AI Creativity and the near future of education

AI and Creativity created by ChatGPT-4

This week, I spent two days at the Nebraska Educational Technology Association meeting in Omaha. It was great to meet with friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances. Everyone talked about AI as a catapult to changing, rethinking, worrying, and joy. Evi and I spent some time talking about how we humans are still better/ different than the machines. Much like humans have for centuries argued that humans were not like other animals, our current existential obsessive discussion (and fear) is about what happens when Artificial General Intelligence shows up. For me, the question is what we can do in the short run. The answer may very well be a focus on inquiry, creativity, and self-guided learning.

As highlighted by our work in Art TEAMS, integrating new tools and emphasizing creativity and divergent thinking in education presents a forward-thinking model that could significantly influence schools in the coming years. This approach, which blurs the traditional boundaries between art, sense-making, and metacognition, opens up several intriguing possibilities and challenges for education.

For example, schools might increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms that foster creativity, such as digital art, coding for creative purposes, and virtual reality for immersive learning experiences. These tools can help students explore complex concepts in a hands-on manner, enhancing their understanding and using AI tools to amplify creativity and self-expression. 

By leveraging AI and other technologies, educators can create personalized learning paths for students. This customization allows students to explore subjects at their own pace and according to their interests, which can boost engagement and motivation. This can happen while we encourage metacognitive skills, thinking about one's own thinking, that can help students understand and regulate their learning processes, strengths, and areas for improvement. This self-awareness is crucial for lifelong learning and adaptability, especially in a rapidly changing world. 

This approach allows for breaking down the silos between subjects, especially art, humanities, and sciences, and encourages students to make connections across disciplines. This holistic method fosters critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to see problems from multiple perspectives. 

To reach this goal, we need to focus on teacher education and mindset shift. Teachers will need training and support to adapt to these new tools and pedagogies. Shifting from traditional teaching methods to a more student-centered, creative, and interdisciplinary approach requires time, resources, and a change in mindset. This can happen during pre-service and in-service teacher education and requires attention to equity and access. Our educational system has a robust tendency to focus on basic skills for those with perceived deficiencies who never get to interact with more complex educational experiences.

 As AI and other technologies become more integrated into education, maintaining a balance between technological efficiency and the human elements of learning—such as empathy, ethics, and emotional intelligence—will be vital. The potential for human flourishing through this educational paradigm is significant. By fostering an environment where creativity, critical thinking, and personal reflection are paramount, students can develop not only the skills needed for future careers but also the capacity for resilience, empathy, and ethical decision-making. This approach not only prepares students to thrive in a world where AI plays a significant role but also ensures they contribute positively to their family, community, and society.

Riding the Tiger- AI and Teaching in Higher Education

 Recently, I was part of a panel on AI in academia. This is just part of the way I re-orient myself in my work. AI is demanding that we pay attention, or we become obsolete. My metaphor is riding the tiger, and with the help of two AI generators (Dall-E and Firefly), I created two images imagining it.

The metaphor is connected to a few crucial concepts. First, we are not being asked whether the tiger (AI) should be introduced into our lives. It has already been released, and it has now become our problem. We cannot ignore it because the tiger can and will harm us. What is left for us is to try to ride it. I am not certain that we will survive, but I am positive that I will enjoy the process. That I will enjoy the process.hat I will enjoy the process.hat I will enjoy the process.

Second, I believe that we should take an AI pause, not from development but instead from teaching. Pause and dedicate time to think through what AI means for our teaching domain. To guide such work, we should have "worked examples" (Gee, 2010) produced by instructors that are being thoughtful and comprehensive in their incorporation of AI.

 

Tech EDGE Art TEAMS - Exhibitions of Learning

Here is our latest [podcats from Art TEAMS

High Quality Materials and Teacher Learning

 The Nebraska Department of Education invited me to the IMPD network conference. I am always happy to participate and see if I can learn and contribute. At the same time, I have to admit that I am somewhat skeptical. I do not doubt that high-quality materials are helpful and more useful than low-quality materials. However, I think about it in an 80/20 split. High-quality materials will contribute to better instruction, but that represents a contribution of about 20% of total improvement. The 80% is in teacher professional learning and development that will raise efficacy and skill. 

The upside of High-Quality materials includes teacher confidence in the curriculum and reducing the need to scrounge for resources late at night. This confidence reduces the pressure on teachers' out-of-school time and gives breathing room for thinking about differentiation and accommodation of different learners. From an information processing perspective, we are reducing teacher cognitive load to enable more effective instructional procedures. 

From this perspective, High-quality materials are a no-brainer; bring it on, and engage with the process. Let's do it! The challenge, however, can be articulated at the individual teacher and system levels.

The cognitive load question can play an opposite role at the individual teacher level. A teacher is using a familiar curriculum is able to be creative around it and differentiate for her students. The familiarity reduces the load, an effect I have seen in reverse every time a district adapts a new curriculum. As a teacher educator, I have placed students in classrooms every semester for the past 20 years. Every time our district decides on a new reading curriculum, teachers reduce the number of preservice teachers they will host, disallow any creative deviation from the curriculum, and be fairly stressed. After about two years, the familiarity once again allows for more adaptation. So the question becomes, does the new curriculum adapted is such an improvement on the old one that it justifies the change. If you accept the 80/20 idea, the bar for improvement is quite high. This effect can be mitigated if you use curriculum change for significant professional learning. Then it becomes a leverage point for growth.

This is when the systemic effect presents with a second challenge; since schools invest significant attention into the process and money into materials, little is left for meaningful professional learning. The danger is that by the time materials are selected, bought, and introduced, everyone is exhausted and does not pay attention to the professional learning required to make it work. The calls for fidelity and making sure spending is justified clash with the individual needs of teachers and students. Moreover, school administration often projects implicitly or explicitly a conformity message that constrains teachers from acting in their best professional judgment.

In the context of our professional learning in Art TEAMS,
we are working very much on the 80% side of teacher professional learning. We acknowledge curriculum and work with teachers to develop ways to differentiate and deepen using metacognitive strategies (such as the creative inquiry process (Marshall and D'Adamo, 2011)) pedagogic moves, and collaborative learning opportunities. It would be interesting to see how teachers change their use of the strategies as the curriculum shifts.

Happy New Year- New Ventures

 The last few months have been extremely busy, and I had fewer opportunities to blog. As the new year commences, I am sharing of our new projects for 2023. This time I would like to focus on our podcasts/ video series coming.

Nick Husbye and I started a podcast for Graduate Students, and junior faculty in Education called "Not that Kind of Doctor. You can find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

The ART TEAMS project Podcast has lunched at the beginning of December:

Tech EDGE in collaboration with the Nebraska Department of Education will launch a series of video podcasts with Chrystal Liu on integrating technology in the World Language Classroom.  YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. You can catch it here: https://www.youtube.com/@techedge01 episodes start February 1.

Drop me a line with any feedback on the main issues.

Art Education & the World

This post is a little preachy. I thought about it for awhile and decided to nevertheless publish...
After spending 5 days discussing the 2015 redrafting of the millennium goals with an emphasis on learning I started thinking. Here is an opportunity to have broader say in the way the leading countries impact the development of education in the developing world and we- we go to basics. The tone is similar to my previous post on new literacies and the narrow definition of what students all around the world need.
The discussions around the tables were about reading fluency, phonics and in some circles empowerment and local control. Before we lose our focus and make other nations repeat our tortured paths to education and follow in our footsteps through the power of our funding let's try to learn from the mobile wireless revolution in the developing world.
I've used this metaphor before and I think it still applies. For developing countries to get to where they want to be they do not need to necessarily follow every step that the the developed world went through. In fact, they can and probably should decide on their own priorities and leapfrog to that place.
This is where goals in arts can be really put into place. Encouraging the continuation and expansion of local art forms, atrisanship and culture should have equal footing with decoding and fluency. The integration of rich meaningful experiences will help enhance children's school experiences and prepare them for a full meaningful life. The revolution should be making school relevant and delightful with music, visual art, dance as well as writing and math. The whole world is striving for creative citizens- not for decoders who can perform simple tasks. Technology and creativity can help bridge those differences and increase the diversity in the world of ideas. So my call is simple: lets make room in the new goals for something more than basic education. We should not wait until the "basics" instead it should be part of the basics making education a full experience that can leapfrog whole generations into the 21st century.

Location:Lincoln,United States

Back to Creativity- A Response

I find myself in a discussion on creativity with Kurt Knecht and Bob Woody. I come at creativity from the psychological research side and my experience conducting research on the integration of arts into the elementary curriculum for a decade. I did not measure creativity, in fact I resisted some of the pressures. I find that most measures of creativity are artificially focused on a small subset of tasks without extensive validity to back them up. I am not opposed though to the social science  endeavor studying the phenomena as Kurt has said. I come at it from the educational side and my understanding of how our political and educational leadership systems work.

It is widely perceived that America's advantage in the world is it's creativity. We once manufactured, engineered, were well funded and had a technology edge. As a society we feel that America has lost its edge and we are worried looking for our advantage over China and other threats. Our political system needs to manufacture a solution that will get them elected. The way things go the next logical step is to say: well if our advantage is creativity then how do we promote it from kindergarten and how do we really know children are creative? At this point the big testing companies will offer a test of creativity- a standardized one and we will create a generation of students "uniformly creative" then discover it didn't work and blame teachers and unions. My reluctance is really fear of a series of intended consequences that leads to less time for music and art in school because we have to teach creativity.

Finally a note about the nature of creativity. I believe that creativity is rooted in a deep understanding of a domain as a precursor. Lehrer describes the study of mopping to find a new solution. The key part of the story for me was that Continuum designers studied mopping for 6 months then learned from an expert who was years at the task, that is I believe he described the evidence that creative innovation is actually linked to doing! The second aspect the Lehrer highlights and I actually agree with is having the space to try, fail and retry. It is where schools have the hardest time creating the time and space to experiment. We have packed the curriculum with so much "stuff" so many standards and tests that teachers are hard pressed to find time for their students to experiment and wonder per Kurt Knecht or play per Margaret Latta. Without this space to be wrong creativity is a risk not worth taking.

This space for risk with the notions of Flow and Studio habits of mind are the best linkages to elementary education (my domain).
So in summary I do not think we should shy away from studying creativity, only that we should be very careful as both Kurt and Bob emphasized shy away from over generalizing. My suggestion is always to go back to the original studies and avoid the urge to read journalistic versions.

An atypical post: Empathy and the act of Artistic Creation

Last week I had two encounters with artists that expressed an empathetic link to exceptional students. Last thursday I went to listen to my son performing as part if the Lincoln High Slam Poetry team. Before they performed we had the pleasure of listening to Chris August Slamming. His most potent poetry seems to have emerged from his interaction with students with disabilities when he was a special education teacher. An example is in this selection that reminds me at times of Taylor Mali. That night I started thinking about ways this experience with students makes us more empathetic in a way that finds its way into an artistic outlet OR maybe it is a shared sensitivity that manifests itself in teaching and caring as well as for creating.

Later in the week I read Kurt Knecht's (a friend and fellow blogger) post about deciding to become a composer. In it he concludes with: "After that morning, I knew two things. I didn’t want to play in places with non-union stagehands, and I wanted to learn how to write music that could make mentally handicapped children clap."

I do not really think that all artists have more empathy. I think there are too many examples to the contrary, but I think that in the act of creating for an audience there is at times a sense of audience (and both my examples are from performance art) that makes us more empathetic. To do that successfully an artist must achieve at least a limited sense of empathy.

The interesting piece in this empathy sense is that empathy is a "pay it forward" idea. I think that when an audience is privy to this empathy they are automatically more empathetic towards the person (think Teebo). In Chris's case it makes his word choice and other choices easier to swallow because he did show us a different side as well. 

I think that the same can hold for kids- performance and artistic creation can foster their sense of empathy as well.

Composition- Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

A few weekends ago Kurt and I found ourselves in a Uhaul truck moving furniture. Kurt as is his habit levels a multi-layered question in a matter of fact way. This is in no way a direct quote but the essence of the question was How do you teach and evaluate [musical] composition at the graduate level? What I love about Kurt is that he asks this just as if he was asking "Should we make a right here?" That is while the question is complex it is also very concrete in his mind (and mine I think).
Anyway this post are some of my thoughts about the topic that applies directly to creativity in other domains and has clear parallels in the writing process and in visual arts. I borrow here from Ken Robinson and define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. In the context of education as a process I think that most often creativity is about finding novel solutions to meaningful problems. The problems themselves can be defined by an educator or the learner. When teaching composition, writing or visual arts this definition holds, and one can see how we can ask students to create in a familiar style or form (say painting a still life picture or writing a Haiku) making it uniquely our own by identifying the problem and providing a solution to it. In a sense teaching writing is very much just that. Lucy Calkins coined the phrase "Teach the writer not the writing" (I am actually borrowing it from Evi who is one of the best teachers of writing I know) which I take to mean there is no one uniform way to go through a program, instead as educators we must allow room for learners to define their own problems and find solutions to them. In a way teaching creativity is about teaching our students to identify problems, learn how others solved similar ones and then coming up with their own solution.
This is exactly the reason that I believe there is no universal creativity factor but instead expertise leading to creativity in a specific domain. The process in broad strokes has parallels but the details are often too different. For example I have no capacity to identify problems  in [music] composition , but I am extremely capable of doing that in educational research (it is a strange field to be creative in I know).
The area that has the most to offer I think for educators interested  in developing the ability to compose is Teaching Writing. You must decipher the parallels of course and the elements that are uniquely linked to writing but I still believe that it is useful.
A place to start might be:
The work of Lucy Calkins, Linda Flower, and unl's own Robert Brooke.

Parallels

This week I had the opportunity to consult informally with a local educational leader (I would use names, but I did not ask for permission so ... maybe another time). The Discussion focused on ways to implement and measure professional development in social studies education with an emphasis on American History in elementary schools. While it has been a while since I taught history (15 yrs to be exact) the knowledge I brought to the table was actually related to the work we've done in Arts LINC. Interestingly Nancy A., my long time collaborator in Arts LINC, is now a project director in a Teaching American History Grant.
The parallels between the two domains are uncanny. In the past decade, social studies in the elementary schools have been declining, despite the fact that it was one of No Child Left Behind "Core Subjects". The bottom line was that social studies were not tested at the elementary level and thus less and less attention, time and resources were directed at them over time. Social studies curriculum leaders find themselves needing to convince others that social studies matter for all students and that understanding of history can have added benefits to other domains through integration and 21st-century learning. In short they present an argument not much different than the one we presented over a decade ago in arts integration. Luckily, I could bring to the discussion our lessons of making integration work. So here they are:

1. Partner with teachers as co-researchers.
2. Allow for leadership opportunities and encourage initiative
3. Measure teacher implementation and student achievement and provide short feedback cycles of results
4. Integrate into existing curriculum (do not add instructional units), let teachers decide where and how much
5. Set clear yet flexible criteria for quality that will become your fidelity checks
6. Develop teacher's knowledge base/ model lessons
7. Visit teachers to teach and learn

Hedonic Adaptation and the State of the Arts

In his recent book Dan Ariely discussed Hedonic Adaptation, the ability of our mind to adjust to new baseline conditions. An example of short term adaptation is a smell that initially overwhelms us but after some time becomes tolerable and eventually recedes into the background. ariely claims that the Hedonic adaptation to larger changes is about 6 months (e.g. for a new car to not feel to us new anymore). I would like to stretch the concept to the idea of societal hedonic adaptation- when our expectations as a society and culture shift and a new baseline is created. A good example that jumps into my mind is the phenomena that has always fascinated me, the semblance of "normal" life in the height of the ghetto period during the holocaust. The idea that even under horrific conditions Jewish society maintained a new normal with social events, music, art, organization and celebration of life cycle events. Against all claims that our evil nature emerges when the thin veneer of civilazation is scraped by circumstance. That ability of society to adapt through the individual ability of hedonic adaptationcan be a blessing and a curse.
When I think about education I fear the same Heonic adaptation. We get used to excessive pointlessy invalid unreliable testing (see Berliner's post on that recently). So what oes that have to do with a blog about arts integration? As I was reading Ariely's book it occured to me that we have generation growing up with very little to no art in school, heck in the elementary years there is in some places just math and literacy. The same is true for large, complex, and integrated unit of studies. If this becomes he new standard, as past students become parents that will not demand arts education and arts integration for their kids because it has never existed for them then we will be in perpetual trouble. Kaiser pointed that out in his national tour two years ago as well.
Since I do not want to be glum I would like to point to an alternative. It may be that we need the arts in a way that resists hedonic adaptation. Ariely points out that we cannot adapt in this way to eveything. It cold be that he arts are so foundamental to us as humans that we will know them even in their absence and ask for them, just like the fact that music and art lived on in the bleak ghettos. Kurt Knecht suggested in a recent blog that we finally move away from the notion hat to create art one has to suffer, I suggest that we go one step further and claim that art does need us, instead we need art. It may very well be hat it is such a deep need that it defies conditions and we cannot exist for long without it.
This may also explain how after decades of neglect teachers are still seeking opportunities to integrate the arts into their classrooms embracing the complexity of self expression.

What do I mean by entrepreneurship?

In a comment on a previous post Kurt (whose blog is worth visiting) asked what I meant by entrepreneurship. Like all good questions it made me think a little more deeply on the issue- which is the main reason for the existence of this blog in the first place.
For me that word extends to any self initiated activity that interacts with the community in a positive way. It could be economic (and showing the economic importance of the arts is part of it), but it could also be a part of applying an entrepreneurial approach to community involvement, community action or giving.
The idea is that the arts can help students be more aware of their community and connect to it. See themselves as relevant players in building a community. I believe that shared art that crosses personal boundaries shared in new ways can become a vehicle to contain the alienation that kids and adults often feel in their everyday life.
One can argue that our modern school system is a product of the industrial revolution and the structure of the disciplinary approach to school (most obviously in high school) is akin to an assembly line in which each teacher has a specific and narrow task. His output can be measured easily most recently in value-added model suggested by economists (see Kurt's take on this issue here).
What I am arguing is that education and most easily elementary education can strive to create an alternative approach which connects the learner to the community and reduces the alienation not just for the learner but also for the community at large. Art can be such an instruments if we allow and support our students in becoming social and economic entrepreneurs.
Theoretically I am aiming at a sense of agency- a sense that schools (and society) strip away from children instead of finding meaningful ways to foster it.

What if we combined arts, technology and entrepeneurship?

In a series of conversation about the arts in the last few years I have heard repeatedly the argument that the arts help sustain communities from an economic standpoint.  To be honest I have paid little attention to it. Not because I think they are wrong but instead because my main concern is not the business of the arts, it is maintaining the place of the arts in education.

In the last few weeks one of our graduate students Laurie has been conducting interviews and observations with teachers who integrate technology in their instruction. Quite a few of the teachers were art teachers that integrate technology into much of their work, some were technology teachers using art (visual, video and music).

At the same time schools are being "squeezed" and respond by limiting art and technology. What would happen if we combined arts, technology, and entrepreneurship in meaningful ways? What might that look like at the school and community level? I think there is great potential here that would help students see connection become active learners and strengthen communities. There is one risk- doing this might make school learning relevant and meaningful, not much irony actually, if some areas are highly motivating other areas that are less immediately relevant (say physics) may actually decline even further. Much to think about would love some comments.

Budget Cuts and the Arts

This time I would like to talk about the recent budget cuts at UNL. While this may be not be directly about arts integration I still believe it has direct impact on my main topic. In the recent round of budget cuts a decision was made to cut K-12 arts education. What does it mean? It means that we will cease to prepare arts educators at the undergraduate level within the next few years.

I am sorry to see any program go, and even sorrier to see my good colleague Dr. Jean Detlefsen go, but in times of budget difficulty choices have to be made. The pattern, however, is familiar to K-12 environments- the arts goes out early with PE and other "nice but not necessary" subjects. I argue here as I did before the Academic Planning Committee, that the loss will impact our program beyond that of arts education. The disappearance of the program will lead to fewer graduate students in arts education decreasing our ability to teach art methods to all elementary teachers. In addition, this group of future arts educators interacted directly with future elementary teachers in our arts teaching methods course. But all of that will cease in less than two years.

So what now? As I am more prone to action than dwelling on things I cannot change I started working with colleagues on a new M.Ed. program that will focus on 21st century learning- marrying my care for elementary education and my interests in creativity arts integration and educational technology and media.

In some ways I am very excited about this new idea whose time has come...
Hopefully this idea can support the ongoing creation of diverse art teachers that would be able to combine art media and technology for the benefit of all students.

The Immutability of Schooling Practices

It's been awhile since I posted, so I am a little rusty. At AERA I went (among other things) to listen to Michael Cole in a distinguished lecture. I will not claim to present this complex talk in a blog posting. The essence as I perceived it was to say that schooling is a persistent institution not just in goals but in practices, norms, and rituals. In challenging the view of modern schooling as a result of industrial modes of production, he claimed (with evidence) that these modes of instruction are as old as literacy itself. 
Faced with this notion of immutability, schooling has a clear and constant structure, I was forced to ask myself: How can we then engage with arts integration and its implications for the classroom (exploration, ownership, professionalism) as educational reform.? We know that as a wide phenomena we are doomed to fail. At best we can insert ideas from our practice to standards that then will be narrowly and mechanically interpreted by many.
Here too Cole provides an answer. He claims that only major social change in goals and dispositions that redefines the way we interact with each others, with other living things and the planet. Our job then is to create ideas and practices that will continue existing in small pockets- waiting for such social change giving future education options and choices to follow.

AERA is Approaching

So I thought I would pick some of the sessions related to arts integration that looked interesting to me.
Hope to see y'all there.



1. Artful and Creative Processes as Modes for Teaching and Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 4:05pm - 6:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

2. Arts and Learning: Activism, Transitions, and Integrations

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 109, 111, 113

3. Arts as Innovation for Reforming Practice

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

4. Arts, Learning, and Community: Developing Practices and Discovering Identities

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 711

5. Creating Across Languages: The Arts Benefit to English-Language Learners and Second-Language Learning

	Unit: SIG-Bilingual Education Research
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 606
	Descriptors: English Learner, Arts Education, ESL/ENL

6. Critical Literacy and Expression in Early Childhood Education

	Unit: SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Tue, May 4 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

7. Diverse Pathways to Literacy Development

	Unit: Division G - Social Context of Education
	Sub Unit: Section 1: Local Contexts of Teaching and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

8. Impact of Arts Integration on Content-Area Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

9. Indigenous Visual Ecologies of Knowledge as Repertoires for Learning

	Unit: SIG-Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2
	Descriptors: Indigenous Peoples, Arts Education, Social Context

10. Language, Literacy, and Arts in Teacher Education

	Unit: Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
	Sub Unit: Section 7
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

11. Lines of Flight: Studying Children’s Production of Art and Culture

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 705
	Descriptors: Arts Education, Adolescence, Early Childhood

12. Linking Teacher Education to Teacher and Student Performance: Research on National Policies and Assessments Instruments

	Unit: Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
	Sub Unit: Section 2
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

13. Making Art to Make a Difference: Exploring the Educational Significance of Using Art to Impact Social Change

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 704
	Descriptors: Arts Education, Social Change, Communities

14. Mediating the Creative Experience: New Literacies, Methods, and Assessments

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

15. New Teacher Induction: Promising and Innovative Practices for Support, Development, and Leadership

	Unit: SIG-Research on Teacher Induction
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Sheraton, Grand Ballroom Section 2

16. Poster Session: Culture and Learning Environments

	Unit: Division C - Learning and Instruction
	Sub Unit: Section 5: Learning Environments
	Session Submission type: Poster Session
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 3

17. Reflective and Narrative Practices for Aesthetic Development and Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

Reflection

This is a part of study reflection one of my students Marsha Silver who has taught art for over a decade:

"When I was in elementary school in the1960’s, I don’t remember having art. I know that I liked to draw and read but why don’t I remember any art? Maybe that is because I did not experience Art Education in a manner that impressed me. Some of the most important and influential artists of the ’60 and 70’s lived in my lifetime! Why did I not know about Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup (Tomato), 1968, or Rauschenberg’s Retroactive, 1964, not to mention Jasper John’s Map, 1961, or Flags, 1968? Art Education is when students acquire different techniques to learn things such as drawing, sculpting, and other artistic abilities. It also teaches about artists from the past and present. In my opinion, I think that Art Education enhances creative expression. Using the multiple aspects of art education such as art history, art criticism, art production, aesthetics and assessments provide students with a greater understanding and appreciation for art. Being organized, defining learning objectives, teaching art production, exploring art history and  making connections beyond the classroom helps students become aware of the significance and influence that art has on other subject matter and their personal lives. Art integration, again, is interdisciplinary as I said in the first paragraph. So it does not go unsaid that art and other subjects cannot interact... It is my personal opinion that everyone has their own ideas about how to use the arts in education. Isn’t teaching about sharing knowledge and experiencing the unknown?"


I think we must be aware of the generation gap between us as  art educators, the contemporary art world, and the world our students grow up in. The question is how do we who grew up in different eras can stay open to new media and ideas in art and help deliver them to our students. Our own view of art and "what counts as art" is most often formed in our early interactions with art. By the time we become teachers this view is established and we are in danger of not "moving" with the times. I think it is easy to see why a student might not hear the clearest artistic voices in that very same era. Chances are that these voices are controversial in their time, possibly even unknown to the teacher who grew up  a different era.
Once in a while we must ask ourselves, are we exposing our students to the voices and media who 30 years from now will come to be the voices representing the first decade of the 21str century? 

The Place of Integrated Arts Courses in Preservice Elementary Education

This week Deborah Loewenberg-Ball visited UNL and gave a talk on the place of Schools of Education in Research Universities. You can access the powerpoint of the talk here, and soon we hope to have a video up.

One notion that I find very interesting now, as I coordinate our Elementary Education preservice program at UNL is the notion of our programs as "labs of practice in which we explore and research new and innovative ways to educate the next generation of teachers. This approach is very much in line with my thinking about the role of formative or design experiments in which rigorous curricular design and assessment are intertwined to create an innovative self- correcting structure that is focused on development not as a result of external pressures but instead of growing understanding of process and product as well as influenced by the research we do in schools.

So what that has to do with the arts? Well we have a unique opportunity to leverage what we've been learning in the field into our preservice program. In the last few years we shifted from a domain approach in arts education (a class on music, visual etc.) to an integrated experience focused on aesthetic experiences. Our masters in elementary education (MAET) program has an integrated arts education course that integrates the arts, science, and literacy in the context of place based education (in our case the prairie). We are now ready to make the arts more prominent throughout our program. I am not yet sure of what form it will take but the possibilities are truly exciting.

Abstract Thinking Concrete Thinking and the Arts

These are just beginning thoughts and may make sense only to me- oh well, I do welcome comments and questions.

We have a group of professors who routinely think about cognitive theory. On of the results of our thinking is presented in our book "The Unified Learning Model" (or ULM for short). But our conversations continue led by David Brooks who in bouts and spurts pushes our group along. Recently we've been discussing (among other topics) abstract thinking triggered by Elizabeth Spelke comment on Charlie Roses Brain series.

I have been thinking for a while about abstract concepts in relation to vocabulary and started to reject the notion of abstract concepts as concepts that lack objective context- as would for example a chair. Part of this is connected to our work in the arts where a representation of the object helps students realize what the concept is. Of course most of our work happens before students move into what Piaget called the formal operations stage- so my evidence is highly skewed by what I encounter every day.

Initially we tried on definitions for abstract thought. David Moshman noted:
"I've always found the notion of "abstract thought" is too vague to be of much use.  Language is inherently abstract in important ways and the process of learning it is in some ways a process of abstraction, but this is obviously not beyond the capacity of young children.  The same can be said of elementary mathematics, and one of Gelman's basic principles, which all children come to understand, is the abstraction principle.  Piaget defined formal operations as involving hypothetico-deductive reasoning, which involves making deductive inferences to see what logically follows from false or hypothetical statements.  This might be considered an advanced form of abstract thought."

As I challenged the notion of a Formal Operations stage David Moshman who spends his days thinking and writing about this responded:

"Is there really a formal operational stage?  Well, yes and no (that's my definitive answer).

On the yes side, there are indeed advanced forms of reasoning (and associated metalogical conceptions) of the sort identified by Piaget in his work on formal operations that are commonly seen in adolescents and adults but rarely or never seen before the age of 10 or 11.

On the no side, there is no general stage transition from consistent concrete operational reasoning to consistent formal operational reasoning."

 

So how does this connect to art? In my mind art can be one of the structures on which cognition can lean on as it learns to become abstract. Art can provide a representation that can help us guide students to ask questions that lead to metaphoric thinking a key to following the hypothetical deductive line of thinking. The point that emerges as we consider science, art, and abstract thought was made by Kieth Jacobshagen as he spoke to our class during the summer. He pointed out that what we perceive as a car driving up the road in the dark in nothing but two abstract yellow dots. That is to say all art is abstract and our brains create an image and fill in the gaps to make sense of it. All using concrete knowledge to understand what is an essentially abstract artifact.

So art is an abstract form like language and math and can serve as a bridge to advanced abstract thinking. hmmm maybe we should do more art in school.

Mike on Ken Robinson

I teach an undergraduate literacy methods block for Elementary teachers and in it my students are asked to reflect weekly on hat weeks readings and their classroom observations. I do allow them occasionally to deviate if they find a topic that is particularly appealing to them.
About a week ago Mike wrote this piece in response to a Ken Robinson piece (I am publishing this with his explicit permission):

"I'd like to take this opportunity to depart from the traditional format of the blogs and comment on something else. A friend of mine recently showed me this link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

In the video, Ken Robinson talks about the nature of our education system. He says that our educational system is far too linear. We start kids off in elementary school preparing them for middle and high school where we then prepare kids for college. All of this is designed so that the kids end up getting a degree and can thereby be successful in the world. Robinson argues that it was a great idea back when college degrees were comparatively rare to high school diplomas, but today, we have a higher percentage of people going on to get their degrees than ever before. As such, a bachelor's degree is not what it used to be. So if everyone has a degree, what more can we do with education to keep improving? Robinson's answer is creativity. He says that we need to teach kids to embrace creativity rather than cut our arts and music programs from the school's curriculum.

I like what Robinson had to say, but I think he overlooked some key aspects of education. Yes, more and more people are going on to get their degrees in post-secondary education. And yes, it would be really smart to teach those graduates to be more creative and well rounded. But what about the students we have to specifically tailor our instruction around? Special needs students present some of the greatest challenges to us as teachers. I feel like Robinson completely glossed over this very substantial, important group of people. It's naive to think that our current education system is great if not for it's lack of emphasis on creativity. Yes, we're sending more kids off to college than ever, but we still have a lot of work to do with educating every one of our students. Belmont, especially, has driven this point home for me"

Mike's comments contextualize what many teachers are thinking, namely that before we attend to creativity there is a lot of other work to be done. I wholeheartedly agree with Mike that we are not yet great at teaching all children what they need to be full citizens. On the other hand there seem to be an underlying assumption that creativity is the cherry, like higher order thinking or comprehension instruction something that comes after skills.

This is the danger that talks about the big C can lead to- the fact that teachers, administrators and parents worry about regular everyday capabilities and rightly so. The little dancer from Robinson'sstory would be a heartwarming story if she grew up to be a world class dancer- but we all know the chances are slim. We need a Ken Robinson who follows up and says and look how we can use her dancing to enhance her learning so she feels empowered to learn and we to teach through it- so she can be successful in everything she chooses to be engaged in.