Professional Documents
Culture Documents
vi
Learning Sciences
tq
t9
id
ai
rr\
'
to:
ot'
'a
1d
de
'taQul
{:
.:1
,1
al
'.~
627
6ther artists have created throughout history and across cultures. In the
arts, tools include two- and three-dimensional visual media from paint
)pture, physical and digital. Theater includes .a~y art form designed
municate a story: staged theater, creative wntmg, performance art,
ore recently) digital video/audio narratives. Dance involves moving
poseful and rhythmical ways and learning to choreograph the movesof others. Music involves learning to use, compose, and perform with
lsuch as instruments and voice and to appreciate the performances of
s. The digital media arts typically refer to creating using digital technoilly enabled modes for representation including video, audio, graphic
gn, multimedia, virtual design, videogames, and digital stories.
"arning in and through the arts often involves multiple art forms simultausly- particularly in digital media arts. Hip-Hop, for example, stretches
6ss the visual arts (tagging and clothing design), music (producing beats
'rhymes), theater (live performance of storied music), and the digital
(lia arts (recording and producing albums) (Hill & Petchauer, 2013). While
ditional arts education has separated artistic media into domain-specific
~es, it is clear that contemporary learning in the arts is often a multidis-linary act that requires understanding how the tools of a given medium
'ord representation and communicate meaning.
'In the next section, we discuss how the arts have been studied within edu'tional contexts, beginning with a brief history of the study of cognition
)d learning in the arts. We review studies of learning in each of the five
_t forms, and then identify and discuss four broad themes: creating repesentations, engagement in identity processes, language development, and
i'eativity and design thinking. We then describe the key design features of
dio arts learning environments: the role of audiences, critique, authentic
ssment, and opportunities for role taking. Last, we discuss how these key
ign features can yield new insights and directions for the learning sciences
ore broadly.
',1',
628
and notational systems to bootstrap themselves to bnild more complex representations before using more formal or conventional musical notational
systems, story structures, and visual schemas (e.g., Bamberger, 1991; Hanna
2008; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Winner, 1982). For instance, Karmiloff-Smith'
demonstrated how young children learning to draw a figure or play a tune
first develop behavioral mastery, but with implicit representations. Then
through a gradual systematic process she terms representational redescrip-'
tion, the representations become increasingly explicit and accessible to learners as they manipulate the representational forms with greater flexibility,
such as deciding to play a portion of a tune at a faster tempo for a particular
effect, or changing the position of the arms on a previously rote drawing of a
figure (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Many academic competences - such as literacy and numeracy - generally show linear progress with age and experience.
In contrast, artistic development is more ambiguous. For instance, Gardner
and Winner (1976) argued for steady development in expressiveness and
inventiveness in metaphoric language, pretend play, visual arts, and musical composition until about age five, and then a downward trend through
middle childhood as children become more literal and conventional, result,
ing in a plateau through adulthood without further training in an art forw
(Gardner, 1982; Gardner & Winner, 1976). These assertions about artiStjc
development are not without controversy. For instance, looking at the sa
middle childhood drawings, expert judges in China who value a traditio '
ist approach to visual art see a growth, whereas judges in the United
and Europe are more likely to see a loss in expressiveness and originalit~:
Sheridan & Gardner, 2012).
.
One way to ground discussions of artistic development has been to{
the "end state" of expert-level ability in various art forms. Experts app
their art form in qualitatively different ways from novices-in particul,
think about the whole piece in relationship to its components wit .
fluidity and flexibility (e.g., Ericsson, 1996). With advances in ne;
ing, researchers have identified neurological substrates for arts expef
instance, Solso (2001) described evidence from neuroimaging data,'
fMRI) that suggests that novices tend to approach drawing as a Tf!:~
whereas experts' brains process it as a higher-order task..
St'
..
]nents shape arts learning. Contemporary arts research in the learnnces is exploring how to weave these dimensions together.
]),
in
ppproa
~\!Jar, they
~h greatet
11 .
wo1mag;
rrtise. For
EEG and
loric task
r;rnmgm
. .
iutcomes
Hetland
sfer, but
exceed
ght into
bthink
Ion arts
fultural
rdner, 2012).
'Research in the narrative arts has focused primarily on how young people
e rn to create and share original narrative art. Dyson's (1997) work with
irnentary schoolchildren has demonstrated that kids use dramatic play
nd their knowledge of popular culture as key tools for meaning making
rough creative writing. Research focused on older learners and creative
'riting explores niche communities - such as fan fiction Web sites - and
escribes how writers iterate through composition (Magnifico, 2012), use
he composition process for language learning (Black, 2008), and engage in
(list-century creative production activities (Jenkins, Purushotma, Clinton,
Weigler, & Robison, 2007). Beyond creative writing as a narrative art form,
research explores the dramaturgical process: the telling, adapting, and per:forming of narratives of personal experiences (Halverson, 2009, 2012; Wiley
;&Feiner, 2001). This work focuses on how young people extend their narrative production from the written word to multimodal forms of communica,tion including live performance and digital production.
Research on drama in learning is often differentiated by the degree of
; spontaneity present in the comp~sition process. The most informal, creative
drama is defined as "an improvisational, non-exhibitional, process-centered
' form of drama" (Davis & Evans, 1987, p. 262) enacted in learning environments by field pioneers Dorothy Heathcote and Viola Spolin (Heathcote &
Johnson, 1991; McCaslin, 1995). Research on process-oriented drama has
629
630
',
~
,\
ron (e.g., Chavez & Soe~, 2005), video produc.tion (e.g., Halverson,
&
'"In the following, we identify four broad themes that apply across all
a\sciplines: creating representations, engagement in identity processes,
kge development, and creativity and critical thinking .
.
'
i~g
Representations
~na,-.2
s: learn
~e wayt
~8). Hah
~'!:per/or ',
~(making
~ely differ/
erspective,
of think- '
opment of
ter 18, this
scientists,
hnologies
arts have
as a path
nded eth' producb
~e & Ito,
iigital art
04), radio
.'<Nathan & Sawyer, Chapter 2, this volume), posits that learners create
rtown knowledge by building physical artifacts and that this gradually
els to the construction of conceptual representations. The sociocognitive
1ioach extends Piaget's original claim by proposing a distributed approach
, 'conceptualizing learning, where teachers and learners work together to
'ign and create an external, public artifact (Kafai, 2006; Papert & Hare!,
91). The externality of physical artifacts - whether sculptures, models of
'.e solar system, or videogames - makes visible the understandings, discovr)es, and misconceptions inherent in learners' evolving designs, opening up
'.e possibility for critique by knowledgeable others (Kafai, 2006). Just as
epresentation is an integral process to art making, the design and critique of
jiernal artifacts is central in arts learning. Whether the artifacts are paintpgs, poems, lyrics, dramatic performances, or interactive games, art educa)on primarily involves perceiving, creating, and reflecting on artifacts and
the processes involved in making them.
hGoodman (1976) argued that art making is a fundamentally representa~ional domain. Producing art is a communicative act that requires learn~fS to master the representational tools of the artistic medium. In learning
iciences research, the capacity to construct an external representation of a
';pomplex idea is a marker of mastery in many disciplines (Enyedy, 2005; see
;' also Eisenberg & Pares, Chapter 17, this volume). Tools for representation
'.vary with the forms of language described earlier; dance requires bodies,
digital media requires multimodal tools, and the visual arts require everything from paintbrushes to clay. To use tools effectively, artists must have an
understanding of the design grammar within which they are working and
have a sense of how the tools support communication within a specific con" text (Halverson, 2012). It is not enough to know how to use an audio editing
tool like Garage Band; art makers must understand what forms of audio
editing are expected and acceptable if they are aiming to produce a piece of
documentary radio.
631
632
During the next half hour Rosa is, in turn, a pregnant mothe1!'.~~~
bereaved friend of a drunk-driving victim, and the child of -t~H
parents. When not portraying one of these characters she t~~'., turn as both backdrop and stagehand while other players 9f;
(McLaughlin et al., 1994, pp. 76-77).
_,{'
,','i,''l
!shoes without actually having to go through a pregnancy. In additlers are free to take on roles that they would not likely be given
ftunity to take on in "real life." In their community-based theater
[);youth, Wiley and Feiner described how one youth with multiple
had the opportunity to try on a different kind of physical self: "She
the opportunity to shed her reputation as a klutz, and the rest of the
~pported her in taking on the ~hallenge of adapting a rol~ with few
;Xtialogue but tremendous physical presence" (Wiley & Femer, 2001,
l'tfty explorations through the arts have proven especially productive
.ulations who feel marginalized from mainstream institutions. Ball
:~ath (1993) demonstrated that, through dance, young people embraced
'pressed their ethnic selves. Halverson (2005) demonstrated that queer
. ;explore possible selves as they perform the narratives of their peers,
lly trying on identities that they had never before imagined for them:'. Artistic production also supports youth as they engage in detypifin; a mechanism for affiliating with a traditionally stigmatized identity
~ositive way (Halverson, 2010a). Fleetwood's (2005) work with adolesparticipating in digital media production demonstrates that art making
urages discussions about the construction of stereotypes, their function
rt, and how these stereotypes reflect individuals' experiences.
'jnally, participating in art-making processes can support both individuJic and collectivistic conceptions of identity (Halverson, Lowenhaupt,
bbons, & Bass, 2009). Researchers who study identity development tend to
jfceive of "identity" as a property of an individual (e.g., Fleetwood, 2005;
\fey & Feiner, 2001; Worthman, 2002). However, in some communities,
J,collective group itself has a prominent role in both the process and the
oducts of students' art (Bing-Canar & Zerkel, 1998; Mayer, 2000). In more
e&llectivist-oriented communities, groups (as opposed to individuals) often
tletermine the topics of youth art and co-compose the products, taking over
tom one another based on availability, expertise, and interest. Halverson
~nd colleagues provided evidence that adolescents use artistic production
(o explore collective identity development, specifically in rural communities
Jhat orient their young people toward community-oriented visions of iden)ity. In their study, one artistic director describes youth film as "not only
\ .. the story of the individual artist, but it also has this indigenous sense in
)hat it is a collective story of the community and of the people, and of the
i timelessness of a lot of the stories that are within there" (Halverson et al.,
rners
ark
ough
ihof
. I 2009, p. 32).
l
'
es
Language Development
htial
step
.~'l. While engaging in arts practice, arts learners work with the tools
~
f'
'~
:t""
'
of the
medium to communicate to an imagined audience. Across narrative artistic
633
634
.r
The New London Group (1996) first argued that our conceptions o
eracy should be expanded to include multiple forms of communication,
digital media arts include not only language, but many other modalitK
communication: still and moving images, sound, and music. This sjl
thinking has been accelerated by the increasing accessibility of simp .,
ta] media tools. There is ample evidence that learners build languag
through their participation in digital media arts learning, includin '
storytelling (Hull & Nelson, 2005), filmmaking (Fleetwood, 2005;
2010b; Mayer, 2000), radio production (Chavez & Soep, 2005), al);
priation - sampling and remixing media content (Jenkins et al., 20911.1
H:
,r
!!
~ective experience that have ties to creativity. Flow refers to the pheiiological experience of being deeply immersed in an activity, including
i~ of intense focns, agency, lack of self-awareness, and a distortion of
perience of time (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Flow. is intrinsically reward'nd flow encourages the deeper and more sustamed engagements that
ort creative endeavors.
'\le flow was initially conceptualized as an individual experience, artistic
hvors often involve groups and creativity often emerges from collaboh (Sawyer, 2003). For instance, Sawyer and DeZutter (2009) provided
bnce that creative arts processes are distributed cognitive endeavors by
. Ing the development of group theatrical performance.
tireativity and design thinking share many characteristics. Research in cre' ity has focused more on original, novel outcomes and the kinds of think'that cause or are associated with those outcomes, while acknowledging
6that some artistic areas, such as traditional Indian dance, demand "vercreativity": small innovations on a common artistic form (Keiniinen,
hidan, & Gardner, 2006). Research on design thinking has focused on the
?ative process involved in planning, creating, testing, and revising ideas
.,d products for a variety of ends such as coherence, functionality, craft,
s)ability for audience, along with originality. One of the key contributions
I the learning sciences has been to clarify the different components of the
ative process involved in design .
. While the specifics vary across creative domains such as architecture
g., Schon, 1988), digital and video narratives (e.g., Halverson, 2012),
gineering (e.g., Campbell, Cagan, & Kotovsky, 2003), and game design
, alen & Zimmerman, 2004), researchers have identified common aspects
an iterative process that moves from an initial phase of exploration and
eation - which often involves finding or describing a problem - to the
'construction of drafts, sketches, and prototypes that pose potential designs
'or solutions, to reflection on these through some process such as critique.
-This creative process is iterative, with a move toward a refinement of the
design, often ending with some form of sharing the product either through
use, exhibition, sale, or performance (Cross, 2011). Likewise, there are com- monalties across design problems and domains in the kinds of thinking
encouraged at different stages in the creative process. For instance, in the
ideation phase, educators and researchers have highlighted the importance
of thorough exploration. In their classic study in the visual arts, Getzels and
Csikszentmihalyi (1976) found exploratory behavior before completing an
artwork to be strongly associated with work that was judged to be more creative, and furthermore with more general judgments of creativity and artistic success in later years. Hetland and colleagues (2013) identified "Stretch
& Explore" as one of the habits of mind repeatedly encouraged by visual
art teachers through strategies such as generating multiple drafts, working
from multiple exemplars, explicitly trying out different techniques, shifting
635
ii:i
,'i
636
...
,,
637
638
9 ..
639
ch,
"':or
l.011
cts,
'
011-
rt is
~nt
rd/
~re
l~t
1.
t-
[~
ve
I
y
tier in this chapter, we described the important role that the arts can play
darners' engagement with identity processes. One of the key psychosocial
hanisms for identity is role playing, both within the context of the per., ance arts and in the organizational work of many arts-based learning
fronments. Particularly during out-of-school time, learners take on vary~iroles within the environment, often assuming leadership and mentorg.,positions (Chavez & Soep, 2005; Heath, 2000, 2004; Jenkins et al., 2007;
.~ridan et al., 2013). Many of these learning environments are communi8 of practice (see Greeno & Engestrom, Chapter 7, this volume) where
articipants move from legitimate peripheral participants to central leadtship figures over time (Wenger, 1998). Heath (2000, 2004) described the
lcessity of role taking for arts organizations that depend on artistic perforance or showcase for sources of revenue that keep organizational practices
~live. Without youth leadership across a variety of tasks, from ticket sales to
litrketing, the organizations would not continue to survive. Most arts-based
ptoduction work encourages (and sometimes requires) learners to generate
.,.their own production ideas, developing reciprocal relationships with adult
'mentors who can offer professional expertise around idea development and
;;l\se of tools for representation (Halverson, 2012). This form of role taking
''emerges frequently in arts-based learning environments, and requires nego' J tiation as young people seek to balance participation in these settings with
their prior experiences that separate adult-controlled and youth-controlled
2fspaces (Ball & Heath, 1993; Chavez & Soep, 2005; Sheridan et al., in press).
I:
-!:
r~9
,~l
,.,
'-~. --".-
~<
:{'
'
!~
640
\1, A., & Heath, S. B. (1993). Dances of identity: Finding an ethnic self in the arts.
In S. B. Heath & M. McLaughlin (Eds.), Identity and inner city youth: Beyond
ethnicity and gender (pp. 69-93). New York: Teachers College Press.
'~berger, J. (1991). The mind behind the ear. How children develop musical intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ing-Canar, J., & Zerkel, M. (1998) Reading the Media and Myself: Experiences
in critical media literacy with young Arab-American women. Signs, 23(3),
735-743.
'lack, R. (2008). Adolescents and on/ine fan fiction. New York: Peter Lang.
'uckingham, D., Fraser, P., & Sefton-Green, J. (2000). Making the grade: Evaluating
student production in media studies. In J. Sefton-Green & R. Sinker (Eds.),
Evaluating creativity: Making and learning by young people (pp. 129-153).
London: Routledge.
,Buechley, L., Eisenberg, M., Catchen, J., & Crockett, A. (2008). The LilyPad Arduino:
Using computational textiles to investigate engagement, aesthetics, and
diversity in computer science education. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI
conference on human factors in computing ;ystems (CHI) (pp. 423-432).
Florence, Italy, April.
Calabrese Barton, A., & Tan, E. (2010). We be burnin! Agency, identity, and science
learning. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19, 187-229.
Campbell, M. I., Cagan, J., & Kotovsky, K. (2003). The A-design approach to managing automated design synthesis. Research in Engineering Design, 14(1),
12-24.
Chavez, V., & Soep, E. (2005). Youth radio and the pedagogy of collegiality. Harvard
641
',-,
1\
I,
,:.1
'1
''
Anchorage Press.
Deasy, R. J. (Ed.) (2002). Critical links: Learning in the arts and student academic
and social development. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State Schoo]
Officers.
diSessa, A. (2004). Metarepresentational competence: Native competence and targets for instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 22(3), 293-33 I.
DuPont, S. (1992). The effectiveness of creative drama as an instructional strategy
to enhance reading comprehension skills of fifth-grade remedial readers.
Reading Research and Instruction, 31(3), 41-52.
Dyson, A. H. (1997). Writing superheroes. New York: Teachers College Press.
Eisne1; E. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University ;
Press.
:, :.'.f(:--
.
-',:1<
Eisne1;
E. W, & Day, M. D. (2004). Handbook of research and policy in art edil'i'
'--!'IF
cation: A project of the National Art Education Association. Mahwah, NJ:,
formance in the arts and sciences, sports and games. Mahwah, NJ: La~i'.
Erlbau1n Associates.
Pennsylvania Press.
--n
Fleming, M. (2010). Arts in education and creativity: A literature review. Ne'l''
Upon Tyne, UK: Arts Council England.
Fiske, E. B. (2000). Champions of change: The impact of the arts on t
Washington, DC: The Arts Education Partnership.
. .: ,,
Freeman, N. H. (2004). Aesthetic judgment and reasoning. In E. W Eisne,;
Day (Eds.), Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp.'3
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
,
Gadsden, V. (2008). The arts and education: Knowledge generation, ped,
Basic Books.
Jr'
643
'ir c.
Ue
: I'
:''i
Ii
i,
I', I
"
I
644
Hill, M. L., & Petchauer, E. (2013). Schooling Hip-Hop: Expanding Hip-Hop educa-
Press.
out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new (pp. 243-293). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lowenfeld, V. (1957). Creative and mental growth. Third Edition.
MacMillan.
New'~
University Press.
_ ,'.
645
' V. B. (2011). Sensitive periods in human development: Evidence from musif'cal training. Cortex, 47(9), 1126-1137.
~;J{. A. (2010). Media arts: Arts education for a digital age. Teachers College
fl s. c.
~). New
~ational
resley.
['. lives:
!Oxford
rirtual
I. .
ltmg m
utures.
(Eds.),
~ti on.
'I
I'
646
Shimamura, A. P., & Palme1; S. E. (2012). Aesthetic science: Connecting minds, brains,
Press.
Sternberg, R. (2006). Creating a vision of creativity; The first 25 years. Psychology of,:
Aesthetic; Creativity, and the Arts, 8(1), 1-12.
the research actually shows about arts education and academic outcoin -Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Trust.
.
Worthman, C. (2002). "Just playing the part": Engaging adolescents in drd .
literacy. New York: Teachers College Press.