Art Practice as Research in the Classroom: A New Paradigm in Art Education

Authors

Julia Marshall, San Francisco State University
Kimberley D'Adamo, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

9-2011

Document Type

Article

Citation

Art Education (September 2011): 12-18

Comments

Copyright 2011, Taylor and Francis. Used by permission

Abstract

Student experiences at Berkeley High School reveal the generative potential of the art practice-as-research approach—how deep, broad, and creative the learning can be, and how powerful this model is in changing student attitudes toward art and themselves as artists and learners. This model of self-directed, inquiry-based learning works well because student art practice is cast as research and is structured as research. As a result, students make discoveries and connections that go beyond their expectations. They also acquire skills and understandings that transfer into their academic studies. In partic-ular, they find that learning can be engaging and that a trail of inquiry can lead them to new and fascinating places. In this realization, they are transformed from students to learners and then to researchers—from receivers of knowledge to con-structors of knowledge to individuals who discover and generate new knowledge.

This disposition toward learning can permeate all aspects of a young person's life at school, and in his or her life beyond school as well. It allows young people to see knowledge not as something previously or fully established, but instead as something incomplete on which to create something new, something of their own. In generating all of this—the deep learning and under-standing; the transferable thinking and research skills; and the dispositions toward research, learning, and autonomy—we believe art practice-as-research has great potential for transforming the way we conceptualize, construct, and practice art education. This is a paradigm with power.