Education Commons^™

Perceptions Of Open-Ended Art By Fourth-Grade Students And Their Teacher, Amanda M. Swanson

All NMU Master's Theses

This qualitative classroom action research began with a problem that developed over the course of a school year at a rural kindergarten through fourth-grade Title One elementary school in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Before beginning this research project, many of the students were highly engaged in their learning; however, some students were identified as not engaged and seemed to be coasting. The teacher researcher decided to try something new to engage all fourth-grade students. She decided to present her students with a constructivist approach to solving the problem of stacks of unwanted phonebooks from the district office. She challenged fourth-grade students …