Adolescents are at a ripe age to make meaning and think abstractly (Kerlavage, 1998); yet, they are not "born knowing how to get ideas into materials, or how materials can be manipulated to shape ideas and meaning" (Burton, 2012, p. 14). Adolescents need guidance in understanding abstract concepts, and art teachers play an important role…

Why are students' personal lives immersed in technology, but their school experiences quite the opposite? Although computers and the Internet have been used steadily even before this generation of students was born, K-12 classrooms still operate in much the same fashion as 100 years ago. Educators give many reasons for not using the latest…

The structure and functioning mechanics of a student-driven art course, "Arts and Ideas" [described in the September 2001 issue of "Art Education" in "Art and Ideas: Reaching Nontraditional Art Students" (Andrews, 2001)] were designed to create a classroom environment that would promote greater student input into learning and the choice of art…

In the spring of 2003, three Atlanta area high school art teachers implemented constructivist lessons to see how students would accept responsibility for their own learning and peer-teaching situations. Each teacher selected at least one class in which to implement a variety of constructivist strategies. The teachers then selected a goal in their…