Presentation Descriptions

(Re)mix and Mingle: Artful community building in the AP Studio Art classroom and beyond! (Secondary)

Presenters: Erin Lehrmann and Jordyn Roemer

Join us as we share a strategy for artful community building that helped us to foster connectedness and mutual respect among our AP Studio artists against all odds this past school year! In addition to setting the tone for a classroom culture of collaboration, this strategy also helps AP student artists distinguish between being inspired by and copying or appropriating the artwork of others.

This presentation is intended to provide participants with a framework for engaging diverse student artists in community building through collaboration, experimentation, artmaking, reflection and dialogue. We will begin by introducing ourselves and our context. We will briefly share how the revision of the AP Studio Art exam provided an impetus for us to flip the structure of our course to better support our diverse student-artists to rise to the level of expectation and engage more authentically and collaboratively in the creative process. We will present our strategy for artful community building on the second day of class, in which student artists introduce themselves to the community by presenting an artwork that they have created which they feel best represents their artistic voice. Through class critique and sharing, these artworks are celebrated and peer partners are invited to look to the work of their assigned peer for inspiration. They are challenged to select an aspect of their partner’s work and to create a new work that stays true to their own artistic voice, but that in some way responds to and is inspired by their partner’s work. Students present these new works to the class community and the group analyzes the newly created and initial works for evidence of visual dialogue. We will reveal the positive impact of this artistic dialogue on our class community and the mutual respect and esteem generated among participants. We will conclude by sharing other contexts in which we have each used this strategy-- both at the high school level and with preservice teachers.

Art and Algorithms: the magic of computer science and creativity (Elementary)

Presenter: Kristen Filipovich

Coding is not just for programmers! Artists around the world are elevating the possibilities of coding into creative expressions and artforms. With a guided "hands-on" style session, you will be able to explore and create with code in a few short steps. Lesson ideas will also be provided to share with your students: unplugged activities included as well.

This presentation will help motivate and encourage art educators to explore and expose their students to an increasingly accessible computer science skill: coding. Educators will be able to participate in creating with free web-based coding sites and see the potential to include them in their art program.

Defining Research Together: Re/Creating the New NAEA Research Network (Research - All)

Presenters: Lisa Hochtritt, Elizabeth Stuart Whitehead, Phaedra Michelle Byrd, Sara Wilson McKay, and Dr. Amy Pfeiler-Wunder

Join members of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) Research Commission for a discussion about research and the new national research agenda. Review together the results from the 2020 survey of the membership, share your thoughts and questions about research in teaching and learning, and tell us what you would like to see in the evolving NAEA Research Agenda and Network. Your voice matter!

The purpose of this session is to engage with art educators at varying points in their careers and hear how they define and use research in their practice. It is the presenters’ intention to communicate the information shared by the MAEA participants to the NAEA Research Commission for consideration in the formation of the new Research Network. As a result of attending this session, participants will have the opportunity to hear about the work being done at the national level to engage all NAEA members in research and to share their questions and needs about research in art education.

Now What? Evolving units for in-person or virtual and everywhere in between. (Elementary)

Presenter: Allison Malihom

Did you create an exciting unit in the classroom but weren’t sure how to make it work teaching virtually? Did you create an innovative unit during virtual/hybrid teaching and now want to transform it for teaching in-person? In this session we will explore linking lessons and units that have evolved to fit any mode of teaching, making them engaging and inspiring in all learning environments.

This session will inspire teachers to transform their own lessons and units for use in a variety of settings, as well as give lesson seeds they may choose to develop on their own. Teachers will leave feeling confident and inspired to use current units as a starting point to transform their content and delivery, rather than developing new units to suit the teaching method.

Supporting Learning AND Wellbeing in Art Classrooms: Lessons from Community Arts (Secondary)

Presenters: Kate Collins and LaVerne Miers-Bond

Wellness and healing have long been a focus of innovative community arts programs across the country and globe – resisting isolation, allowing people to feel seen, heard, and connected. This session looks closely at community arts practices vital for ongoing pandemic-recovery and fostering wellness, easily adapted for PK-12 art classrooms.

The purpose of this session is to clearly demonstrate community arts as a vital resource for art educators seeking inspiration and specific practices for supporting student wellness in the wake of a global pandemic. Community arts, broadly defined as outside of school arts endeavors, enjoy tremendous freedom by not being beholden to the state standards, testing, or curriculum mandates that generally come with school-based art programs. They are also commonly focused on supporting and engaging vulnerable and marginalized populations. All of these qualities position community arts to be tremendous places of discovery and innovation, often reaching beyond the limits of what schools can typically do. This session guides school and community art educators in closely examining community arts projects to break down the vital elements that can effectively be adapted to support student wellness. Our focus will be the central elements of: collaboration, deep listening, fostering relationships, and personal storytelling, and how they intersect with social emotional learning (Farrington, et. al, 2019; Ho, 2020) and trauma-informed practice (Jennings, 2019). Furthermore, this session will demonstrate the necessary scaffolding and intentionality required with those efforts especially when adapting them for PK-12 art rooms.

Surviving your first year: tips and trick for new educators (Preservice)

Presenters: Anjali Wells and Meghann Harris

Finishing up your Art Ed program? Are you a new, or early career Educator? Welcome! We are excited to have you in our wonderful community of Art Educators! Navigating this new world can be overwhelming, come join us to meet other educators who are in the same shoes, hear some tips & tricks from veteran teachers, and ask questions!

The purpose of this session is to build community with and provide support to new an early career art educators. Participants will learn some organization and management techniques while engaging with other new educators to build a support system as they navigate the start to their careers and their involvement with MAEA!

The ABAR Art Room: Curriculum & Instruction in Praxis (Learning - All)

Presenter: Paula Liz

This session will focus on what Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist curriculum and instruction looks like in praxis. Presenters will provide PreK-12 examples of lessons and teaching strategies to utilize in the classroom. Through collaborative conversation we will examine how we can move from reflection to transformation of our teaching practice.

The purpose of this session is to give art educators real life examples of what ABAR (Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist) curriculum and instruction looks like within the art classroom. Resources that will be provided include an ABAR workbook to help guide educators towards removing biases, stereotypes, and false narratives in their art curriculum and instruction. In addition to this workbook, participants will also be provided with a list of relevant artists, books, articles, and resources they can use when developing an ABAR curriculum. As well as examples of PreK-12 lesson ideas that engage students in critical conversations about voice, power, bias, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the art room. Anticipated outcomes include an understanding of how educators can begin to do the work of self-reflection and transformation concerning their curriculum and instructional practices. This includes moving away from a traditional banking system of education model towards a more liberatory praxis.

Value of Being a Researcher in an M.Ed. Art Education Program (Research - All)

Presenters: Kay Broadwater with Jinyoung Koh, Diane Kuthy and several M.Ed. students

A disturbing fact has come out in recent years is that there is very little published research in visual art education. Are we so busy just trying to keep up with our day-to-day teaching that we neglect to take time to reflect on what we are actually accomplishing as art educators in the classroom? Join current M.Ed. students and recent M.Ed. graduates as we share insights and outcomes through a diverse and broad variety of research topics. Meet young researchers who have become leaders in our field through their deepened understandings and research accomplishments.