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Teaching Art History Return to: List of workshops |
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| Overview of the workshop | ||
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This workshop in April 2008 will bring together Art History faculty members from ACM colleges to discuss curricular and pedagogical issues in teaching Art History. While Art History teachers are currently in the midst of an exciting but disorienting pedagogical revolution as a result of rapid advances in digital-image technology, we are still reformulating our approaches to teaching in the wake of the push to provide a more global and diverse curriculum. Through focused discussions of the issues that art historians currently face, the workshop will provide faculty members with the means to enact changes in their pedagogy and curricula. There have been several recent MITC-sponsored conferences (Lake Forest in 2002, DePauw in 2003 and Grinnell in 2005) that brought together IIT, library faculty and staff and a few art historians from ACM and GLC colleges to digital imagery and the issues surrounding digital image collections. While these conferences were certainly fruitful, the informal conversations about pedagogy and curriculum that took place during the meetings made it apparent that ACM Art History faculty members share many of the same concerns and that a formal meeting to address them would be enormously productive. |
This workshop will create a community of art historians at ACM schools. While we at St. Olaf and Carleton know each other, we know relatively few of the art historians at other ACM schools. Through conversations about pedagogy and curriculum, the workshop will form a network of art historians both for the continued exchange of ideas as we develop new courses and curricula in the future and for the exchange of knowledge through guest lectures. We hope to re-address these topics and any new topics that arise at a follow-up meeting in five to seven years. We will also discuss the possibility of meeting as a group at larger Art History meetings, such as the Midwest Art History Association and the annual College Art Association conference. |
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| Workshop topics and format | ||
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For each topic, there will be two or three 10-minute presentations by conference participants on their specific thoughts and experiences followed by a roundtable discussion. The role of Art History departments on ACM campuses How do ACM Art History faculty members understand their role as specialists in the visual world as area specialists on their campuses? Are we as art historians called upon as experts by our academic communities? How do we see the Art History curriculum meeting the needs of the larger campus community? Most ACM Art History programs also have a joint departmental relationship with Studio programs; in some departments the Studio program is larger and in others the Art History program is larger or separate. What can be learned from these different structures and experiences about how Art History courses service Studio relative to Art History needs? Designing an Art History curriculum At most ACM colleges, departments consist of anywhere from one to three art historians. How can a college with a small Art History department support, encourage, or make at all viable the development of classes featuring subject areas outside the specialization of its instructors? How have faculty members approached the teaching of a course outside of his or her "comfort zone"? How can digital media be of use in this task? How might shared expertise among ACM faculty be put to use in expanding expertise and curricular coverage at all the institutions? Teaching the Art History survey Teaching introductory survey courses is one of the biggest challenges most professors at ACM colleges face. We would like to address the difficulties of covering a huge time period and a diverse range of countries and cultures in one course or a set of courses. How have faculty members decided on what to include in a survey course? What are the advantages of departing from the broad survey to a more focused, topic-oriented introductory course? How has ready-access to digital media changed survey courses? |
Using still and moving digital images Due to the ready availability of these new media, we would like to discuss how the incorporation of digital images into our classrooms has changed or could change our pedagogical approach. Some of us have found, for example, that moving images are particularly helpful in introducing students to architecture. This discussion will help faculty members learn new ways to incorporate the digital world, a world so familiar to many of our students, into their teaching. Exams, papers and assignments Given the more recent pedagogical emphasis on collaborative work and varied learning styles, what kinds of exams and assignments have faculty members devised that depart from traditional essay questions, stylistic analyses of unknown images and research papers? How do art historians integrate art collections, from small college-owned collections to metropolitan museums like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, into their assignments? Classroom dynamics: lecture and discussion How do teachers provide a balance between lecture and discussion in their classrooms? In this new pedagogical world where student participation is key, how have faculty members departed from the traditional "art in the dark" slide lecture? How have digital images changed approaches to lecture and/or discussion? Finally, we would like to discuss how teachers handle "hot-button" issues in their courses. For example, how does one tackle religious subject matter without appearing to be proselytizing, implying a familiarity (or need for familiarity) with religious traditions on the part of your audience, or denying the literal truth of various religious beliefs? |
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Preliminary workshop schedule This schedule is subject to change. |
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Friday, April 25 at Carleton College 5:00-6:00 pm: Welcome reception with wine and cheese in the Carleton Gallery; conference registration 6:00-7:00 pm: Dinner 7:00 pm: Plenary lecture by Alison Kettering, William R. Kenan Professor of Art History, Carleton College Saturday, April 26 at St. Olaf College, Dittmann Center for Art and Dance 8:00-9:00 am: Continental Breakfast 9:00-10:30 am: Discussion 1: The role of Art History departments on ACM campuses 10:30-11:00 am: Coffee Break 11:00 am-12:30 pm: Discussion 2: Designing an Art History curriculum 12:30-1:30 pm: Lunch (Participants grouped by subfield) |
Saturday (continued) 1:30-3:00 pm: Discussion 3: Teaching the Art History survey 3:00-3:30 pm: Coffee Break 3:30-5:00 pm: Discussion 4: Using still and moving digital images 6:00 pm: Dinner at restaurant in Northfield Sunday, April 27 at St. Olaf College, Dittmann Center for Art and Dance 8:00-9:00 am: Continental Breakfast 9:00-10:45 am: Discussion 5: The Classroom: exams, papers and discussions 10:45-11:15 am: Coffee Break 11:15 am-12:15 pm: Discussion 6: Future Plans: collaborations, items for action 12:15-1:15 pm: Lunch in working groups to plan for future projects and collaboration |
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updated 4/23/08
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