What Does Studio Thinking Look Like?

I recently had the opportunity to work with art education professor Lois Hetland to draft a statement of the benefits of studio thinking, the kind of thinking young learners develop when they do their learning in the art studio. Lois is an Associate Professor of Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art and a Research Associate at Project Zero. Here is what we agreed on:

GOAL 1: Literacy

A studio-based visual arts education puts making at the center of learning experiences, supported by perception and reflection. Making is akin to thinking in the body; it motivates learners to communicate meaning symbolically both in speech/writing about their creative works and through the use of multimodal signs that ‘stand for’ other things. As learners navigate symbol systems, they must invent connections among the different forms of symbolizing—drawing, storytelling, dramatizing, using sound effects, gesturing, moving expressively. As students make personally meaningful images, marks, and models, their artmaking scaffolds their developing literacy.

GOAL 2: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)

A studio-based visual arts education aids learners in thinking visually—for example, by visualizing and mapping models of conceptual and real-world objects and systems. The ability to visualize what cannot be directly seen is a critical skill in mathematics and sciences, and mathematics and science education organizations emphasize the importance of visual representation and reasoning capacities in K–12 instruction (and beyond). The NCTM Standards, for example, explicitly describe visualization as a tool for problem-solving and also recognize the essential role of representing and interpreting mathematical ideas and problems in visual forms, including graphs, sketches, and diagrams. The importance of model-based teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering, and math education is being increasingly recognized in STEM education reform movements. Students who learn studio-based approaches to thinking develop strong skills in visualization. Given the importance of visualization in STEM fields, strong visualizers are likely to be more successful in STEM fields and therefore more likely to continue to pursue STEM studies in high school, college, and professionally.

(I would insert this addendum: that in rethinking science, technology, engineering, and math education in relation to the studio arts, STEM gets converted to STEAM. -JHR)

GOAL 3: A Well-Rounded Education

A studio-based visual arts education in N-16 school, community, and museum contexts serves to facilitate interdisciplinary and collaborative creative practices, problem-solving across disciplines, community-engaged learning experiences, and opportunities for real-world solutions to personally important, real-world challenges. Studio artmaking generates the kinds of creative agency and personal confidence in the ability to conceive a worthwhile idea and develop it to fruition that have been documented as essential to the self-efficacy of a well-rounded thinker.