Research texts

Since the beginning of grad school, I have been reading about and researching many issues and concepts in a contemporary visual arts classroom and the community they come from. I have listed below a few of the articles I have found the most interesting with a brief synopsis and my thoughts on the articles and issues. Baxter, K. (2015). A convergence of three: The reflexive capacity of art practice, curriculum design, and pedagogy. Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association 67 (6), p. 28-34.

This article, written by Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Art Education Program at Morovian College Kristin Baxter for an audience of art educators. The beginning of this article covers how preservice art educators are asked to identify a research question based on things that matter to them, with which they will make connections to their art practice, pedagogy, and their curriculum design. The intent of the article is to explain how personal experiences inform our artmaking practices, and in turn help us to better develop our lessons for our students. This article strikes home for me as I’ve noticed when I delved deeper into my own charcoal drawing, I would have much better lessons to teach my students when using charcoal or when covering content about shading and lighting subject matter. This process described in the article drives a strong sense of meaning making in artwork and helping students to see the world in new ways.

Guyotte, K., Sochacka, N. W., Costantino, T. E. Walther, J., & Kellam, N. M. (2015). Steam as social practice: Cultivating creativity in trandisciplinary spaces. In Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association 67(6), p. 12-19.

In the introduction to this paper the authors remind us of the push for STEM in the wake of economic recession. In many respects the STEM ideas underpin many things done in the art field. The authors also describe a collaboration between art education, engineering, and landscape architecture as an impetus for their use of STEAM for community engagement and ecological sustainability. The creation of the Transdisciplinary Design Studio and its practice of challenging students to create projects and assignments outside of their comfort zones (artists work collaboratively, and engineers conceptualize without technical solutions) on the theme of ecological issues has inspired a group of students to work across subjects as a means of furthering their social practice of doing. The interdisciplinary approaches to STEAM allows students to create CBAE projects that follow both form and function. This program, and the idea that STEAM is a tool for experience learning, prove the fact that the arts should be a necessary tool incorporated into K-12 classrooms.

Guyotte, K., Sochacka, N. W., Costantino, T. E. Walther, J., & Kellam, N. M. (2015). Steam as social practice: Cultivating creativity in trandisciplinary spaces. In Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association 67(6), p. 12-19.

This article is written by the authors Guyotte (Assistant Professor of Educational Research), Sochacka (Senior Researcher/Instructor of Engineering), Costantino (Assistant Professor of Engineering), & Kellam (Associate Professor of Engineering). In the introduction to this paper the authors remind us of the push for STEM in the wake of an economic recession. In many respects the STEM ideas underpin many things done in the art field. The authors also describe a collaboration between art education, engineering, and landscape architecture as an impetus for their use of STEAM for community engagement and ecological sustainability. The creation of the Transdisciplinary Design Studio and its practice of challenging students to create projects and assignments outside of their comfort zones (artists work collaboratively, and engineers conceptualize without technical solutions) on the theme of ecological issues has inspired a group of students to work across subjects as a means of furthering their social practice of doing. The interdisciplinary approaches to STEAM allows students to create CBAE projects that follow both form and function. This program, and the idea that STEAM is a tool for experience learning, prove the fact that the arts should be a necessary tool incorporated into K-12 classrooms.

Walker, S. (2006). How then shall we teach? Rethinking artmaking instruction. Teaching Artist Journal 4(3), p190-197.

This article is written by Sydney Walker, Associate Professor at OSU, as she discusses the work that high school teacher Kate Menke does with teaching big ideas with her graphic design class. Many art critics and teachers including Eleanor Heartney and Olivia Gude speak about contemporary artists skipping between medias and focusing more on the concept of the artwork, and that contemporary art education should reflect the art of the time. This article focuses on the framework that the concept should drive the project, and it should be individual to the student in order to produce meaningful work. The purpose of working with big ideas in assignments is to prepare students to critically examine the lives and world they will be part of. While the process can be nerve-wracking, it is an important part of navigating one’s relationship to the surrounding world. Menke’s worry is that this could be an add on to current lessons, instead of the meat of the lesson itself. The project should be built around the big idea and not taped on the surface as an afterthought. I have an interest in incorporating the big idea practices of Olivia Gude into the lessons I teach with my advanced classes, though with further research I will be including those practices into my other visual art classes.

Wynn, T. & Harris, J. Toward a stem + arts curriculum: Creating the teacher team. Art Education: The Journal of the National Art Education Association 65 (5). p. 42-47.

This article is written by Toni Wynn, writer and arts educator, and Juliette Harris, editor of the International Review of African American Art, for an audience of practicing art educators. The introduction to this article covers the well understood point that there has been a push for support of STEM courses and a removal of support from arts elective courses, though the incorporation of the arts allows for the ability to expand understandings of the scientific mind. The point the authors make is that the driving forces in education will also change the workspace. Some points brought up for a successful STEM project include being creative with your environment, smart with small projects and build up from there, sell the ideas to your colleagues, and connecting learning to the real world experiences the students have. I think the research in this article does answer the question of the value visual arts brings to STEM classes that they set out to explain, though I do believe that further examples could be found and studied to demonstrate the values for both science and visual art students. I would also like to see evidence of STEM teachers incorporating art into their classrooms for similar projects as the watershed team example. I find this informative as a case study to inspire work that could be done at my current school, as we have just moved into a new building on a plot that previously was an undeveloped field. We have been encountering interactions with the local wildlife and I see opportunities for STEAM cooperation there.