Learning How to Learn: Trusting Students During a Collaborative Urban Art Project

• In Event: Arts Education, Social Justice, and Identity Formation

Abstract

A project-based art installation that called upon one high school class to compile one thousand pieces of art, provided the students with a richer learning experience than a traditional assignment or artificial challenge. The purpose of the final exhibition was to dismantle deficit narratives about the students’ own urban school district. Each stage of the project is outlined to share the teachers’ role as “guide-at-the-side” in the creative learning process. The findings of this study challenge teachers to see students as capable learners. We must teach our future leaders, inventors, and artists how to problem-solve, persevere, and learn so they may prepare for whatever the future holds. Teachers who value the learning process are the future of art education.

Authors

• Karen Lindeman, Edinboro University

• Ashley Lauren Sullivan, The Pennsylvania State University - Erie, The Behrend College

• Janelle Newman, Mercyhurst University