would collect and the criteria you would evaluate it against?
• Can you sketch an independent fine arts learning center — materials, directions, connected standards — that a student could use without you standing there?
• Can you point to the exact sentence in your work that satisfies each rubric line?

D703 FAQ

How many competency units is D703 worth?

Two. The WGU institutional catalog lists D703 as EDUC 5094, two competency units, scheduled in term 6 of the Master of Arts in Teaching, Elementary Education program. The undergraduate equivalent, D695, is listed at three.

Is D703 the same course as D695?

The catalog description is identical word for word, so the subject matter is the same. D703 is the graduate version in the MAT Elementary Education program; D695 is the undergraduate version in the elementary education bachelor's degrees. The MAT guidebook lists a fourth competency the undergraduate ones omit: designing an independent fine arts learning center.

Is D703 assessed by an objective assessment or a performance task?

WGU does not state the mix on a public page, so this guide will not assert one. What is published is the competency set, which covers both knowledge outcomes (describing the creative process, identifying arts elements) and production outcomes (planning integrated instruction, designing a learning center). Check your own course page for the current version — WGU updates course structures periodically.

How long does D703 take to finish?

Plan on one to three weeks of consistent evening study, which is in line with a two-unit course. Prior teaching experience or an arts background shortens that; unfamiliarity with lesson-plan templates lengthens it.

Do I need artistic talent or my own art supplies to pass?

No. You are assessed on your ability to plan and justify arts instruction, not on your own drawing, singing, or dancing. Nothing in the published competencies requires you to produce artwork of your own.

What should I do if my pre-assessment score was low?

Use the coaching report to find which of the four arts domains is weakest and rebuild that vocabulary first with written recall rather than rereading. Then re-test on that domain alone before moving on. Studying all four at once is what produced the mixed-up answers in the first place.

Where D703 Fits in Your Term

D703 is a good course to slot beside a heavier one. Term 6 pairs it with health and PE methods and elementary disciplinary literacy, so clearing it while a bigger course runs is realistic. When you are done, browse the rest of the sequence on the School of Education hub or the full WGU study guide index. For official details, check WGU's institutional catalog and the MAT Elementary Education program guidebook (PDF) — trust those over anything you find secondhand.