Making Content Relevant (or Not): Exploring the Outcomes of a Project-Based Curriculum in Art Appreciation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 48
  In Roundtable Session: Innovative Learning Across the Arts: Creativity in Museum, Service-Learning, and College Contexts

Abstract

Because students often struggle to understand the relevance of isolated and abstract content to their programs of study and daily lives, this study explores the potential to generate meaningful education through a project-based curriculum in Art Appreciation. Informed by research from educational psychology and neuroscience, the curriculum design was intended to help students connect course content to their social, emotional and physical realities and the potential to improve them. Students explored visual communication, various media, and the relationship between art and culture before applying their findings to the design of a public artwork for their nearly art-free campus. Based on a constructivist epistemology and a phenomenological methodology, this study utilized participant observation, student projects and illustrated reflections as data sources.

Author

• Carolina Eve Blatt-Gross, Georgia Gwinnett College