Search

The Art of Being Curious

NAEA Position Statement on Media Arts (Adopted March 2015; Reviewed and Revised March 2018; Revised August 2018;Reviewed and Revised March 2019; Reviewed and Revised April 2023)

Explore Exciting Opportunities From the Design Interest Group

NAEA Position Statement on STEAM Education (Adopted March 2014; Reviewed and Revised March 2017; Reviewed and Revised March 2022)

NAEA Position Statement on Visual Art and its Relationship to Career Technical Education (CTE) (Adopted March 2013; Reviewed and Revised November 2014; Reviewed and Revised March 2019)

Design thinking is not just for STEM or Silicon Valley but has application across grade levels and content areas. Design thinking “begins with the premise of tapping into students' curiosity and allowing them to create, test, and re-create until they eventually present what they made to a real audience (sometimes global but often local),” writes author John Spencer. This issue features ideas for worthy design projects, how to negotiate the different steps in the process, and how to reinforce the habits of design thinking across your school community.

This three-day workshop is a part of Cooper Hewitt's larger Design in the Classroom National initiative. It provides educators with opportunities to explore design thinking, to integrate the design process into curriculum, and to discuss transforming the teaching and learning processes in classrooms. This program is free to accepted applicants and will be held in New York City.

The Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) is accepting proposals for the 2017 a2ru National Conference: Arts in the Public Sphere: Civility, Advocacy, and Engagement at Northwestern University in Boston on Nov. 1-4. Core areas of interest for proposals include how the arts and design fields can contribute to issues of civil discourse, equity and access in a collective impact model and what models of integration of arts and design within higher education best serve the needs of a diverse constituency and public.

Design thinking is a concept that centers around applying creativity and innovation to our actions, decision making, and problem solving as human beings. More significantly, it focuses on the impact that this creative and innovative thinking has on individuals. As a concept, design thinking can be used pedagogically to enhance our teaching practices. As a tool, it can be used to foster and teach empathy in the classroom.

Design thinking has captured the attention of educators, but there may be ambiguity about how to define the concept, says Neil Stevenson of global design company IDEO. Stevenson offers insights about the definition and its application in schools.