MICRO-BIO

• I am an associate professor in the Department of Art at the University of Calgary. I have been engaged in teaching and research around community based art and collaborative practice for 18 years. The importance of making together, learning together,...More

  I am an associate professor in the Department of Art at the University of Calgary. I have been engaged in teaching and research around community based art and collaborative practice for 18 years. The importance of making together, learning together, and understanding together have been the driving force of my research and my teaching practice. This has resulted in two bodies of work: First, I have been exploring the nature of learning through art. My work is inspired by the pedagogy of the early childhood educators in Reggio Emilia. This practice understands that at each stage of our development, we humans are equipped with problem solving and inquiry skills appropriate to that particular context, from that of early childhood to the post-graduate studies. It also is based on a constructivist, learner-centred, negotiated, generative approach that requires that teacher and student collaborate in the co-creation of knowledge. Learning what this means and how best to support learning through art has been the work of my students and myself in the university classroom and within early childhood, elementary and community settings in Calgary, Alberta. A second area of interest is multiculturalism in art and art education. This definition includes issues with ethnicity and identity in art/art education as well dialogue between different academic disciplines. Work in this area has included: research into the nature of the contribution of Canadian artists of Chinese decent on Canadian art; the interrelationship between the fine arts and sciences, especially within digital technologies; and most recently, contemporary Jewish art and community based Jewish art in North America. Less

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