Ball State University

The Ball State University Museum of Art will develop and disseminate a third-to-sixth-grade standards-based language arts curriculum using works of art in the museum’s collection. The curriculum will employ a teaching method called Visual Thinking Strategies,a learner-centered method that uses art to develop skills of observing and flexible thinking. The museum and its partners—Ball State University Teachers College and Burris Laboratory School—will write and deliver the curriculum, perform a three-year longitudinal study to demonstrate improvement in students’ critical thinking skills, and analyze the curriculum’s effect on students’ performance in language arts.