What is the DIFFERENCE between Regular Art and Smart Art?    

It is important to understand  the difference between Smart Art and  Regular Art used in schools.  There are two main types of Regular Art in schools: Art classes taught by Art Teachers who usually teach all grade levels at one school and Classroom Art done by Regular Teachers.   Art Teachers introduce students to different forms of Art like drawing, painting, photography, clay,  textiles etc.  There are limitless Art options  but Art Teachers budgets tend to determine their options.  Art teachers naturally introduce students to different types of Art forms , their trained is teaching Art.   Regular Teachers are trained in  academics.  So if Regular Teachers  use  Art in the classroom  it is usually a much simpler form  of Art because they are trained to teach academics not Art.  Regular classroom Art usually requires each student to do the same piece of Art at the same time.   We have all walked down an elementary school hallway and seen 24 similar paper plates projects stuck to the wall representing Regular Classroom Art. That is probably the simplest form.  Yet, a  Regular Education High School Biology teacher may require every student to draw a detailed picture of the human heart.  Classroom Art tends to be the same project at the same time in one classroom of students.  While Art Teachers teach students  specific types of art and no academic subjects.   Art classes tend to teach all the students one form of Art at one time.  For example they may have a class on photography learning about different cameras,  lighting, angles and subjects. But all the students will all learning the same type of Art: photography.   That is where Smart Art is different. Smart Art  allows the student to choose the form of Art they will use on any particular day.  The subject will be the same but there will be many different Art forms at the same time in the same class on the same day.  Smart Art is unique because its primary goal is to  connect Art and Academics.  Smart Art does not change the current school curriculum, instead, Smart Art gives students the choice of which Art form they will use to express their academic idea.   Students takes an academic idea and use  Art to create a new form of that idea.  

Smart Art has a specific  goal to create Art to express Academic ideas.

Smart Art is different from Regular Art because it always is based on an academic idea.   Regular Classroom Art may be to remember a holiday, make a gift,  celebrate relatives, a reward, a free time activity or capture an image.  Smart Art has one goal: create a new form of  an academic  idea using Art Form.  

Students are asked to take the two inventories to narrow down their intellectual strengths and learning styles.  These inventories help them pick an Art form  they have naturally gifts for.   Art Teachers and Regular Teachers do not require these inventories before they use Art in their classrooms. 

Smart Art also has the goal to move  students through every level of thinking till they create a new form of an idea.   Humans think when they:  remember, understand, apply knowledge,  analyze, and evaluate and create.    Smart Art challenges students to creat which is the highest level and moves them through all levels of thinking to get there.  How can Smart Art challenge students to use all levels of thinking?   Because when a person creates a new form of Art from an academic idea they must use all levels of thinking.  Forty years of research at the University of Chicago proved that Creativity uses every level of thinking.  (Most educators know this as thinking hierarchy as Blooms Taxonomy).    Smart Art is different than Regular Art because it is a creative reflection of  Academic Idea.  The next step is guiding students to discover their individual strengths in creating Art. 

That is the reason Smart Art has a simple yet important prerequisite:  each student takes two, free-online, 30 minutes surveys.   First, to determine what is their intellectual strengths  and second to determine which learning style is their quickest path to use that strength.   This is only required once an academic year.   Then they are able to make Art choices that relate to their personal learning style and intellectual strengths.  That is why their specific  Intelligence and Learning Style strengths is key in Smart Art.  Unlike Regular Art where students use  the same Art tools at the same time…Smart Art lets every student pick a Art form that reflects their individual strength.  Then students can easily  pick their specific Art form and use it.   This one major difference between Smart Art and Regular Art.  Regular Art students are working on one type of art in one class period.   Smart Art students are given a choice of which Art form to use based on their intellectual and learning styles.

The main reason Smart Art is an important academic tool is because when a student creates a new form of any academic idea they use every level of thinking to create.   This discovery of Creativity as the highest level of thinking took approximately 40 years of research.  Creativity originally was not thought to be the highest level.   But   It proves that Creativity is the highest level of thinking.    Smart Art must focus on an academic idea or concept asking students to create their own representation using their strongest learning  style and personal intelligence.  Regular Art teachs all the students the same form of art at the same time.   Smart Art is designed to bring out each students’ individual intellectual strength using in any art form  at the same time.   Both are important forms of Art but are different.

When students create a new form of an academic idea in a song, drawing, poem, sculpture, computer graphic, dance, photography, cartoon, skit or video they have used every level of thinking on Blooms taxonomy.  Smart Art simply requires students to take one academic idea and create a representation of that idea using their own personal intellectual and learning styles strengths.

Regular Art develops student’s abilities to think and express themselves.  Art classes usually teach one type of art form at a time.   For example  Regular Art students will learn to draw different landscapes and objects or discover how to create different colors by combining the three primary colors: yellow, blue and red.  Regular Art  classes introduce students limitless forms of Art like string painting, molding clay, photography, computer graphics, drawing, making collages, recycling art and much more.   Smart Art is one specific type of goal.  Students take an academic idea and create an Art that represents that one idea.   They are given the freedom to use any form of Art to create that specific idea-representation.  Smart Art also guides students to their intellectual and learning style strength.  Yet giving the student the freedom to Create based on one academic idea or concept found in their everyday lesson.  Curriculum does not change for students who use Smart Art they are simply allowed to RESPOND to the idea with any form of Art.  Often copying an object, a person, a scene.