This post will summarize some the of learning and reflections I have about the courses that I completed this summer in my entry into my second year of my Master’s in Art Education. This post will be separated into three parts. Part 1 will reflect upon the two courses. Part 2 will include annotated bibliographies from the courses that I found useful. Finally, Part 3 will include a concept map and show how some of the concepts I learned in these courses overlap and are related. The two courses that I completed this summer were Technology and Digital Texts with Dr. Clayton Funk and Universal Design for Learning: Disability Studies and Art Education with Dr. J.T. Eisenhauer Richardson.

Part 1: Class Reflections

Technology and Digital Texts with Dr. Clayton Funk covered a range of topics, including using digital means to collaborate with individuals in research studies, as well as other classes. Social media and its role in the modern learning environment was also covered. The final takeaway and the best part of the course was the final project, which challenged us to work in groups to develop a game for learning. We discussed gameplay and game theory, arriving at the conclusion that good games have simple, but clear rules that all players agree upon. How the game is won, is also clear to participants so they can know who is winning and how/why. Gameplay in learning is valuable for multiple reasons, first of all because it implies that the lesson will be enjoyable, it diversifies the static lesson plan of the classroom and it can introduce a reward system for learning.

Universal Design for Learning: Disability Studies and Art Education with Dr. J.T. Eisenhauer Richardson was a more eye-opening class than I had anticipated. I had the negative mindset that I would spend the majority of this class rewriting lesson plans so they would be accessible for disabled students. Although we did cover this subject, the class turned out to be so much more. Dr. Richardson made the class both interesting and compelling and introduced the idea of universal design for learning: the practice of removing barrier's so that learners may better access educational materials. My concept of disabled students was very narrow and I did not include or consider my students with IEP's (Individual Education Plan) as people who might have barrier's to learning. This class and the concepts introduced to me, definitely will make me a better teacher as I apply these frameworks going forward in my educational career.

The following is a small sample of the readings/media that I found useful in this course.

Part 2: Annotated Bibliographies

Technology and Digital Texts AAEP 7606

Neal, D. (Oct. 27, 2015). Curriculum Design Part 1: The High-Level Planning. Verbal to Visual. YouTube. [Video] https://youtu.be/wm9G1ofQA84

Curriculum Design Part 1 Main points

Who is the audience? Clearly define and find out as much about your learners as possible
What is the Transformation? Clarify what core skills are you providing and how can your learners implement them
What is the Container? Is it one part, one class, series of courses and classes and how will you deliver it?

Neal, D. (Oct. 28, 2015). Curriculum Design Part 2: The Clothesline Method. Verbal to Visual. YouTube. [Video] https://youtu.be/HmT1Rkb57rs

Curriculum design part 2 Describes using detail building a flexible way of sequencing ideas using the “clothesline” method.

The Transformation: Where are you students at? And where do you want to take them?

This makes the beginning and end of clothesline

Next decide the main points and arrange the sequence of events to get your learners to the transformation.
Things within the curriculum can be moved about and rearranged as needed to make sense.
Detail out all of the points along the clothesline, adding notes/information/lessons under each point...ultimately taking your learners step by step closer to the transformation that you want to happen.

Neal, D. (Oct. 29, 2015). Curriculum Design Part 3: Produce the Learning Materials. Verbal to Visual. YouTube. [Video] https://youtu.be/mljZhTaq-mo

The author uses an empathy map: A visual tool that the educator identifies what the learner

Thinks
Sees
Says
Feels
And Hears
This is an exercise in getting to better know your learners

This is where you will build your materials, the videos, lessons and assignments to build your curriculum...this is filling the container.

Be explicit about the Transformation: make sure you are up front as to why you are asking your students to complete tasks

Be consistent in Format: try to be consistent to allow you learners to get in a flow of completing tasks, embracing learning, and reflect on the process.

Contextualize Each Step: remind students as to what they have learned, where they are going, and how this will help them get there

Neal, D. (Oct. 30, 2015). Curriculum Design Part 4: Iterate Over Time. Verbal to Visual. YouTube. [Video] https://youtu.be/r4HRk06ytCs

This portion of the learning module focuses on reflective practice. Neal suggests reviewing the process and seeing what went well, and identifying what did not, analyzing it, and understanding why it do not go as planned. From there, the author suggests:

Make an adjustment: improve, reorder, reteach
Is it better now? Again, using reflection, did it go better the second time?
If yes, keep it, if not, go back to step one
Keep teaching along the way

Inevitably, the fifth or sixth or seventh time teaching your curriculum will be a better experience for your learners than it was for the first. This is an acceptable level of improvement that happens, and this is just how our lives work.

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING

SUMMER 2021 DR. Richardson

Nelson, L. L. (2021). Engagement. In Design and deliver: planning and teaching using universal design for learning (pp. 85–119). essay, Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

In this chapter of our reading, Engagement, the focus was on the “Why” of learning. This involved getting the learners to find relatable and meaningful connections to the learning and sustain interest in it. Main points include:

Provide options for recruiting interest
Offering choice and autonomy to promote self-determination
Optimize relevance, value and authenticity
Allowing learners to see relatable situations to their particular experience
Minimize threats and distractions
Avoid reluctance to learn from discomfort or distraction
Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
SWBAT: students will be able to...
Vary demands and resources to optimize challenges
Provide scaffoldings
Reminders, buddy system, rubrics
Digital supports
Foster Collaboration and and community
Positive interdependence
Individual accountability
Face-to-face interaction
Group processing
Increase mastery-oriented feedback
Specific feedback asking for and encouraging growth
Provide options for Self-regulation
Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation
Promote self/peer regulations self-setting goals
Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies
Suggest and exemplify socially appropriate coping skills
Praise for new use of skills
Develop self-assessment and reflection
Sign of expert learners

Nelson, L. L. (2021). Action and Expression. Design and deliver: Planning and teaching using universal design for learning, pp. 155 - 184. ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu.

Action and Expression is the “how” of learning, in that it is how students are able to show their mastery of a skill, lesson, or subject and can move forward as strategic and goal-directed learners. This is done with the use of implementation of formative assessment, brief, periodic assessments that help students show learning and allow for the educator to adjust the learning strategies if the learners are off track. This provides for more options than traditional summative assessment, where students take a large end of course test showing the breadth of knowledge on a subject. Providing opportunities for differentiated learning growth in physical action, expression and communication, and executive functioning will prepare students to perform well and be invested in their learning because of room for success for all learners. Slowing down students to allow them to think about what they are doing and why and self-assess the overall goal and what they need to do to be successful. These tactics will lead students to create purposeful goals and build usable strategic learning strategies.

Eisenhauer Richardson, J.T. (2018). The Art and Politics of Artists with Mental Disabilities Experiencing Confinement. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research 2018, 59(1), pages 8-21.

Eisenhauer examines preexisting thoughts and theories on art produced by people labelled as mentally ill, especially those in asylums or other involuntary confinement, and offers the theory that some of the work was a form of political pushback against the overbearing restrictions in which they had no control. The artwork of people experiencing confinement similarly presents a reworking of the delimitation of space and time and the materiality of the asylum, and doing so reflects their political response to the experience of confinement (Eisenhauer, 2018). Eisenhauer notes the curious juxtaposition of insanity with creative genius and the romanticization of the mad artist that has taken place in our society. Such factors, Eisenhauer suggests, steered the Nazi era studies by Hans Prinzhorn that would often overlook even the artist/subjects name, let alone consider their situational confinement. These artists, as Eisenhauer concludes, were using the little freedoms they were allotted to expresses themselves against the control of the system they were in. The author concludes that as art educators, we should apply the disciplines of Disability Studies and begin with the presupposition of people with mental disabilities as equal (Eisenhauer, 2018).

Keifer-Boyd, K., Bastos, F., Richardson, J. (Eisenhauer), & Wexler, A. (2018). Disability Justice: Rethinking “Inclusion” in Arts Education Research. Studies in Art Education, 59(3), 267–271. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.1080/00393541.2018.1476954Links to an external site.

The authors of this study sought to bring light to the problematic language of inclusionism, which conflicts with the principles of disability justice. Quoting from Wexler and Derby (2015) the authors noted that:

Terms such as special needs and special education set up barriers to a shared education and socialization between children and youth with disabilities and their nondisabled peers. Special and other euphemisms prevent the placement of disability—a term representing a large minority with strengths and weaknesses—on the same continuum as ability and they inhibit students with disabilities from acknowledging and responding to authentic differences regarding corporeal and sociocultural understanding. (p. 138)

Such language justifies sorting of students into distinct categories and shows a system that judges bodies against a “norm.” The authors suggest that the Art Education Research Institute (AERI) take up new language that is more in line with the views of the disability justice movement and remove such oppressive language from pedagogies.

Part 3: Concept Map

A key concept that I identified in my summer courses was the overall framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I immediately thought of the course from last fall covering multicultural art education. Several points of both curriculum overlap and share common themes in the frameworks. The whole idea of UDL is to remove barriers so that learners can better access, understand and show learning. This is tied to identity, intersectionality and accessibility. The course on technology and digital texts had a major focus on collaboration and the better use of technology to remove barriers causing limitations between students. All of these tenants of education share the concept presented in UDL of “Take it Slow.” You will not be able to transform your entire curriculum overnight and there is a process of making an educated and informed plan to deliver a lesson to your students in an accessible as possible way that you can. You then reflect upon your efforts and the feedback from your students and assess how things went, and make adjustments where necessary. When you reteach the lesson, you go through the same process again and reflect again...did your adjustments help? If so, keep them and continue to look for ways to improve. If the adjustments did not work or made the lesson more difficult for you or your learners, throw it out and look for another adjustment.