Higher Ed Matters
Jagiellonian University
About the Elephant in the Room: Making the Problems of Confidence and Resilience the Focus in Art Classrooms View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Breanna Shanahan, Nancy Long, David Le Rue
The art classroom is often described as a space to develop skills and artistic style, but how can Art Educators prepare our students for the problems they will face outside school? And, how can we develop course content that responds to the contexts in which students are making and creating? The STAC (Shortcuts for Teachers Artist Collective) is an artist-teacher-researcher collective that centers problems in its pedagogical methods to instill collective art creation, support and perseverance in classroom communities. Building on common and contemporary problems seen in the artistic and social circles of the geographic places where learning takes place, this collective has used this basis of teaching in Universities, Colleges, High Schools and Community Art spaces across Canada. In this paper, we argue that every student who has the drive to enroll in an art class has the capacity to make exciting works of art, but the problems students encounter are often ones that are beyond the skills needed in any specific medium of making. As such, we narrow in on how we have taken on individually and collectively the problems of student resilience, perseverance and confidence, which we found are at the core of many of the issues our students face. We describe our developed philosophy as educators, and walk through our developed frameworks for lesson building that centers these concerns, considering examples from our multiple teaching practices.
International Collaborations in the Studio Course Curriculum: Analysis of Cultural and Visual Perspectives - Long Term Impact on Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Barbara Westman
This paper provides a closer look at the process and results of international collaborations I have conducted over the past eight years involving art students enrolled in university-level art studios. By introducing, facilitating and then fostering the international collegial peer-to-peer collaborations, I intend to create a learning opportunity to discover and to understand diverse perspectives and aesthetics in art, and provide a rich cultural immersion. Additionally, this experience aims to help participant to re-evaluate their knowledge and awareness of their own artistic expressions and background. When helping students with widening horizons and looking beyond “here and now” we minimalize the division of “us and them”. The outcomes I hope to achieve, are a life-long appreciation and understanding of diverse perspectives and aesthetics in art, understanding of other cultures among young artists, and then the impact it has on their own artistic voice.
Teaching and Learning Civic Engagement Through the Arts: Experiences from a First-Year Seminar Course in the USA View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alfredo Fernandez Gonzalez
Art has the potential to be a powerful vehicle for social change. It has the ability to inspire, provoke, challenge, and mobilize individuals and communities to take action on important social issues. Through various mediums such as painting, sculpture, music, film, and performance, artists can express their perspectives on social issues and engage with audiences in meaningful ways. Art can also serve as a means for raising awareness about social issues that might otherwise go unnoticed or ignored. It can draw attention to topics such as poverty, discrimination, inequality, environmental degradation, and political corruption. By depicting the realities of these issues, art can inspire people to become more engaged and active in addressing them. This paper introduces a case study about the ways in which first-year college students from different art disciplines at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas engage environmental and social issues through research, to then produce a short video or environmental art piece that responds to those issues previously investigated. An important conclusion of this paper is that students oftentimes are unaware of their agency and ability to change society as artists, and the assignments they complete in the First-Year Seminar contribute to trigger a process of self-discovery and learning that is fundamental to develop one’s own artistic vision.
Sharing the Story: Teaching Graduate Arts Education Online in Australia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brad Merrick
The adaptive practice of tertiary teachers during the pandemic highlighted the ongoing adjustments made to pedagogy and the innovative resources created. It illustrated the diverse use of digital technologies and learning design, as approaches to teaching online were modified regularly to support student engagement. In particular, the shift to using approaches that integrated blended online delivery (virtually) while some students also attended classes on-campus, enabled the delivery of an integrated Arts subject to graduate students at this time. This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges encountered by two academics as they incorporated Blended Synchronous Learning (BSL) for the subject delivery across one semester and provides an insight into their story. A generic ICT model including the core components of Pedagogy, Social interaction, and Technology provided a framework through which to investigate the digital technologies used by two tertiary instructors while delivering the subject. The use of online collaboration and regular Zoom meetings were used to facilitate a collaborative self-study methodology. Key themes, comprising opportunities and challenges, cognitive overload for teachers, equity of access, student agency, differentiation, and modification of the learning environment emerged from the experience. A series of recommendations are provided to inform and support the adaption of BLS delivery in tertiary teaching contexts, particularly within the Arts. Examples of approaches to incorporating technology, modifying pedagogy, and ensuring student connection are shared, reflecting a range of experiences of two tertiary instructors. The affordance of using digitally mediated collaborative self-study is also discussed, providing insights into the advantages that emerged.
