The educational change agenda for 21^st century learning identifies the specific skills, capabilities and understandings required of young people in our knowledge-based economy.  ArtsSmarts projects focus on learning through artistic inquiry to help students develop these necessary skills.

Think Creatively. The process of developing and executing creative ideas requires time to brainstorm, explore and critically reflect.  By exposing students to artists and models of artistic inquiry, ArtsSmarts actively engages students in the steps of the creative process.  Given the opportunity to experience this process, students develop deeper knowledge and a capacity to think creatively as a way of learning.  

Understand Deeply. In the knowledge-based economy, what students know is becoming much less important than what they are able to do with what they know.  Students need a deep understanding of complex concepts, and the ability to work with them creatively, to generate new ideas, theories, products and knowledge.  The capacity to understand deeply is cultivated through ArtsSmarts which is reflected in the experiential, project-based collaborative learning that students experience.

Take Control of Learning. When students become active agents in their own learning they develop a capacity to integrate personal experiences, identities and complex subject matter into their thinking and expression of learning.  ArtsSmarts projects use student-designed inquiry to explore the BIG questions. Artists model and invite students to take ownership of the creative process through hands-on opportunities to develop novel ideas, propose tentative solutions and bring them to life.

Work Collaboratively. The pervasive model of education is based upon a transmission-and-acquisition approach.  Here, the teacher is assumed to possess all of the knowledge and classroom activities are designed to facilitate the teacher-to-student transfer of knowledge.  During ArtsSmarts projects students often work in groups where collective knowledge building thrives.  Collaboration also extends beyond learning with and from peers as students gain expertise through cooperation with the classroom teacher and artist, experiences with elders and community leaders, at the library or on field trips.

Ability to Reflect. Effective learning takes place when students are able to articulate their understanding and continue to reflect on it throughout the learning process.  Learning scientists have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of reflection for metacognition.  ArtsSmarts projects invite students to reflect or think about the process of learning, inquiry and knowledge.  This reflection is demonstrated through products such as reflective journals, digital records, websites, essays, drawings, three-dimensional models, exhibitions of works of art, photographs, blogs, visual and multimedia displays, and audio and video recordings of rehearsals and performances.