To help teachers name, convey, assess and plan for the multi-layered learning that happens in the arts, the Alliance uses three research-based frameworks developed by Project Zero and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. These frameworks offer a common language across schools and between the education and arts communities about what can be learned in the arts and how and when that learning can be powerfully connected to learning in other content areas.
“A thinking frame organizes our thinking much as the frame of a viewfinder focuses and directs our compositions as we snap photos.”
— David Perkins, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Teaching for Understanding Framework
The Teaching for Understanding Framework supports teachers as they aim lessons and assessment directly at students’ developing understanding – with understanding defined as the capacity for students to use what they know flexibly in new situations.
Teaching for Understanding asks teachers to focus on three recurrent questions:
• What do students need to understand about this topic?
• What can students do to develop that understanding?
• What can stand as evidence of students’ growing understanding?
Find out more about Teaching for Understanding in Alameda County.
Studio Thinking Framework
The Studio Thinking Framework helps Alameda County teachers answer the question: Why are the arts essential to a high quality education for every child, in every school, every day? Studying the arts means more than learning techniques with materials and tools – the arts require many skills and attitudes critical to success in all content areas and in life. The Studio Thinking Framework describes both what is taught in high quality visual arts classes (eight studio habits of mind) and how teachers organize classes to nurture high quality arts learning (three studio structures).
Find out more about the Studio Thinking Framework in Alameda County. See examples of how teachers are using this framework by viewing the Studio Thinking Booklet.
Making Learning Visible
Making Learning Visible is a way of documenting student work that makes the learning transparent not only to the student and teacher, but to parents and the community. It provides a way for everyone to learn more about what students are actually thinking, what and how they are learning. As such, it provides a vehicle for discussion that helps students build a meta-cognitive vocabulary and begin to understand their own learning processes
Simultaneously, Making Learning Visible helps teachers understand what is being learned by students and chart the course for future teaching—for that very day and for the next time the same material is taught. It also gives parents and the school community a window into learning that captures the work and thinking that goes into creating works of art and finished projects.
Learn how Alameda County teachers have used Making Learning Visible with their students.