Sara Scott Shields

Artful Pedagogy: (En)Visioning the Unfinished Whole.

ABSTRACT The hum of florescent lights still drone quietly in the background just as they did in the high school art classrooms of the authors, only now they are teaching research methods and educational theory and practice in the academy, not sculpture, ceramics, drawing, or painting1 1 Occasionally we refer to Saras and Kellys experiences as high school art teachers and assistant professors. We find it important to note that the third author, Nicole, is a graduate student enrolled in the Art Therapy program at Florida State University, which is nestled in the Art Education Department.. Once high school art educators, drawn to teaching and learning with and through the arts, the vantage points of the authors have now shifted as they find themselves situated at two large research universities. In these higher education spaces the authors are once again finding ways to artfully engage in the reciprocal process of teaching and learning. Although the locations have changed, the authors still feel seduced by the world of art and all the possibilities therein.

Like climbing Jacob’s ladder: An art-based exploration of the comprehensive exam process

The comprehensive exam process is a rite of passage in the scholarly world, and as such the movements of this process often feel like a guarded secret to graduate students. As a PhD candidate, I left the comprehensive exam process feeling both initiated and inundated. This article is an attempt to uncover the secret that is the comprehensive exam process, but more importantly this article is an artful documentation of my journey through the process. Through arts-based engagement with artifacts from my comprehensive exam process I hope to explore and uncover the power this academic journey holds so other graduate students can enter their journey with open eyes.

Tumbling Lessons: Using Tumblr Iconography to Strengthen Multimodal Teaching and Learning in Preservice Art Education

rtistic literacy involves multimodal capacities moving beyond the visual, challenging humans to respond to an everchanging world with feeling, intuition, playfulness, resilience, and imagination (Eisner, 2002; Greene, 1995). By honing in on multimodal approaches to art education, we aim to emphasize how perception and expression occur through many and varied modes (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic, emotive, and spatial) as teachers and students seek to communicate and respond not only to each other, but also through the materials and processes of art. In this article, we share our experiences as art teacher educators using social media in innovative ways that stretch and strengthen multimodality in lesson design.

‘We’ve shared a lifetime with one another’: using reflective visual/verbal journals to develop graduate student relationships

Abstract The success of graduate students relies on factors beyond mere cognitive ability, with fostering peer and professional relationships as definitive influences on achievement. Research shows that positive faculty/student relationships are a significant factor in the success of graduate students and that art-making is an effective way to encourage the reflective thinking needed to nurture these relationships. In this article, we examine the relationship between arts informed pedagogy, specifically the use of a visual/verbal journal, and the formation of graduate relationships. The majority of the students in this collaborative inquiry entered their doctoral program at the same time the research class began and all engaged in an artfully imagined introduction to qualitative research course.