Recently there have been calls to expandSTEM education to include the arts and design, transforming STEM into STEAM in the K-20 classroom (Maeda, 2013). Like STEM, STEAM education stresses making connections between disciplines that were previously perceived as disparate. This has been conceptualized in different ways, such as: focusing on the…

Explores the ongoing debate within art education about whether or not to copy The evidence offered against copying raises the need for caution in the use of copying. Concludes that, although there is no universal agreement, copying is productive for young people in certain circumstances. (Author/BSR)

Describes a three-week integrated art and writing unit in a freshman composition course (team taught by a visiting sculptor and an English professor), which provided students with an opportunity to explore the nature of art and the artistic process through writing. (SR)

Teachers, researchers, and performers in the field of Performance Studies often find themselves defining what it is that they do. Boundaries are often hard to draw, however. Is the work they are doing "art?" The distinction is important to funding agencies, tenure committees, and university administration. One definition of art…

Describes how Zen and the art of pottery expand into a Great Tradition where the potter dreams his forms in a realm of imagination between sense and mind. Explains how decoration plays a vital role connecting art and our life-world. Outlines how students need a decade to reach this spiritual level. (KM)

Describes how students in an undergraduate children's literature class constructed and created interpretations of the books they were reading. Notes that the students each designed a three-foot paper strip reflecting his or her personal response to the book. Finds fresh thinking, fewer repeated ideas, and more understanding of symbol, metaphor,…

Describes origins of the constructed relief and shows some examples of contemporary artists' work. Suggests using this history to motivate students to construct their own reliefs. Outlines a four-step lesson: preliminary drawing, finished drawing, mock-up relief, and finished construction using durable materials, such as wood, acrylic sheet, or…

Deals with differences between drawing in art class and in other subjects. Points out that the latter are considered serious learning while learning promoted by art class is often dismissed. Advocates both rational analysis of art and the imaginative extension of such rational art as maps and diagrams to promote visual literacy. (KO)

Seeks to clarify why drawing traditionally holds a central place in the art school program. Outlines what is meant by the Renaissance concept of drawing and how the role of drawing has changed over the centuries. (KM)

Describes a game designed to motivate students to conduct art historical research. Required students to find artists who created art in four different ways, realistically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Students chose ways to take collected data and work cooperatively to create a mural. (KM)

Explores critical activities in the visual arts and how they can enhance art appreciation. Outlines sources of criticism, different types of criticism, the varied backgrounds of art critics, and the artist-critic relationship. Maintains that, by emphasizing interpretive aspects, school art criticism can come closer to professional art criticism.…

Maintains that since the 18th century an intellectual schism has developed between the U.S. public and specialized academic and artistic communities. Argues that art educators can work to correct this by serving as translators for those who lack fluency in the critical language of the arts. (MJP)

Asserts that the arts offer students in developmental education new ways to acquire creative and critical skills that are essential for becoming self-directed learners. States that the arts offer alternative forms of literacy and ways to construct meaning and sensitize students to other cultures. Contains 19 references. (VWC)

Profiles a number of projects and activities enacted during the 1996 Summer Colloquium, "Art and Ecology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Curriculum." Participants created ecologically sensitive structures for pond life at a nearby wetland and attended a dramatic presentation about early mound dwellers performed on the site. (MJP)

Profiles a course that challenges college seniors to gain new perspectives, skills, experiences, and insights into their own creative and imaginative processes. The course uses the work of Joseph Cornell who constructed enigmatic, box-like assemblages from found objects. Students construct their own boxes and consider future applications of this…