Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education

Recently featured in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, Studio Thinking presents groundbreaking research on the positive effects of art education.

Many people believe that arts education is important, but few can say exactly why. Here at last are the results of the first in-depth research on the “habits of mind” that are instilled by studying visual art―habits, the authors argue, that could have positive impacts on student learning across the curriculum. Studio Thinking provides art teachers with a research-based language for describing what they intend to teach and what students actually learn. This language will help advocates explain arts education to policymakers, help art teachers develop and refine their teaching and assessment practices, and help educators in other disciplines learn from existing practices in arts education.

Book Features:

• Introduces the Studio Thinking Framework, which goes beneath the surface of visual arts education to discover what underlying cognitive and social skills are imparted to students when the arts are taught well.
• Illustrates the Studio Thinking Framework through the voices of teachers, photographs of students at work, and samples of art projects in different media.
• Suggests how teachers in all subjects can incorporate critique sessions in their classes to promote public, shared reflection and ongoing formative assessment.
• Offers researchers a tool to develop and test hypotheses about precisely which kinds of instruction lead to various desired outcomes

Lois Hetland is Associate Professor of Art Education at Massachusetts College of Art and Research Associate at Harvard Project Zero. Ellen Winner is Professor of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Harvard Project Zero. Shirley Veenema is Art Instructor at Phillips Academy (Andover) and a researcher at Harvard Project Zero. Kimberly M. Sheridan, formerly a researcher at Harvard Project Zero, is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Art Education at George Mason University.