practices by employing a process of inquiry that is
interdisciplinary in nature (Art21, 2015; Gude, 2013; Stewart and
Walker, 2009) and will in turn give students more opportunity to
practice the kind of thinking that is the hallmark of current
research on creativity (Bronson and Merryman, 2010).
Several years ago, BSCS (Biological Sciences Curricular Study)
developed the 5E Instructional Model. Briefly, the 5E
Instructional Model was “designed to facilitate the process of
conceptual change” and is composed of the following five
phases: engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and
evaluation.
From the BSCS website, a student’s interaction with the model
would look like this:
1. The student’s prior knowledge is accessed and interest in the
phenomenon being studied is engaged
2. The student participates in an activity that facilitates
conceptual change
3. The student generates an explanation of the phenomenon
(often in collaboration with other students)
4. The student’s understanding of the phenomenon challenged
and deepened through new experiences, and
5. The student assesses their understanding of the
phenomenon.
An art educator simply has to change the focus of the model
from the exploration of a natural “phenomenon” that would be
the crux of study in the biological sciences to the “enduring
ideas” (Stewart and Walker, 2009) embedded in the study of art
and this model readily “places the student in a central role for
generating and investigating questions tied to authentic
interests and needs (Stewart and Walker, 2009, 16).
This kind of lesson planning will feel somewhat foreign to the art
educator who conceives of an effective art lesson as one that
teaches a specific technical skill and results in a product which
is then assessed by how well that particular skill is articulated in
the work. When ideas rather than formal qualities are the focus
of the artwork, the fear often arises that the development of artmaking skills will suffer or that standards cannot be applied to
the products due to the number of varied outcomes possible.
However, it has been our experience that students invest more
effort in developing the techniques necessary to complete the
artwork that best conveys their response to the enduring idea
being explored through the 5E process, and that an evaluation
instrument like the one College Board uses to assess Advanced
Placement portfolios is well-suited to handle the diversity of
products that students will create at the end of a 5E lesson.
Generally, the overall quality of the student work is higher rather
than lower at the end of a 5E lesson cycle in the art room.
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