The school board of the Wissahickon School District mandated the rewriting of the high school curricula to link content standards, course goals and performance standards. I was the first instructor in the Wissahickon High School art department to be charged with rewriting a course, titled Advanced Computer Graphics. This course is traditionally preceded by a course titled Introduction to Computer Graphics. Although the course titles imply a sequential approach, they address two different types of software and focus on different concepts. The focus of the Advanced Computer Graphics course was originally limited to production processes, which complied with the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for the Arts and Humanities 9.1: Production, Performance and Exhibition of Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts.
			In order to revise the Advanced Computer Graphics curriculum to abide by the school board directive, the curriculum was expanded to include aesthetics and communication components. Therefore, the course evolved to conform to standard 9.3: Critical Response and standard 9.4: Aesthetic Response. The revised curriculum integrates components of the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for the Arts and Humanities, which address "extensive practice in the comprehension of basic symbol systems and abstract concepts" and "development of verbal and non-verbal communication skills." (p.2)
The implementation of this curriculum was influenced by my own personal experiences. Many of the art teachers I studied with and others I have observed relied on a lecture-demonstration method of teaching in which the teacher would verbally describe a technique or activity, model it, usually too quickly to be adequately absorbed, and then assign a project to be completed outside of class time. Even though the demonstrations always appeared logical at the time and were followed by opportunities to ask questions, the information had simply been presented without much opportunity to process for comprehension. Albert Bandura (1977) refers to this teaching method as abstract modeling:
		In studying abstract modeling, people observe others performing various responses embodying a certain rule or principle. Observers are later tested under conditions where they can behave in a way that is stylistically similar to the model's disposition, but they cannot mimic the specific responses observed because they must apply what they have learned to new or unfamiliar situations. (p. 41)
	Questions arose when I was faced with the daunting task of creating a piece of art using a totally alien tool with no one to offer advice or support. Bandura (1977) explains, "Exposure alone does not ensure that the relevant aspects will be noticed" (p. 41). Upon completion of a project the teacher would determine what was correct with my efforts and what was not correct before moving on to another, frequently, unrelated activity. Learning had, in this environment, been reduced to one opportunity for the student to successfully complete an activity. Technical challenges, which often inhibited creativity, could have been addressed in the presence of a support system consisting of both the instructor and fellow students, where learning was viewed as an ongoing reflective process rather than a singular student performance practiced in an isolated environment.
The implementation of this curriculum, therefore, was influenced by the desire to promote a different pattern of behavior; a pattern where students addressed challenges through action and reflection on action. According to Donald Schon (1983): He [the student] may reflect on the tacit norms and appreciations, which underlie a judgment, or on the strategies and theories implicit in a pattern of behavior. He may reflect on the feeling for a situation, which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way in which he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger context. (p. 62) The desire to promote a practice of reflective inquiry in a supportive environment for this curriculum project was influenced in part by Schon's belief that if "he [the student] does not separate thinking from doing…implementation is built into his inquiry" (p.68).