Arts Education and A More Beautiful Question - A Masterclass with Warren Berger, Part 2

This is the second post in a series about the best-selling A More Beautiful Question and its lessons for fine arts education.

Warren Berger gives us a three-part framework for improving innovation:  ask why, what if, and how.

Imagine how our classrooms might be transformed by starting with why:

Why did the composer mark these notes staccato? 

Why did Shakespeare choose these words? 

Why did Ansel Adams photograph in black and white? 

Why does (or doesn't) this choreography capture the mood?

Questions drive creativity and innovation.  As arts educators, we are in the creativity business.  We must keep the spark of inquiry alive in our students.

The new National Core Arts Standards (www.nationalartsstandards.org) are written with Essential Questions for each Anchor Standard. Using these questions effectively can promote engagement, and they can enable students to transfer their learning to other situations or disciplines (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005).  Since information is a Google search away, and modern problems require creative solutions, the concept of transfer is critically important to the future of education.

But don't take my word for it.  John Hattie conducted synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses of educational research.  Creativity programs have a high effect on achievement (d=0.65), as does questioning (d=0.46).  Inquiry-based teaching has a medium effect (d=0.31).

Unleash the creative power of your students by questioning rather than answering!

References

Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York, NY: Bloomsbury

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London, UK: Routledge

Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD