Pam: The Artful Learning Education Model

Pam: What is Artful Learning?

The Artful Learning education model is an arts-based school improvement program. This program encourages teachers to integrate various forms of art into every educational aspect and process. This experimental educational model has only been implemented in a handful of schools, so there is limited data to verify its effectiveness and the success rate.

Conceptual Overview

Art-based learning includes school and classroom components. The classroom focus revolves around teachers using and integrating art into all aspects of curriculum development and execution. This means that teachers use art to help teach math, science, history and social studies. The school focus revolves around professional collaboration and shared leadership. The model was developed from the artistic work and learning philosophy of the American composer Leonard Bernstein, who composed

Each unit contains a thematic question that is explored during the learning process. The so called Masterwork concept and main question are used to start and organize instructional constructs. The term Masterwork is what most teachers traditionally consider the arts, such as music, painting and literature.

However, Masterwork can also be used to refer to any artistic endeavor or expression of cultural value and significance. Each learning unit is comprised of a single instructional process that comes with four phases. These include experience, which occurs when the student interacts with the masterwork, and inquiry, when the students investigate and research the piece of art. It continues with creation, which occurs when students design their own original artistic product, and reflection, which occurs when students use standard tools to better understand what they have learned and