Whether students come my classroom with positive or negative attitudes towards art, there are strategies to level the “learning field”. Questioning, journals, after-school arts programs, homework, and interdisciplinary art lessons effectively create a respectful classroom climate while helping students construct knowledge with guided instruction.

      Students are able to construct knowledge when they are engaged in questioning, interpreting, and analyzing information in the context of problems or issues that are interesting and meaningful to them. Students should be given opportunities to answer essential questions and make connections with what they already know. Many content standards frame the goals as facts as “to be learned”, but the main goal is that students question these facts so they can develop a richer understanding.

      One of the challenges that surfaces in the art classroom is creating a line of comfortable communication between the teacher and student. Feedback, recommendations, and encouragement are needed so students can meet learning goals and personal goals.  To meet this challenge, each student makes a sketchbook, serving several purposes throughout the marking period. Students are more comfortable communicating with a teacher when it's nonverbal and nonjudgmental. In art education, it is imperative that the teacher looks at each student’s process, so checking for understanding, planning, and intention is necessary. 

      I value after-school art programs and opportunities to engage students in additional art making. The teacher can be a little more experimental with the group since they all share the same interest.  Students can help the teacher with curating, setting up, and promoting art shows. This kind of art program gives students a sense of responsibility while reinforcing student learning. Students may be given the opportunity to choose what they want to learn and make during this valuable free time. An after-school program keeps students interested in school, providing a safe haven and a nurturing environment for learning. Students are not bored about education when they stay after school willingly for a subject they care about.

      Art homework can continue a lesson's enduring idea outside the classroom or can be a prelude to a lesson.  Homework may involve research, reflection, questioning, or practicing. The assignments should be fun, giving students opportunities to be innovative and provide them with opportunities to lead their own learning.  Additionally, students can spend more time on homework than an in-class assignment governed by 45 minutes. Students can take extra time and care to put in the quality of work they see fit.

      Interdisciplinary art lessons have proven to be valuable and meaningful to students because new material can be easily learned when it relates to what students already know. While students learn about art, students may be able to understand the interdisciplinary subjects better if paired with visuals and art making. Our lives outside of school are not disconnected or fragmented, so why should classes teach what isn’t reality? It also encourages students to think of art in a multifaceted way, not as a singular subject.

      These research-based instructional strategies are appropriated to meet the goals I’ve established as an art educator.  From journal keeping to homework, I believe these strategies enhance student learning.