"Making Do" or Making Progress? A Study of the Design and Arrangement of Eighteen K-12 Multi-Purpose Studio Art Classrooms

This study examined current conditions of existing multi-purpose studio art classrooms, or "dedicated spaces," in a cross section of America’s schools. To date, most of the research completed to assess the state of arts education programs in the last 20 years has been through government-conducted statistical analysis, detailing the number of part- and full-time certified arts teachers and the number of dedicated spaces in which arts programs are housed in each reporting school. The NAEA’s Design Standards for School Art Facilities served as the guideline for analyzing the physical design features and arrangement of the 18 classrooms included in the study. The work of Nel Noddings, Maxine Greene, and Parker Palmer provided framework for how the physical space influences human flourishing. The research utilized a multi-case study, and pursued two new methodologies: “Goldsworthy as methodology,” where Andy Goldsworthy’s inquiry-based creative practice in natural settings is transposed into the observation and analysis of art classroom design features; Design Thinking was used to understand the dynamic nuances that tie both physical features and human experience together. The findings suggest that a large number of spatial problems exist in the classrooms included in the study, that the current state of these art rooms are not indicative of spaces that are designed to support visual art learning and human flourishing, and offer insight into how to better facilitate the construction or rearrangement of studio art classrooms so that they are more intuitively suited to creative activity than they currently are

Is This Game 1 or Game 2? Primary Children's Reasoning about Samples during Inquiry

The study we report on explores how primary children (aged 8-9) working on an inquiry-based problem draw on Game 1 and Game 2 reasoning about samples and processes (populations or mechanisms) in developing statistical arguments. As this study is in an exploratory phase, our immediate aim is to build a foundation from which we can identify potential pathways for future research in inquiry-based statistical argumentation. In light of the theme of SRTL, we focus on three key questions: 1. To what extent does Makar & Rubin's (2009) inferential framework assist in identifying which game(s) students are playing as they conduct data-based inquiry? 2. What opportunities emerge for supporting students to stay in the [appropriate] game, when a particular pedagogical emphasis is placed on evidence in inquiry (Fielding-Wells, 2010)? 3. What role does the problem purpose play (Allmond & Makar, 2010) to assist or distract students from working in the appropriate game

Thinking through Mathematics: Engaging students with inquiry-based learning - Book 1 (ages 6-8)

What is mathematical inquiry?Mathematical inquiry is a process in which students respond to ill-structured, open-ended questions that reflect the authentic problems we encounter in 'real' life. This is unlike most problems we teach in mathematics, which are well-structured and close-ended. An open-ended ill-structured question has no single correct answer. It contains ambiguities in the problem or in the process of solving the problem that require students to make a number of decisions. This means that the emphasis is on the reasoning, judgements and evidence students provide rather than just on the answer (see Developing good inquiry questions on p 15)