Arts in Education

Students

Student Research Conference
February 2007, Gutman Library

Arts in Education Program Participants

Roundtable Presentation: Creativity and Art

Edward P. Clapp
Soul
What happens when you provide thousands of people around the world with a pencil and a blank piece of paper and ask them to draw their souls? Since 1998 the Soul Project has endeavored to do just that.

Talya Dornbush
Innovation: A Rationale for the Arts in Education
The arts provide a platform for practicing four key processes of innovation: critical analysis, creative thinking, action, and reflection. As with Dewey’s experimental method of science, the innovative art student learns to recognize the way things are, the way they could be, what she might do, and how she came to see those possibilities.

Emily Funkhouser
The Impact of Sound on Viewing a Work of Art
What impact does listening to music have on a viewer’s experience with a work of art? This research project explores the similarities and differences among eight museum visitors’ experiences when half listened to a soundtrack on their iPods and others looked at art the “old fashioned” way.

Lorielle E. Mallue
Qualifiable Stages of the Creative Process
Can the elusive experience of the creative process be diagrammed, and, if so, what are its qualifiable components? If a concrete model of the creative process can be determined, how might this model be generalized and applied to other areas or disciplines where development or learning is the goal?

Roundtable Presentation: Learning Through Gaming

Srivi Kalyanasundaram (with Rachael Adriko Spillberg)
Discovering Africa and India Through Educational Software
We have created a software prototype that provides information about Africa and India in a fun and educational manner. It is targeted at 6-10 year olds and incorporates stories, games, and other educational resources. We propose to understand the role of technology in learning about cultures through this process.

Also participating in the roundtable: Luis C. Almeida, PhD, Pennsylvania State University; Mark Evans, PhD, University of Georgia; and Michael Barbour, PhD, University of Georgia.

Roundtable Presentation: Students with Disabilities

Beau Martin
Accessing and Teaching Writing with the Dyslexic Learner
This teachers’ manual, designed for the structured writing instruction of middle and high school aged children diagnosed with dyslexia, helps students learn structured writing and gain an understanding of the mechanisms at work in their writing. Ultimately, students are encouraged to become more aware of themselves as learners and better able to advocate for their own needs.

Also participating in the roundtable: Elizabeth A. Marcell, EdD, HGSE; and Laura A. Schifter, EdM, HGSE.

Roundtable Presentation: Civic Education and Social Transformation

Simone Monique Barnes
Gooridge v. Department of Public Health (The Case for Same-Sex Marriage in Massachusetts): A Lesson in Community Power, Decision Making and Education
What lessons in community power, decision-making, and education can be extracted from Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the landmark case on same-sex civil marriage in Massachusetts? How can this case, and the social movements surrounding it, be used as a teaching tool for grassroots social action and civic education?

Also participating in the roundtable: Jelena Janc Malone, EdD, HGSE.

Roundtable Presentation: Theater Arts in Education

Ian B. Hersey
Jennifer Chua
Allynn Lodge
Interpreting Slavs! in Rehearsal
The arts process of interpretation, called personalization in theater, is a viable, rich, motivating means of educating in the arts, history, and for life.

Erin Sloan Jenkins
Theatre and Visual Arts in Literacy Development
We are exploring how to use visual art and theatre in literacy development using the performance cycle model of the ArtsLiteracy Project at Brown University. We will try several visual and performing arts activities and then discuss the ways they can be used to explore a text or develop literacy.

Kenneth Kwok
Developing Student Critics
Writing theatre reviews can help students develop a more critical mind, improve their language skills, and, most importantly, attend more closely and meaningfully to the plays that they watch and also create. The study aims to develop a theatre criticism curriculum for middle and high school students.

Panel Presentation: Learning and Context

Srivi Kalyanasundaram
Graphic Design, Museum Labels, and Learning
This research project focuses on the role of graphically designed museum labels on viewer interaction with an exhibit. Specific learning theories were incorporated into the graphic design of the labels. Studies with a select group of participants showed that there was a significant impact on viewer understanding of the exhibit.

Andrea Sachdeva
How Does Pre-Visit Preparation Affect Learning Experiences in the Art Museum?
This study compares experiences of art museum visitors who have received a contextual lesson prior to their museum visit to experiences of visitors who did not receive a pre-visit lesson. The study will explore what can be determined from this comparison, and will look at overall implications for learning.

Also participating in the panel: Wendy Aaron, PhD, University of Michigan; and Prashanti Chennamsetti, PhD, Texas A&M University.

Panel Presentation: Economics and Educational Research

Tavis Linsin
Low-Wage Earners: Their Work Environments and What They Would Change About Them
Ten Boston workers who receive or are applying for income-based government aid describe their K-12, college, and professional education; describe their work experiences; and make suggestions about how they might modify their work environments to produce Good Work – work defined by the Good Work Project as excellent, ethical, and engaging.

Also participating in the panel: John Denbleyker, PhD, University of Iowa; Danielle Susskind, PhD, University of Maryland College Park; Omar Wasow, PhD, Harvard University GSAS

Panel Presentation: Strategies for Improving Literacy

Paula Lynn
Impact of Critical Looking on Descriptive Writing Skills
This pilot study reports on the effects of Visual Thinking Strategies, a facilitated discussion technique used to examine and find meaning in visual art, on 4th grade students’ descriptive writing skills over one academic year. Analysis of eight students’ writing samples suggests using art in classrooms positively influences literacy growth.

Also participating in the panel: Grace Chiu, PhD, UCLA – GSEIS; Joshua Lawrence, EdD, Boston University; Rosa Roman-Perez, PhD, The Pennsylvania State University

Panel Presentation: Ethics and Social Interaction

Ian Hersey
The Invisible Voice Part I: The Invisible Minority
Overt and institutionalized homophobia and heterosexism in society at large and in schools has a devastating effect on LGBT youth, evidenced by higher suicide rates and greater proclivity toward self-destructive behavior.

Also participating in the panel: Minghui Gao, EdD, HGSE; Darren Ralston, EdM. University of Virginia Curry School of Education; Ming Te Wang, EdD, HGSE

Panel Presentation: Space, Place, and Positioning in Education

Radhika Rao
Danielle Cavanna
Space, Place, and Positioning in Education
Though theorists have dealt, broadly, with the importance of space and place (physical and metaphoric) in education, its use remains largely understated in pedagogy and curriculum development. This panel explores the use of space in three different educational settings—heritage sites (out-of-school), the classroom (in-school), and a summer theater program (after-school)—and reflects on the influence of educational space on learning and teaching.

Also participating in the panel: Debby Saintil, EdD, HGSE

Poster Presentations

Simone Monique Barnes
Encouraged to Speak: An Orange Ribbon’s Impact on Motivation, Collaboration and Social Interaction Amongst Museum Visitors
How does providing a visible and removable sign (an orange ribbon) of an adult museum visitor’s willingness to engage in conversation with other adult visitors impact their interaction, conversation, learning, and enjoyment? A museum visitor behavior study conducted at the MFA, Boston, exploring social interaction, collaborative learning, and motivation.

Beau Martin
Student Voices: Analyzing Classroom Pragmatics
This project analyzes the nature of discourse within eighth grade classrooms at a private, co-educational, K-12 school in order to determine how a careful study of pragmatics can be used to inform instruction. Emphasis is placed on examining the balance between teacher and student voices, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and participation of girls and boys.

Barbara E. Palley
How Could Art Museums Be More Like Children’s Museums (And Why Should They Try)?
If play is the “language of the child” (Landreth) what do art museums have to learn from children’s museums in reaching young visitors? Through a comprehensive literature review and design ideas I argue for the inclusion of “learning through play” in art museums.

Keon-Ryeong Park
Comparing Research About and Art Museum and a School’s Partnership Programs Between Two Countries, South Korea and U.S.A.
I want to compare research about partnership programs between art museums and schools in two countries, South Korea and the U.S. As museum samples, I choose the Arko Art museum in South Korea and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Major sources for my comparative analysis will be documentary surveys and interviews with the directors of education teams in art museums.

Kerstin Roolfs
The Art of Guarding and Guiding: The Untapped Potential in Art Museums
The research study, “The Art of Guarding and Guiding: The Untapped Potential in Art Museums,” investigates if and how museum guards learn by working in the museum environment. If guards learn, do they distribute their knowledge to the visitors of the museum and in what ways do they do so?

Ashley X. Rybowiak
Jennifer Chua
Background Experience in Determining Museum Educational Trajectories
How do people’s choices of profession, hobbies, and both past and present notions of museums contribute to the quality of their museum experience? Our research demonstrates the wealth of information contained within museums is largely untapped by the public and museums must restructure their programs to cater to unaware viewers.

Joanne M. Seelig
Melanie Brown
Page to Performance: Arts Learning from the Classroom to the Community
Classroom literature can be challenging for students of all grade levels. Students learn best when provided opportunities for creativity, choice, and continuous feedback. The arts provide many of these opportunities by actively engaging students. Page to Performance presents an arts-infused curriculum that enhances the instruction of 8th grade English literature.