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Articles and reports by and about VUE
are available here for downloading. Some of these texts were originally
published elsewhere and all them are protected by copyright. These
texts may be quoted when information about the author, title,
date, and original publication is cited. Photocopies are allowed
in the limited terms of Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright
Law. For authorization beyond these numbers, contact us
at info@vue.org.
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Peggy Burchenal, Abigail Housen, Kate Rawlinson and Philip Yenawine.
Why Do We Teach Art in the Schools?
by Peggy Burchenal, Abigail Housen, Kate Rawlinson and Philip Yenawine.
Originally appearing in the April 2008 issue of NAEA News, the authors respond to an article by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland.
VIEW
Catherine Egenberger and Philip Yenawine
- As Theory Becomes Practice: The
Happy Tale of a School/Museum Partnership
by Catherine Egenberger and Philip Yenawine
Written by VUE co-founder Philip Yenawine and VTS project coordinator
Catherine Egenberger, this article discusses the effects of
five years of VTS teaching on students, teachers, and administrators
in the rural community of Byron, Minnesota.
VIEW
Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
- A Brief Guide to Developmental
Theory and Aesthetic Development
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
Beginning with an overview of some essential concepts in developmental
theory, including an introduction to Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky,
this guide proceeds to discuss the work of cognitive psychologist
Abigail Housen and her Stage Theory of Aesthetic Development.
It concludes with how Housen's theory can be applied to understanding
museum audiences and building effective educational programs.
This document was written for VUE's Eastern European program,
and assumes little or no knowledge of developmental theory.
VIEW
- Report on the Pilot Assessment
Project Thinking through Art 1997-98
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen, February 1999
This report details the results of a series of workshops with
5th grade public school teachers participating in
the second year of the Thinking through Art program, a joint
project of Boston Public Schools, the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston, and VUE. The workshops centered on teachers’ observations
of the changes in their students who participated in the program,
and their assessments of these changes.
VIEW
- Report to the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, on the Teacher Interview Case Study of the Thinking
through Art Program, Spring 2000
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
This study explores the effect of the Museum of Fine Arts’
Thinking through Art program on the classroom practices of teachers
in Boston; their assessments of student growth; and the relevance
of the program to meeting state standards. It also contains
brief summaries of the previous reports on the Pilot Assessment
Project.
VIEW
- Selected Directory of Studies
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
Contains descriptions of selected studies relevant to VTS, from
1984 to the present. Descriptions include treatment, assessment
tools, descriptions of subjects, findings, and project director/site
coordinator. Reports available on this website are highlighted.
VIEW
- Interim Report to the Open Society
Institute, New York; Visual Thinking Strategies Program: St.
Petersburg Longitudinal Study Years I and II
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
This report discusses the implementation of a VTS program in
St. Petersburg.
VIEW
- Interim Report to the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan
on the Visual Thinking Strategies Program
by Karin DeSantis and Abigail Housen
This report discusses the implementation of a VTS program in
Almaty, Kazakstan.
VIEW
- Thinking through Art: A Pilot
Project to Restructure the Boston Public Schools - Museum of
Fine Arts Fifth Grade Program
by Karin De Santis, Linda Duke, and Abigail Housen, November
1997
This 3-month study discusses the impact of the Visual Thinking
Strategies curriculum on 5th grade classes in 20
public schools in Boston. Abigail Housen’s research methodology
and data collection tools were employed to examine the Aesthetic
Development of participating students and docents at the Museum
of Fine Arts in Boston, and to determine whether any transfer
of skills occurred from art viewing to viewing non-art objects.
VIEW
Abigail Housen
- Aesthetic Thought, Critical Thinking and Transfer
by Abigail Housen
originally published: Arts and Learning Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, May 2002
In 1993, VUE began a five-year longitudinal study
of the effects of its Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)
curriculum on aesthetic growth. In response to
anecdotal teacher reports that students were using VTS
strategies in other subjects, VUE also tested for
evidence that VTS develops critical thinking, and its
transfer. The study results not only support our
hypotheses that VTS accelerates aesthetic growth, but
also show that VTS causes the growth of critical
thinking and enables its transfer to other contexts
and content.
VIEW
- Eye of the Beholder: Research,
Theory and Practice
by Abigail Housen
VUE co-founder Abigail Housen gives an account of how she began
her study of Aesthetic Development, how she came up with her
research methodology, and the overall findings of her 20 years
of research. Housen also briefly discusses how she applied what
she learned to creating the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum.
VIEW en español
- Three Methods for Understanding
Museum Audiences
by Abigail Housen
originally published: Museum Studies Journal, Spring-Summer
1987
Cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen presents her study of
museum visitors at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston,
using three different methods of collecting data: demographic;
attitudinal; and developmental. This article discusses her research
methodology, study findings, and gives a comparative analysis
of the methods used.
VIEW
- Validating a Measure of Aesthetic
Development for Museums and Schools
by Abigail Housen
originally published: ILVS Review, 1992
This two-year study of 2nd and 4th graders
at the Mill Road School in Red Hook, N.Y. examines the effectiveness
of an arts-in-education program designed by the Edith C. Blum
Art Institute at Bard College. Abigail Housen uses her research
methodology and data collection tools to determine participants’
Aesthetic Development growth.
VIEW
- Voices of Viewers: Iterative
Research, Theory, and Practice
by Abigail Housen
Housen discusses how she measures aesthetic response and gives
examples of viewer responses from Stages I and II. Student growth
— in particular, how to foster it — leads to a discussion
of the VTS method. This is followed by a brief description of
Byron, Minnesota research findings. Originally published in
Arts and Learning Research, vol. 17, #1.
VIEW
Abigail Housen, Nancy Miller, and Philip
Yenawine
- MoMA Research And Evaluation
Study: School Programs
Preliminary Report - Year 1 (1989/90)
by Abigail Housen with Nancy Lee Miller and Philip Yenawine,
Spring 1991
This report evaluates education programs at the Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA) in New York in the early 1990s, when Philip Yenawine
was Director of Education there. These findings led to new educational
programs at MoMA, including the program that eventually resulted
in Visual Thinking Strategies.
VIEW
- MoMA School Program Evaluation
Study Report II
by Abigail Housen with Nancy Lee Miller and Philip Yenawine,
Spring 1992
This report continues the research project in the initial MoMA
Research and Evaluation Study. It used Housen’s research
methodology to study student growth, and found that aesthetic
growth was greater among students taught by their teachers —
that is, by non-experts in art. This finding was essential to
the design of Visual Thinking Strategies.
VIEW
Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine
- Assessing Growth
by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine
This document provides benchmarks for VTS teachers who wish
to track aesthetic growth in their students by means of careful
note-taking.
VIEW
- Basic VTS at a Glance
by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine
This document provides a brief overview of how to run a VTS
lesson, including a discussion of why VTS is based on three
particular directive questions.
VIEW en español
- Guide to Museum Visits
by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine
This document gives recommendations for preparing all participants
— teachers, students, chaperones, and museum staff —
for a VTS museum visit. Teachers in particular must plan well
in advance. If all parties know what to expect, the visit will
run more smoothly.
VIEW
- Visual Thinking Strategies: Understanding
the Basics
by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine
Basic principles of VTS methods and practices are discussed.
Topic headings include: Asking Questions, Acknowledging Responses,
Linking Thoughts, Answering (Student) Questions, Timing, Closure,
Developing Connections to Other Classes, and Class Size.
VIEW en español
VUE Staff
- Guide to Videotaping
by VUE staff
This document gives recommendations to teachers who wish to
videotape a VTS lesson in their classroom, as part of an assessment
of a VTS project.
VIEW
- Introduction to Visual Thinking
Strategies
by VUE staff
This brief, two-page document describes goals of VTS, contents
of each year’s curriculum, teacher training, and desired
outcomes. It includes a short history of VTS.
VIEW
- Report to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, on Current
Massachusetts Learning Standards and Curriculum Frameworks and the Thinking Through
Art Program
by Visual Understanding in Education, November 2003
In 1996, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) and VUE began discussions to
introduce VTS into Boston's 5th grade public school classrooms, as
part of an existing program agreement between the MFA and the Boston Public
Schools (BPS). The BMFA chose an abbreviated version of VTS, called VTS Starter
Lessons. Substituting some images culled from the BMFA collections, the program
was named Thinking Through Art (TTA). From the start, TTA teachers reported on the
many ways that TTA supports the development of the essential learning behaviors
students need to demonstrate in order to pass each subject to be promoted to the
next grade. Teachers continued to provide a wide range of observations illustrating
how TTA supports learning in general - and specifically encourages the kind of
learning currently mandated by both the Massachusetts Department of Education
and the Boston Public School District. In 2003, VUE researchers decided to
collect teacher comments to discover what exactly they were observing. The
following report documents those findings.
VIEW
- Selected Bibliography
by VUE staff
This document lists selected VUE-created curricula, guides,
videos, and reports. It also presents information about relevant
publications by VTS co-authors Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine.
Documents available on this website are highlighted.
VIEW
- Summary of the Visual Thinking
Strategies Grades K-5 Curriculum
by VUE staff
This document makes recommendations about how to implement a
VTS program in your school or district, and includes a description
of each grade level.
VIEW en español
- VUE Background and History
by VUE staff
This document provides a brief history of Visual Understanding
in Education, and the development of Visual Thinking Strategies.
VIEW
- A Conversation on Object-Centered Learning
in Art Museums
by Philip Yenawine and Danielle Rice, Associate Director for Program at
the Philadelphia Museum of Art
This conversation between Danielle Rice, associate director for program
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Philip Yenawine, VUE's
co-director, was published in the October 2002 issue of Curator
(volume 45, no. 4). It is based on, and grew out of, a
demonstration video and discussion that Philip and Danielle
presented at the 1999 National Docent Symposium. Both long-time art
museum educators who have thought deeply about learning from art
objects in the museum setting, Danielle and Philip present their
approaches toward museum education, and question each other about
their respective theories. Philip's approach, which is based on the
research findings of Abigail Housen, has resulted in the development
of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a question-based learning
method. Danielle's approach, based on her many years of
art-historical and theoretical learning, and practice teaching in
museum galleries, respects the learning processes of museum
visitors, but assumes the importance to museum education of
strategically-chosen facts about the work of art at hand.Ê
VIEW
Philip Yenawine
- Housen’s Theory and Decorative
Arts Education
by Philip Yenawine
Providing a brief overview of Housen’s theory of aesthetic
development, this document applies that theory to decorative
arts education.
VIEW
- Jump Starting Visual Literacy
by Philip Yenawine
originally published: Journal of the NAEA, January 2003. Reprinted with permission from the National Art Education Association, Reston, VA (www.naea-reston.org).
This document makes suggestions for selecting images to foster visual
literacy, using as a guide Housen's theory of and research into
aesthetic development. Beginning readers learn by being taught
what they are developmentally ready to understand, what is likely to
sustain their interest, and what encourages them to read more deeply
while supplying challenges at the right time. This document presents
a comparable approach to helping beginning viewers of art develop
skills related to looking at and understanding art.
VIEW en español
- Theory into Practice: The Visual
Thinking Strategies
by Philip Yenawine
Veteran museum educator and VUE co-founder Philip Yenawine discusses
how the work of several developmental theorists — Piaget,
Vygotsky, and Housen — informed his design of museum education
programs, eventually leading to the creation of Visual Thinking
Strategies.
VIEW
- Thoughts on Visual Literacy
by Philip Yenawine
originally published: Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy through the Communicative and Visual Arts, Macmillan Library Reference, 1997
Visual literacy is the ability to find meaning in imagery. It involves a set of skills ranging from simple identification — naming what one sees — to complex interpretation on contextual, metaphoric and philosophical levels. This paper discusses how visual literacy develops, how this development might be fostered, and the relevance of Housen’s Stage Theory of Aesthetic Development.
VIEW
- Thoughts on Writing in Museums
by Philip Yenawine
Yenawine makes recommendations for those who write descriptive
texts for museums, urging in particular that the writers take
into account the fact that most of the readers of such texts
are non-specialists in art.
VIEW
- Visual Art and Student-Centered
Discussions
by Philip Yenawine
originally published: Theory into Practice, Autumn 1998
VUE co-founder Philip Yenawine examines how student-centered
discussions of art can be powerful forums for learning, and
how the intricate design of the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum
creates an environment for such learning to take place.
VIEW
- Writing for Adult Museum Visitors
by Philip Yenawine
Yenawine provides background for his recommendations by discussing
VUE research findings. He provides "A Guide to Writing,"
with suggestions for content, style, vocabulary, length, design
and layout. Examples are provided.
VIEW en español
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