An important part of the Progressive Education movement, the playground, influenced John Dewey's educational philosophy of learning. "The playground, particularly during the Progressive reform movement of the early 1900s benefited from the widespread belief that play was child's work. Dewey portrayed children as miniature adults who…

What could video games bring to a K-12 visual arts curriculum? Overby and Jones were skeptical about incorporating gaming and virtual worlds into the classroom, but watching their own children engaging in the video game Minecraft changed their perception. As they started researching the game and how these kids were operating within the space, they…

What role can district visual art administrators play in articulating an educationally valuable conception of creativity and in establishing a culture that targets creativity as an educational goal? How can art administrators help teachers implement creativity goals? How can they communicate creativity's importance to principals, parents, and…

This article provides a transcript of an interview with Olivia Gude, member of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards Writing Team. In the interview, Gude provides an overview of the process for writing the new visual arts standards.

Classroom assessment is a hot topic in K-12 education because of compelling evidence that assessment in the form of feedback is a powerful teaching and learning tool (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Although formal evaluation has been anathema to many art specialists and teachers (Colwell, 2004), informal assessment in the form of feedback is not.…

In an era that is rife with aggression and hostility, most art educators hold close to their hearts the belief that they, and their students, can contribute to making the world a better place. Through their acts as teachers and the daily work of art education, they often strive toward creating a space of "non-violence." For K-12…

This article describes how art teachers can work toward changing the power dynamics in their classrooms by using a student centered approach, as demonstrated by an example lesson about contemporary painter Kehinde Wiley. As the class unpacked the idea of power prevalent in Wiley's portraits, the students gave relevant examples of how power…

What does an introduction to and engagement in performance art offer K-12 students? In this article, we respond to this question by proposing a lesson inspired by the artmaking practices of the contemporary artist Erwin Wurm. Performance art can be defined as any form of work that combines the artist's body and a live-action event with or…

National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) Writing Team member Marilyn G. Stewart discusses what to expect from the new "next generation" Visual Arts Standards, detailing the 4 Artistic Processes and 15 Enduring Understandings. This invited essay addresses the instructional aspects of the standards, and looks at how they can help…

Once a month, art educators from the Denver metro area have been gathering together in the spirit of inquiry to explore issues of the perceived theory and daily practice divide. The Theory Loves Practice (TLP) group was started in 2010 by Professors Rachael Delaney and Anne Thulson from Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) and now has 40…

Murals have become a powerful art form for portraying antiwar, human rights, social justice, and human dignity issues. Educators and artists have conducted mural workshops with adolescents in international settings to educate them about peace, human rights, and cultural tolerance. Learning with murals has been shown to be pedagogically meaningful…

Advocacy is not new to art education. Over the years, Goldfarb (1979), Hodsoll (1985), and Erickson and Young (1996) have written about the importance of arts advocacy, but the concept of advocacy has evolved with the times. For example, in the 1970s, arts advocacy was described as a "movement" and brought together art educators, administrators,…

As education budgets shrink, art teachers need to find ways to position the study of art closer to mainstream academics by exploring concepts that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Art teachers can challenge students to do serious and thorough research about subject matter partnering with teachers in other areas to select subject matter that is…

Does the person become the name or does the name become the person? This question was asked by a participant of my culture jam entitled, "What's my name?" In this culture jam, I asked people to discern the name of a person based solely on their appearance and a list of possible names below their picture. This article aims to show how culture jams…

Art museums and other institutions of informal learning can promote multicultural understanding by collaborating with community ethnic groups and designing exhibitions that richly characterize the cultures they represent. Through the lens of educational programming for the exhibition "30 Americans," this article describes how both the Corcoran…