I am a fan of the fine arts and humanities and their relevance in undergraduate education so I was hoping to find that this would provide evidence of a measurable effect of a general course in art appreciation on a specific outcome. However, what the paragraph below doesn't mention is that the art class here seems to have a much more applied orientation than a general art appreciation course. For example, "in one session the students practiced inspecting, verbally describing, interpreting and building on the analyses of how form was used in works by ancient Chinese and aboriginal artists exhibited at [Boston's Museum of Fine Art], and then explored how careful examination of form in patients can reveal the causes of various breathing disorders. Other artistic topics studied by the students in the matched museum and didactic sessions included luminance (patient color), texture and pattern (dermatology), symmetry (neurology), and line contour (radiology)."
I suppose I could do the same thing in teaching statistics (i.e., teaching students to be able to distinguish modern art from randomness) but that wouldn't be the same as saying that taking an art appreciation class would increase their statistical problem-solving abilities. (On the other hand, that is an interesting idea and I might think more about how to do that.) A better example might be using art to illustrate concepts in sensation and perception. I had a class in Psychopathology and Shakespearean Drama in college that was very useful in learning psychopathological concepts in an interesting way but I doubt I would have learned much psychopathology just by taking a class in Shakespearean drama. Maybe what this research shows is that we might benefit from imagining links between our core courses and our major courses that might improve learning of concepts in the major. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________ From: Christopher D. Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 7:50 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] What good are the fine arts? Scientists often deride fine arts education as being "fluffy" (or worse). Harvard medical school has found out differently. From today's Inside Higher Ed: "At a time when medical schools worry about their students’ declining powers of observation, art may turn things around. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital conducted an experiment in which Harvard Medical Students received instruction at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on how to carefully examine and discuss fine arts, using works by Picasso, Monet and others. The results,<http://www.brighamandwomens.org/Pressreleases/PressRelease.aspx?PageID=385> which appear in the new issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, show that these students experienced significant improvements in their observations of patients." Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a Guardian obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
