ARTED200 Engage:Eco: Teaching Practice
SPRING 2012

This course will investigate the questions: What are the best practices in art education? How can I develop an outstanding art program? How can I ensure that my students truly understand what I want them to understand in art class? How can I work with other people and teachers (in my discipline and outside my discipline) to enhance students' learning? Students will investigate the process of developing an outstanding art program, from the nuts and bolts of classroom management and setup, to the creative pursuit of creating a lesson and assessment tool. This hands-on course will encourage the student to share ideas and critical thoughts with the group. At the end of the course, students will reflect on, and revise their personal philosophy statements created and create a teaching portfolio that shows how these ideas can be applied in the classroom setting. Students will experiment, reflect, read, discuss, observe, make connections with community groups, and visit a variety of art organizations and schools. They will also develop practical tools to use in their own teaching.

Teaching as Creative Practice Studio is an Engage at CCA course that gives students the opportunity to mentor and collaborate with youth through an educational setting at Emery Secondary High School and interface with a city arts agency through the City of Emeryville, Public Art Committee. This course will focus on the theme of "shelter" with Emery students and work with the Shelter Project, an international student and artist collaboration that examines global perspectives, design and sustainability, through the lens of researching, examining and producing artworks that create public dialogue about how shelter is interpreted and realized around the world. Through this project, students will investigate the artist's role as educator and collaborator, work as a collective to share and develop ideas, create an engaging arts learning environment, design curriculum around the theme of shelter and execute a public artwork with high school youth. We will share a mutual project blog site and use skype for ideas and process exchanges with collaborative partners in India, Germany, and the Bay Area. A requirement of this class is to develop reflective practice on teaching as it relates to and feeds individual artistic practice. Using Studio Habits of Mind to explore these ideas, students have the opportunity to read about, discuss, observe teaching as a creative practice and make connections with community groups through field visits to a variety of arts organizations and schools. Students will participate in creating assets for a teaching portfolio, contribute to and help produce a book and short video documentary on the project, and mount an exhibition of the work created with Emery Secondary High School and project collaborators at CCA galleries and Emeryville public venue.