Envision and Observe: Using the Studio Thinking Framework for Learning and Teaching in Digital Arts

The Studio Thinking Framework (STF) focuses on habits of mind taught through studio arts rather than disciplinary content or media‐specific techniques. It is well suited to integrate studies of arts learning and teaching in a range of contexts, and it provides a framework for understanding how visual arts participation is dramatically changing with the advent of digital tools and the Internet. This study focuses on two habits of mind, observe and envision and analyzes how they are taught in high school arts classrooms using traditional media compared with a digital context of an informal educational class using 3D computer modeling and animation. The STF facilitates detecting learning patterns, sustaining pedagogical reflection, and providing structure for the design of studies of learning in and through the arts.