Choice-Based Art Education: TAB and the Studio Thinking Framework

At the end of any given school day, I find myself in deep reflection. I think about the discoveries made and the artworks created. I relive the emotions felt and conversations shared. I ponder the questions raised and answers uncovered. And almost always, these ruminations take me back to the fundamental question we’ve all asked ourselves at some point: What is the purpose of art education?

Many of us would answer that we teach creativity and innovation in addition to technical skills. But what, specifically, should students be able to do after their experience in an art program? How can we encourage students to pursue and develop these skills? Will they take what is learned in our studios and apply it elsewhere?

Contemporary Teaching Practices
Before discussing specifically art-related pedagogies, it’s important to identify best practices in general education. Social-emotional learning (SEL), culturally responsive teaching, and differentiated instruction are all established teaching strategies that focus on students’ well-being and individual needs.

Science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) and project-based learning are instructional models that develop scientific investigation and exploration in addition to interdisciplinary connections and self-reliance. The Framework for 21st Century Learning focuses on building skills in the domains of life and career, learning and innovation, and information and technology.

All of these educational practices provide experiences that meet students where they are and prepare them for life after primary and secondary school, but they are often isolated from each other. Two art education pedagogies that synthesize these approaches and embody the kind of individualized, research-based, and topical learning required of today’s students are Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) and the Studio Thinking framework.

TAB and Studio Thinking
One of the three core tenets of TAB pedagogy is that student-initiated inquiry and activity centers around the question, What do artists do? The Studio Thinking framework sheds light on eight broad thinking dispositions known collectively as the Studio Habits of Mind (SHoM): Develop Craft, Engage and Persist, Envision, Express, Observe, Reflect, Stretch and Explore, and Understand Art Worlds. Most TAB teachers build their curriculums around the SHoM.

When compared to the aforementioned teaching practices, the SHoM are closely related because they support scientific, inquiry-based learning and can be useful regarding skills applicable to everyday life.

Sri Shloka’s Composting Petition
To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at Sri Shloka, one of my fifth-grade students. One morning, she came to the art room and asked, “Mrs. Ferrari, do you have any green construction paper?” I obliged, but I also pressed her for details. Sri Shloka told me that the day before, she was playing a science Jeopardy-style game where the question posed to her team was about composting. This prompted her to think of the composting possibilities at our school. The construction paper was for the petition she intended to draft.

Over the next couple of weeks, we discussed the progression of her project through a Studio Thinking lens. She shared her observations regarding composting and its process through research. She envisioned a plan of action and determined what tone she would express in her petition. Then she created multiple mock-ups and reflected on her drafts, persisting through the revision process. Lastly, she used the technical art skills that she developed in class to render the final petition.

In hindsight, Sri Shloka recalled that she “had to plan, draft, and make things by myself, occasionally collaborating with another artist. Sometimes I would get technical help from a teacher. But everything from the planning to the techniques, to the thinking to the doing, was up to me.”

I asked Sri Shloka if our TAB art class’s curricular focus on the SHoM was helpful in the pursuit of her project. In response, she said, “Our program has given me so much knowledge that I find valuable. I feel that I have learned to observe, plan, envision, execute, and reflect especially.”

The Road Less Traveled but More Worthwhile
Art education should provide opportunities for students of all backgrounds to shine. Aside from their connections to best teaching practices, TAB and the SHoM promote independent learners who pursue projects because they are intrinsically motivated to do so. This motivation breeds passion and gumption, culminating in confidence. After their art education experience, students should feel prepared to pursue original ideas and enact change in an interdisciplinary manner.

As evidenced by Sri Shloka’s composting initiative, developing the SHoM in a choice-based learning environment gives our students the resources, skills, and confidence necessary to pursue change-making ideas.