Teaching Fellow

Slow Looking: Learning through Observation in Museums and Beyond

Slow looking involves taking the time to carefully observe more than is initially apparent. It happens anywhere people take a generous amount of time to explore the world closely—in museums, in classrooms, in laboratories, and in everyday experience. Slow looking involves the capacity to observe details, to defer interpretation, to make careful discernments, to shift between different perspectives, to be aware of subjectivity, and to purposefully use a variety of strategies to move past first impressions. This course explores slow looking as a unique mode of learning. Through the course text, discussions, and immersive experiences, students explore such questions as: What is slow looking and how does it compare to other forms of learning? What are its distinctive outcomes, and how can they be recognized, encouraged, and documented? Much of the course involves visual observation, and we acknowledge that the term ‘slow looking’ uses the vernacular of the visual. However, observation occurs through all the senses, and the course aims to honor the multisensory possibilities of observational learning.

» Winter 2018, Winter 2019, Winter 2020, Fall 2020 (online), Spring 2022 (online), Winter 2023, Winter 2024, Winter 2025

Text Study: Purposes, Principles, and Processes

The study of texts is a central activity in many classroom settings. Yet there is little agreement on best practices, or promising alternative practices, for approaching texts, especially in higher education. Many scholarly, artistic, and religious traditions have highly developed protocols for the study of texts—for example, literary analysis, symphony orchestra and theater rehearsals, the study of sacred texts, and more. These methodologies rarely permeate the study of texts in traditional classrooms. The guiding questions for this course include the following: What constitutes a text? What can you do with a text? What are the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to the study of texts, especially in higher education? What are the principles and processes associated with the study of texts in diverse settings and traditions? Might text study protocols from particular traditions be adapted for use in classroom settings? If so, what kinds of learning opportunities might these adaptations afford? 

To explore these questions, we identify an initial set of practices to study and conduct small in-class experiments to explore how such practices might be used with texts from other genres and traditions. For example, might theater rehearsal practices be used in the study of essays or journal articles? Or might Havruta practice, the tradition of pairs of students studying sacred Jewish texts, be adapted for the study of science texts? The teaching team will outline the focus of this study, suggest initial practices to learn about, and lead initial experiments in their use with very different kinds of texts. Students will also suggest practices with which they have familiarity, identify resources for studying those practices, and design ways of experimenting with them.

» Spring 2020

Arts-Based Research

The full range of artistic practices constitute methods for exploring complex questions and phenomena. These explorations are often focused on human experience, both social and interior, including, but not limited to, sensory perception and embodied experience. In short, the arts contain multiple and diverse methods for researching just about anything you feel compelled to understand more deeply. This module is designed for students interested in designing and conducting a small research project on some aspect of the arts (works of art, artistic practices, the arts in education, etc.) OR using artistic processes as methods of researching non-arts topics. There are reading assignments on arts-based research methods, but the focus of the course is on designing and conducting small-scale research projects. Class sessions are split between discussion of readings and providing feedback on all phases of student research. Final reports on the research projects can be submitted in traditional research report form or utilizing artistic forms and presentation methods. 

» Spring 2020 (online)

International Perspectives on the Arts and Education

Both the arts and education exist in virtually all cultures, but what they mean, how their purposes are conceptualized, and how they are practiced can be quite different across cultures. The place of the arts in education in any specific cultural context reflects diverse ideas about the purposes of the arts and education. This reading course takes very initial steps in considering the multiple roles for the arts in education in different countries, cultures, and traditions. We identify texts that provide insight into different understandings of the roles of the arts in education in particular cultural contexts. As much as possible, we also consider comparative perspectives across cultures. Participants are responsible for finding and suggesting relevant texts for the group to read and analyze. Students are encouraged to focus their contributions on the particular contexts with which they have most experience and familiarity.

» Fall 2019

The Arts in Education: Philosophical Dimensions and Practical Considerations

This course explores the many roles for the arts in the educational experiences of children and adults, both in and out of schools. We look at these from various perspectives but primarily focus on basic philosophical dimensions of the arts and education while we also explore the role of reflective practices in the life-long growth and development of one’s practice at the intersection of art and education. The philosophical dimensions—and core questions associated with them—we address include:

• Identity—How do I identify in this work? And in the world?

• Purposes—Why do I do what I do?

• Values—Why do I do what I do in the way I do it? What do I value and what does it mean to live and work in alignment with my values?

• Responsibility—To whom and what am I responsible in my work and in the world? How do I understand my responsibility for imagining “things as if they could be otherwise,” as Maxine Greene wrote—and for working to achieve what I imagine? What are the particular contributions that artist/educators can make in addressing issues and conditions they feel must be addressed?

• Learning—What does it mean to really learn something and what does it mean to teach?

We consider these questions, as well as practical challenges of work in the arts sector of the field of education, through the study of readings, sharing of stories, dialogue with each other and with guest artists and educators, and through a series of reflective and analytic exercises. We also examine the interconnections among policy, research, advocacy, and activism—and how these elements support or inhibit the development of excellence and equity in the practice of arts education.

» Full year 2017–2018, Full year 2018–2019