Prof. Ellen Winner, Ph.D.

Ellen Winner is Professor of Psychology at Boston College, and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.   Her research focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children. She is the author of over 100 articles and four books. She received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from the American Psychological Association.

Diese Vorträge werden in englischer Sprache gehalten. Nach Möglichkeit werden wir die Präsentationsfolien auch auf Deutsch zeigen.

Dieser Vorträge sind übergreifend.

Abstract

Learning in the Arts and Beyond the Arts

All too often, the arts are marginalized in our schools. In response to this marginalization, educators have sought to justify the arts in terms of their instrumental value in promoting thinking in non-arts subjects considered more important, such as reading or mathematics. There is little convincing empirical evidence that the study of the arts promotes academic performance or elevates standardized test scores, as demonstrated by a series of meta-analyses conducted by Winner and Hetland (2000), which I will discuss.  The existing studies included in our meta-analyses investigating whether arts learning transfers to academic performance had two fundamental flaws: they failed to assess what was actually learned in the arts; and they failed to specify any plausible mechanisms that might motivate a transfer hypothesis.  We have therefore undertaken two transfer studies based on more plausible hypotheses: a study of the effect of theater training on social-cognitive skills; and a study of visual arts training on spatial skills. These two studies will be discussed.

Abstract

Giftedness in Academic and Non-Academic Domains

Gifted children, those with unusually high ability in one or more domains, not only develop more rapidly than typical children, but also appear qualitatively different. Those that come to our attention have an intense drive to master, require little explicit tuition, and, if intellectually gifted, often pose deep philosophical questions. While some psychologists have tried to account for the achievements of gifted individuals solely in terms of drive or “deliberate practice,” no evidence allows us to rule out innate differences in talent. Profiles of gifted individuals are often uneven: extremely high ability in one area can coexist with ordinary or even subnormal ability in another area. Scientific investigation of the gifted reveals the importance of drive and hard work in achievement of any kind, and the lack of necessary correlation among abilities in different areas.