The Heuristic Value of Regarding Classroom Instruction as an Aesthetic Medium

Abstract

If one defines classroom instruction as an aesthetic medium, a lesson can be evaluated alternatively as a kinetic performance, a message, and a work of art. Viewed as a kinetic performance, a lesson might be evaluated in terms of the cognitive activities of an evaluator. Research in athletics suggests that process tracing and memorial tasks could be used to uncover schemas that experienced evaluators unconsciously invoke to help interpret incoming information. As a symbolic medium of communication, classroom instruction follows certain grammatical rules of structure that students must negotiate to learn from lessons. Studies of the film/TV medium illustrate how unfamiliarity with grammatical rules can impair the extraction of information. Analogous studies might be designed to examine the ability of low-achieving students to decode the structures found within classroom lessons. Finally, as a work of art, a lesson contains spatial and temporal patterns that might be judged in terms of symmetry, balance, and parsimony. I place these and other suggested avenues of inquiry in the context of existing research in the fields of teacher evaluation and instructional supervision.