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date: 23 May 2022

Abstract and Keywords

Music making requires many kinds of habits of mind—broad thinking dispositions potentially useful outside of the music room. Teaching for habits of mind is prevalent in both general and other areas of arts education. This chapter reports a preliminary analysis of the habits of mind that were systematically observed and thematically coded in twenty-four rehearsals of six public high school music ensembles: band, choir, and orchestra. Preliminary results reveal evidence of eight habits of mind being taught: engage and persist, evaluate, express, imagine, listen, notice, participate in community, and set goals and be prepared. However, two habits of mind that the researchers expected to find taught were not observed: appreciate ambiguity and use creativity. These two nonobserved habits are ones that arts advocates and theorists assume are central to arts education. The chapter discusses how authentic assessment of habits of mind in the music classroom may require novel methods, including the development of classroom environments that foster additional levels of student agency.

Keywords: music education, habits of mind, thinking disposition, music ensembles, music assessment

Jillian Hogan

Jillian Hogan is a PhD student in developmental psychology in the Arts & Mind Lab at Boston College. She holds an MM in music education and a BM in clarinet performance from Boston Conservatory and has additional training in Montessori and Orff-Schulwerk approaches. In her research, she uses mixed methods to investigate what we learn through arts education and how those findings align with public perceptions. Her primary interest is the teaching and learning of habits of mind in visual art and music education, which is informed by teaching for six years in schools that specialize in gifted, inclusion, and autism spectrum disorder populations. She is an author of the book Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art Educator’s Handbook (2018) (www.jillhoganinboston.com).

Ellen Winner

Ellen Winner is professor and chair of psychology at Boston College and senior research associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Arts and Mind Lab, which focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children as well as adults. She is the author of over one hundred articles and three books—Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982); The Point of Words: Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (1988); and Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (1996)—and coauthor of Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2007) and Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2013). Soon to appear are Studio Thinking for Elementary Schools and How Art Really Works. She received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from APA Division 10 in 2000.

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