Teaching Philosophy: 2020 Vision

The year is 2020. I am 42 years old. My occupation is “facilitator of art and art education” in a hybrid virtual art classroom/museum (preferably the Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, LA in conjunction with the University of Alabama, or perhaps, PSU:). My classroom is a studio media room located in the center of the museum. The walls of the gallery are filled with a rotating collection of art pieces (the topic of today’s interaction) as well as multiple touch-activated surfaces. My students are a mix of virtual and in-class attendees. The touch activated projection screens “beam” in those joining us remotely, while those who are on physical location, settle in and make themselves comfortable in the midst of the art.  We work is a variety of tangible and non-tangible mediums exploring the past, present, and future through art created, art creation, and art to be created. What do I want my students to learn from me as a teacher in this setting?

  

1. Interaction and collaboration are key components in learning. Whether we share a physical space or not, connectivity is vital to the exchange, expansion and challenging of ideas. The virtual classroom is not conducive to all styles of learning or personality types. My 2020 classroom offers the option for virtual or physical participation. This allows students to be present, feel the connectivity through being and engage physically with the course and material. Virtual students interact with the material in a similar but different way. They connect through interactive high-resolution images of the art, create through a virtual sphere and project their creations into our physical classroom. At any time, participants can fluctuate between these two worlds.

2. Instructors are peers. Peers are instructors. Both are valuable members of this learning community with much to contribute and to gain. By allowing students to move fluidly through the roles of peer and instructor, they are able to bring their personal interests and knowledge to one another, solidifying ideas, understanding, and troubleshooting problem areas. Already, students do not look to their instructors as experts. By allowing students the freedom to become an “expert,” they are able to value and respect the knowledge, opinions, and contributions of their peers and instructors.

3. Learning is Global. Art is an avenue for exploration, experimentation and engaging with the world(s) in which we occupy. There is no “wrong” answer when exploring who we are through the arts, only new and different ways of viewing ourselves through the lenses of art. However, we are part of a larger community, thus a broader conversation. Students “must learn how to engage in conversations with those who do not hold the same cultural values or intellectual commitments” (Anderson & Balsamo 2008, p 245). We must see ourselves as part of this larger community.

4. Art is interdisciplinary. Historically, art is a text that needs to be situated within the political, economic and social context of its creation. However, artists do not create their work within a vacuum, but rather from personal interests and concerns. By understanding art’s ability to cross the boundaries of a wide range of disciplines, students can confidently navigate and explore their interests and passions through the medium of their choice.

5. Never stop imagining. “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.” – George Bernard Shaw

Each of these aims seeks to support a key idea in my 2020 teaching philosophy:

 “different students learn best when allowed to process information and experience though various forms of engagement, at differing paces, and via a multitude of technologies” and a classroom that seeks to accommodate such learners is one in which “flexibility, hybridity, and multiplicity are of crucial importance” (Anderson & Balsamo, 251). 

Exploration 1: SOCIO TECHNO INTERFACES

 "the danger lies in assuming either an overly critical or overly celebratory stance regarding the educational potential of digital technologies.”

- Anderson & Balsamo, A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Technology scares me and excites me in the same breath. I am both overwhelmed and attracted to new forms of digital interaction. This balance that Anderson and Balsamo suggest be found is a great challenge for me as an educator and individual learner.

The “original synners” discussed in this article are many of my students. They are “just-in-time learners, confident that when they need to know something, they’ll know where to find it” (Anderson & Balsamo, 244) while being “increasingly comfortable occupying more than one physical or mental space at a time” (249). They are digital multi-taskers with unlimited amounts of information at their disposal. Consequently, many “do not consider their teachers the sole experts in knowledge certification and production” (Anderson & Balsamo, 245).  If they are not looking to me for knowledge, what role do I perform? Educational designer (248). As educational designer, my new responsibility becomes to “orchestrate the conditions of possibility within which individuals may participate more productively, and to develop methodologies that fluidly cross traditional institutional boundaries” (248). What does this look like in my virtual classroom? Using VoiceThread to develop visual essays on pieces of art. Employing sketchcasting to create spontaneous “blog-like” lectures for students. Encourage students to use a virtual graffiti site to create replicas or original artworks that reflect or expound upon how ancient and/or contemporary art relates to or illustrates social or political issues. By reimagining the collaborative tabletop interface as a software on an individual’s touch screen computer,  students could “sit in round table discussion” around a particular (virtual) piece of art, touching, highlighting, manipulating and interacting on screen as well as through voice and text with the art piece and classmates. Random round table discussions, spontaneous collaborative work, and extemporaneous  brainstorming (just to name a few) could effectively be facilitated using the social networking site, ChatRoulette, as a model. 

Connected // Self Portrait // 2010
Kasey McMahon

Interconnectivity is key in learning. Setting up a platform in which students can work collaboratively and be intentionally connected to one another is critical to helping students to engage, connect, and explore. As quoted in the article, this “community view” rather than “delivery view” (250) of interaction more effectively addresses the educational needs of students in this “born digital generation” (244). 

Resources: 

Anderson, S., & Balsamo, A. (2008). A pedagogy for original synners. In T. McPherson (Ed.), Digital youth, innovation, and the unexpected (pp. 241-259). The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Visualization to visualize theory and practice

The event. Summer of 2006. First graduate teaching assignment. ARH 252. Stonehenge.

The space. Typical classroom. Not a lecture hall, as the classes were small that summer. Or at least mine were. Students seated at desks lined up in rows. Me, the instructor, standing tall and firm behind a podium positioned slightly to the right of the projector screen. I was still using a circular slide projector. Teaching as most of my art history professors before me: lecture style. Students listen. I regurgitate mounds of information, the mundane mixed with interesting, funny, references to pop culture. Front row: student challenges the information that I was presenting about Stonehenge. Information that was a conglomerate of the text and what I had been taught. My response: this information is correct to the best of my knowledge and "according to your text." Student: well, I've been there. And this is what I know. 

My identity as defined by this event. At this moment, I was met with both a personal and professional challenge. The personal (and professional) challenge was to know and familiarize myself with as much content regarding the material I was teaching and the professional challenge was to learn how to productively facilitate discussions in such situations and encourage students to "challenge" and contribute to what their instructors were saying. Help students find a voice. 

Art is a very powerful medium both as a means of creation and a vehicle for understanding. Unfortunately, the discipline of art history has the reputation of being elitist and irrelevant. Many fail to see the overall merits of the discourse. While the value of art history may not be apparent at first glance to my students, it is my goal to aid each one in seeing it as a discipline in which they can better understand the visual world around them, past, present and future. Therefore, this "open" microphone symbolizes me as an instructor as I seek to work through my teaching philosophy: By engaging students in the act of looking and creating a space in which constructive and open dialogue can develop, I use art and art history to teach and reinforce conversation, expand language, develop observation skills, cultivate visual literacy, encourage critical thinking, and build confidence in viewers as they come to see and believe that they have valuable and relevant contributions to the conversation at hand.

Taking Action. As I stated in my earlier post, I am no longer in this traditional setting. I am teaching exclusively online courses. Courses that are designed by another. Dialogue can be facilitated and encouraged through discussion exercises built into the course. However, interaction is limited to posts and replies and email through blackboard. My issue at hand is still how and where to insert relevant tools (i.e. social media) into my courses to encourage participation and continuous dialogue. 

Action Research

“Action research has become a viable way for educators to not only examine what is, but to imagine what might be possible.” – Sheri R. Klein, Chapter 1 Action Research: Before You Dive In, Read This! p. 3

With challenges and changes in education, such as increased availability of and access to information, creation of new modes of communication and evolving cultures of learning, educators must be constantly questioning and reflecting on their own methods, practices and general classroom environment in order to ensure they are current, relevant and effective.  Klein’s summaries characterize action research as systematic, intentional, practical, innovative, connective, collaborative, multidimensional, multipurposeful, insightful and flexible. It is a methodology, not a method (Klein, p 5).

My understanding of action research is found in its label: taking ACTION in order to better understand and change the educational setting in which you currently reside. “Action research implies change,” (Klein 5) and a commitment to change. This commitment is played out through “questioning, assessing, investigating, collaborating, analyzing, and refining.” H. Smith used her art, more specifically the canvas, to work out “practical action research” in order to “think through the complexities” of the issues she wanted to better understand, visualize and make known. Action research is a vehicle by which educators explore, find meaning, and seek change within their own environment. “The desire to change practice begins with self-awareness and a deliberate process of reflections and question posing” (Smith 6).

My personal dilemma: I am currently teaching courses that are not my own design. As an instructor of entry-level art history courses, I teach a course that is essentially created by someone else and “prescribed” to me. My courses are exclusively online with very little built in student/instructor interaction. Many days, I simply feel like the facilitator of a correspondence course. This is not what I envisioned as an instructor. My previous on-campus courses involved open ended discussion and continual dialogue in addition to discourse. How can I as an instructor move from a (intentionally) passive sphere into a more active participatory role in my online instruction? Does action research have to elicit change that is for the common good or can it be just for the intentional gain of one educator? Is this exploration of new ways to interact in my particular sphere considered action research?