2020 Master of Arts in Art Education & Master of Arts in Teaching Research Abstracts

2020

SAIC Art Education MAT & MAAE

Graduate Research

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF ART EDUCATION

THESIS ABSTRACTS Master of Arts in Art Education & Master of Arts in Teaching

2020

on the occasion of the yearly SAIC Art Education Symposium that will not be held to the Master of Arts in Art Education and Master of Arts in Teaching graduating students and to their friends and family and to the extended SAIC Art Education community It is with great pleasure and pride as well as with great sadness and concern that I write the introduction to this collection of abstracts of the MAAE and MAT research projects of the class of 2020.

Though we are unable to meet in-person because of the need to shelter-in-place to prevent that spread of the Covid-19 virus, we are able to come together in this (for now digital only) publication, gathering documentation of the diverse and complex projects in which during the last two years these graduate students explored histories and possibilities of art and education practices in schools, youth programming, museums, new technologies and other community settings. The projects enact and then analyze; the projects analyze and then enact.

Though these thesis projects and the accompanying research and writing took place during the two years in the MAAE or MAT program, for most of these Art Education graduate students the work had begun long before they came to SAIC as they found ways to connect art making, education and activism as they shaped places of shared learning to respond to needs and possibilities of various communities.

These artist educators have been busy, using the arts to build communities of joy and justice in which each individual senses and manifests creative potential.

It is a sad irony that as these energized artist educators complete their educations, it may be difficult for them to participate in the work that they have imagined, in the way that they had heretofore imagined it. Many of us have been inspired by a quote of visionary educator Maxine Greene, “to imagine the world as if it were otherwise.” Now we find ourselves in a world which is “otherwise” in ways we could not have imagined only a few short weeks ago.

However, as artist activists we believe in the essential services that the arts provide to communities in difficult times.

2020 MAAE and MAT graduates, the SAIC Art Education faculty is impressed with your intelligence, energy, resilience and creativity.

Though we may all be feeling “pessimism of the intellect”—knowing that the next months and years will bring many challenges, we feel “optimism of the will”—believing that in the urgency of the present situation you will invent new practices of art, education and activism that will support and sustain.

Be well. Take care.

Olivia Gude Chair of Art Education Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor of Art Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS Lauren Hogan Casser .............. 7 Jessica Chavez ......................... 8 Kim Erin Davidson .................... 9 Kaylie Deng ............................... 10 Ishita Dharap ............................. 11 Nika Gorini ................................. 12 Andrew Gordon Haller .............. 13 Sean James Hamilton ............... 14 Margaret Kearney ...................... 15 Yoko Kiyoi .................................. 16 Gabriela Lavalle ......................... 17 Katherine A O’Truk .................... 18 Ruben Felipe Pachas ................. 19 Anagha Prasan .......................... 20 Maryam Rasoulzadeh .............. 21 Jenna Russo ............................. 22 Ben G Salus .............................. 23 Yuefeng Shi ................................ 24 Martin Soto .............................. 25 Rebecca Wolsten ..................... 26 Maggie Zeng .............................. 27 Wenhan Zhang ........................ 28

Lauren Hogan Casser

Jessica Chavez

Exploring Critique: Generating New Meaning in Pre-College Art Education

Personalized Learning & Arts Integration

Master of Arts in Art Education

Inspired by scholars exploring and defining social practice, this study situated itself at the intersection of art education, dialogical art practice, and critique, creating a juxtaposition between socially engaged art practices and observations of critique. Within this study, I explored critique as both a theoretical concept and as an art school practice within pre-college studio classrooms. The aim of this project was to better understand the experiences of both teachers and students as they engaged in the critique process. In addition to exploring critique-based experience, this study prompted questions related to pedagogical concerns in art education: What might dialogical art practices teach art educators as they engage with their classroom community? In what ways do we generate new forms of understanding through critique? How might we create a framework to understand critical dialogue?

This research was centered around several pre-college art courses with teenage students from the City of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. This included a group of students from Chicago Public Schools enrolled in a college bridge program serving students with strong academic achievement and demonstrated financial need. The students were observed, surveyed, and interviewed over the course of two different terms.

While this study included surveys and interviews, the foundation was based on observations of critiques in pre-college courses. These observations also included shadowing a group of teenagers working on a collaborative mural project. The initial goal for the observations was to use them to explore critical frameworks of critique. However, the relationships between the students themselves became more important than pedological considerations related to critique frameworks.

My hope is that this study offers insights into theoretical considerations related to critique, but also demonstrates how the community built and sustained within the classroom is foundational to the generation of new ideas.

7

Master of Arts in Art Education

In this research, I investigated the extent to which personalized learning and arts integration affected student engagement in my own classroom. I chose an action research methodology because, as a general education teacher, I wanted to understand how to get my students more authentically invested in the material they were studying. Moreover, my research looked at the effects of the physical aspects of personalized learning and how, when paired with arts integration, it contributed to an environment of student agency.

I conducted this study at a pre-k through 5th-grade elementary school on the northwest side of Chicago and focused primarily on six third-grade students and their participation in a math class. I worked with students throughout the year but gathered data only for five months. This school is 96% Hispanic or Latinx, and 98% of students come from low-income families. I chose a gender-inclusive group of students with IEPs, students with 504 plans, and bilingual students to ensure that I had included as many types of learners as possible.

I taught five units from a math curriculum provided by my school and changed each unit to understand the effects of arts integration and personalized learning together, separately, as well as the absence of both. I collected data in the form of standardized test scores, formative classroom assessments, student interviews, a reflective journal of my observations and the students’ artwork.

Because of personalized learning and arts integration, I saw a shift in my students’ engagement as well as their attitudes towards art and math alike.

Students who reported negative feelings towards math or art found that by the end of the study those feelings were no longer present. Students also grew to be more autonomous in their day to day actions in the classroom.

Integrating art into my classroom helped students grasp math concepts in a different, and more creative way, than was offered in their textbook. Also, creating a student-centered environment through personalized learning gave my students more confidence in their actions.

8

Kim Erin Davidson

Kaylie Deng

Feminist Pedagogies: Using Small Encounters as Tools for Change

A Case Study: An Improvement of Youth Development with Collaborative Animal Youth Education

Master of Arts in Teaching

Feminist and liberative pedagogies involve work. It is the feminist work, memory work and collective work involved in producing change to break down the walls of larger social structures. This work is hard; it is difficult; at times it is depleting. In this thesis, I explore what it has meant to me to be a feminist engaged in feminist pedagogy, using the tools I learned from radical feminists before me.

In the span of seven weeks, I participated in a curriculum project using critical action research at an urban high school on the south side of Chicago during apprentice teaching. I taught two curriculum projects umbrellaed under a unit around empowerment to approximately 125 students. I developed two research questions to better understand how students interpreted and made use of perspectives of empowerment within self-portrait and stencil making projects.

Methods I utilized during this project included questions and analysis, a student research project, visual culture critique and video interpretation, documentation, observation, videotaping, surveys, artist statements and student self-evaluations.

Research I collected about self-empowerment resulted in similar values to what it means to be a feminist. Students primarily interpreted empowerment as supporting the community, standing for something you believe in, or pushing past the opinions of others. During my time as an apprentice teacher, I utilized small encounters with students to create meaning. These encounters, while small, together do the difficult work that promotes radical change. As I grow as a feminist teacher, I hope to share and learn from my students to connect and collectively create the tools necessary in dismantling the dominant social structures that oppress us.

9

Master of Arts in Art Education

This thesis investigates combining art and animal education aimed at children in the 6-12 year old age range. Research shows that animal encounters are beneficial for children with problems such as autism; such encounters support their physical and emotional well-being. Artmaking for young people often takes the form of expression as an important outlet for young people’s negative emotions. My project is interested in the collaboration of the two fields as a resource for young people to build their empathy and develop positive social behavior, including communication skills and interpersonal skills as well as respect for others.

Using case studies, I have collected data by conducting interviews and analyzing research on various contemporary artists whose work is influenced by animal behavior and relationships with animals. These contemporary artists and art critics include animal lovers and animal activists exploring the relationships between humans and animals. I also conducted interviews with Shelly Hope, a passionate animal educator, nutritionist and the coordinator of Rainbow Assisted Therapy, an organization that works with service dogs for people with needs.

Volunteers at Rainbow shared touching stories of how animals have impacted students and patients and of how animals promote a general feeling of wellbeing. Finally, Fran Mast, a current Research and Evaluation Associate at the Shedd Aquarium, shared her years of experiences working in America’s largest indoor aquarium.

This research has led me to propose collaborative art programs with existing animal programs in such places as zoos and museums. I believe the combination of the two areas could facilitate a creative and engaging environment, promoting engaged reflective learning.

10

Ishita Dharap

Nika Gorini

What the Guards Saw

Towards a Youth-Defined Artistic Rigor for Creative Youth Development: A Challenge to White Supremacy Culture in Art Education

Master of Arts in Art Education

Through this project, I investigated museum security officers’ role and position in the Art Institute of Chicago, how they view their work, and what stories they wanted to tell about the experience. My research sought to create space not only to discuss “What the guards saw”, but also what it meant to them. Their stories are “counternarratives” in the museum; they exist alongside the museum’s main narratives, which are frequently structured by an academic voice.

I conducted my research at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I interviewed security guards and facilitated artmaking sessions. The initial research done at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation informed the second iteration at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC).

My research at the AIC comprised two segments. Over three weeks in November and December of 2019, I conducted interviews with 11 security officers. Then, on Dec 9, I facilitated a group artmaking session with 12 security officers, two of whom had participated in the interviews. The participants were 80% female, and all people of color, mostly African Americans between the ages of 30-65 years, who had signed up to participate and were compensated for their time. The sessions happened in the AIC offices and the Ryan Learning Center.

The one-on-one interviews with the officers gave me insight into their lives in the museum––what they liked or disliked about their work and their connection, if any, with the art. The group artmaking session yielded a different kind of data; participants opened up about problems and anxieties about working in a large institution. I collected this data through audio recordings, photos, video, notetaking, and the original artworks by participants.

Initially, many of the officers were wary of being interviewed, but as they talked about a familiar subject (i.e. the museum), they became more comfortable and candid. The artmaking session opened deeper conversations about their situation as security officers working for a contracted company within the museum and concerns regarding the museum as a workplace.

Museums are hierarchical, top-down institutions that value academic expertise. What other knowledge exists within the museum that may not be directly accessible? What does the museum look like from the inside, and from the proverbial ‘bottom’? This project created both direct and indirect opportunities for building and capturing narratives from vantage points not generally seen, and people not generally empowered to tell them.

11

Master of Arts in Art Education

Art educators must work to build counter-hegemonic approaches to sharing and building knowledge around art and creative making. My research looks at the potential of using a youth-driven approach to arts learning as a challenge to the centering of white bodies and values in art classrooms. I look specifically at how our society’s current definition of an “artistically rigorous” art education experience is rooted in white supremacist culture and ask: How, if given the power, would young artists re-define how we understand ‘rigor’ in art education, specifically in the context of Creative Youth Development classrooms? How can those youth-determined definitions serve as an antidote to white supremacy culture in the field?

These research questions were answered through data gathered from 6 focus groups made up of youth-artists ages 15-19 participating in Creative Youth Development programs in Chicago, IL and Ann Arbor, MI. Participants discussed youth-driven arts programming and talked about their current understanding of what ‘rigor’ in art education looks and feels like in action. The youth artists then shared how they would re-define rigor, based on the kind of learning that felt the most engaging, inspiring, and motivating. I worked with a 22-year-old artist and youth-voice activist, Alexiss Villagomez, to pull out themes and recommendations from the focus group discussions. The two of us collaborated on developing a Framework for a Youth-Defined Artistic Rigor in Creative Youth Development.

The newly created framework is anti-hierarchical at its core and creates space for disrupting dominance-based approaches to art education. It is centered around sharing power and resources, building relationships, flexibility in curriculum, and freedom of expression. In the discussion, I show how these various elements stand in direct opposition to white supremacy culture, as defined by Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones. This research demonstrates that youth-driven art education in Creative Youth Development not only creates valuable opportunities for leadership and engagement in the art classroom but also plays a role in dismantling white supremacy that exists in the roots of our educational and cultural approaches.

12

Andrew Gordon Haller

Sean James Hamilton

Immersive Technology in Art Museums: Using Augmented Reality to Create Participatory Experiences with Museum Visitors

Redefining Efficacy through Agency: Climbing Out of the Achievement Gap

Master of Arts in Art Education

I see augmented reality (AR) as an immersive tool for museum programming and as such think museums can connect with visitors through a multitude of implementations. Art museums, now more than ever, need a way to stay relevant in their communities, especially with their younger visitors. AR is an ideal tool to engage with young and mature audiences alike and to present information in an interactive way. It also brings twenty-first century technology into museums making it technologically relevant to today’s patrons. Since implementing immersive technology into museum programming can be done in many ways, I examined three art museums and what they have done to incorporate AR into their programs. Some questions that helped guide my research were: What are the effects when art museum visitors experience immersive technology in education and exhibition programming? What were some challenges and successes that the museum faced when implementing immersive programming? What are some future implications for augmented reality for engaging, interacting and learning about art and culture?

I conducted site visits at the Block Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Detroit Institute of Arts for my research. I interviewed staff members, administered visitor surveys, and did personal observations at each location to gather data. The demographic audiences were both female and male ranging from teenagers to middle aged adults who used or were interested in the AR technologies provided by the museums. Museum staff were interviewed about the challenges and outcomes of implementing immersive programming along with their own experiences using the technology. Visitors were asked to complete a survey related to their experiences using AR. Through my research I have learned that the visitors who have used the immersive technology have genuinely enjoyed learning and engaging through such a platform. I have also learned that since AR technologies are still relatively new there are limitations and gaps between the user and the designer applications of the programs. From the AR implementations that I encountered, I found it was applied more to 3-D works rather than 2-D works. Immersive programming has just scratched the surface in art museums. AR technologies are rapidly growing as is the potential for integrating it into art museums. It is my hope that this research contributes to the expanding knowledge of art museum education and to the use of immersive media in museum programming.

13

Master of Arts in Art Education

I started the process of intentionally shifting my classroom teaching practices in 2017. Initially, I sought to address my perceptions of the social-emotional skills of my high school students in the context of a studio art classroom. I found a way to partner with students and use student voice to drive our work as artists and humans. Educational efficacy can take many forms, making it tricky to define. The real barometer of teacher efficacy, I learned, is in the tenderness and responsiveness with which student agency is engaged and capitalized upon.

For the past several years, I have worked as a high school art teacher on the southwest side of Chicago in a low-income community. My students are brilliant and hardworking, but have not all had consistent access to quality education, especially art education.

My action research process started with a quarterly survey to gauge students’ social-emotional wellbeing. Responses to these surveys created the foundation for a dramatic shift in our classroom culture and in my teaching. The surveys, along with observations and interviews, told stories, not of rating students’ social-emotional well-being, but of the needs, wishes, desires, and hopes of the students. The data included student suggestions, stories of hardships, and original doodles intended to make me laugh. The data showed my students as individuals who I had neglected in preference to teaching content. Encountering this slew of information influenced me, not just to attempt to increase their socialemotional wellbeing, but also to offer students precisely what they craved—a place of belonging, productivity, and hope. Students offered (gifted me) data that allowed me to see them as individuals and equipped me to develop a plan to support them on their journeys.

This thesis documents my process of changing the focus of the classroom culture in response to the collected data. I discuss how evaluative tools in art education can impact students and how intentional and actionable teacher reflection can influence the connection between teacher, student, and learning.

I identify how a teacher might empower students as active agents in their own education and life. I explore community and how I tried, failed, and tried again to establish community within the learning spaces. My work tells of the pathway I traveled alongside students in an attempt to get to new places.

14

Margaret Kearney

Yoko Kiyoi

How to Hear More: Exploring the Politics, Potentials, and Problematics of Listening and Storytelling in Community Engaged Art

Building Clinical Skills and Resilience Through Art: Creating a Museum Program for Medical Students

Master of Arts in Art Education

There is so much knowledge in the stories and experiences of communities across the world. It is time to let go of the hope that innovation in ivory towers will produce solutions to the problems in the world. Rather than trying to reinvent ourselves, we can seek to listen to what those around us already know and reorient towards decolonization. Art and education are vital tools for this work. Yet, how can we be art educators in an authentic, ethical, and respectful way to learn how we as a species can come together and survive the climate chaos, violent inequity, and daily injustices of the present? For my thesis research I investigated the politics, problematics, and potentials of listening as a component of antiauthoritatian community engaged art. I’m asked such questions as: How would artists and cultural workers describe listening as an active practice in their work?

What are some ways that sharing stories can disrupt historical relationships towards power, knowledge, and expertise? What shared ethics should be considered when holding other people’s stories?

For this project I interviewed 13 people working as collaborators in communities primarily in Chicago and Philadelphia. Those who I interviewed might call themselves curators, activists, photographers, teachers, musicians or urban planners, but they share a vision for witnessing and celebrating the experiences of everyday people. Some people I knew beforehand through my own work and others I met for the first time when I interviewed them in the fall and winter of 2019-2020. In addition to the case studies I conducted through interviews, I made a series of drawings in response to what I learned. I coded the transcripts according to themes. There were then used to develop a series of posters about the major ideas that the artists/educators/activists talked about including mutual learning, local expertise, self knowledge, and making as listening.

Through my interviews, a need for context-driven thinking emerged. Various differences contributed to the wide variety of approaches such as demographics, histories, relationships towards power and resources, creative roles, and world visions. To this end, I have not come out of this project with a one-size-fitsall strategy but rather a more complex web of intersecting, overlapping, and contradictory stances towards listening and sharing stories. The implication for my practice and for others at a similar early career point is to lean into specificity, to build local relationships slowly, and to never assume you entirely know what you’re doing.

15

Master of Arts in Art Education

Medical educators are increasingly realizing the benefits and necessity of humanistic curricula. Art-based activities and workshops in museum settings are powerful tools that are becoming more prevalent. Through my research, I sought to answer the following question: how can an art museum tour curriculum help medical students to improve skills in observation, patient care, communications, and leadership while building mental health and emotional resilience? My overall goal was to design a museum program in addition to an accessible self-guide tool for medical students.

My research took place in Saint Louis, Missouri, from June 2019 through May 2020. I worked closely with the department of Public Engagement at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in order to implement my curriculum during the Terry Adkins exhibition for fall 2020. I also collaborated with colleagues in the medical field including: practicing physicians, a resident trainer, a public health expert, a neuroscientist, and medical students.

I conducted two rounds of qualitative research. The first round focused on a national survey of various museum workshops and tours specifically designed for medical students. The second round was more targeted research identifying best practices for implementing museum tours and an analysis of gallery activities.

Each round was followed by creation and implementation of original tools and curriculum.

My research resulted in familiarity with and competency in building relevant arts programming for medical students. I have co-authored a presentation with my collaborator to illustrate my findings at a medical conference in July 2019.

Further, we distributed a simple self-guide tool to the attendees of the event.

Analysis and feedback indicated that there were opportunities to expand. This required further research which led to building an infrastructure of general museum tours at the Pulitzer along with creation of a library of suggested gallery activities. I created and implemented these as a basis for a redesigned curriculum.

My curriculum was reviewed, approved by my collaborators, and is set to begin in fall 2020. It is a 90-minute long session, intended for twelve first and second-year medical students at Washington University in St. Louis, incorporating a broad spectrum of pertinent skill building.

It is my hope that this research will contribute to extending the reach of art and serve as a template for interdisciplinary collaborations among traditionally siloed fields. I continue to explore ways for art to serve more diverse segments of society.

16

Gabriela Lavalle

Katherine A O’Truk

Instagram: A Tool for Art Museum Educators to Embrace Learning and Interpretation Engagement

Books That Bind Us: Creating Curriculum for the Whole Person in the High School Art Classroom

This thesis was an exploration of how museum educators can communicate and engage with a virtual audience and empower youth to talk about art through social media, focusing on Instagram (IG) content. My research questions were: What are the current practices of museum education in regards to IG? How can museum educators shape connections between museums and a virtual audience?

How can museum educators develop educational content for IG? I divided my research into three stages. First, I followed 15 museum’s IG accounts to collect data and classify their content. I realized that at least 80% of the content was about marketing, while less than 20% was about education or engagement with their audience. I recognized that there was an opportunity for museum educators to explore and develop different content for IG. Second, as a response to this data, I created a personal account where I developed educational art museum narratives to understand the implications of the practice and to measure reactions from my virtual audience. This audience was primarily millennials (25 to 35 years old) with a common interest in learning about art. I created eight narratives similar to the live tours I gave during my internship at The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). I kept journals about my process— noting what worked, what didn’t—and ideas about how to better engage with an audience. After learning from this process, I realized how creating short narratives informed my educational practice which led to the last stage of my research.

Third, in partnership with museum educators and the teen council from AIC, we worked over four months to re-activate their pre-existing IG account: @artinstituteteens. The objective was to empower the teens to manage and develop educational content for their institutional account and engage actively with their audience. This process involved setting goals with the teens, leading workshops to develop engaging narratives, and continuous support during planning.

Museums have an opportunity to rethink their social media practices to engage with and reach a broader virtual audience. Developing educational storytelling strategies can create a space for the audience to stay connected with the museum and extend the learning process beyond the galleries. Museums can benefit from social media as a tool of engagement, learning, and empowerment.

Through my teaching experiences over the last seven years, I have come to feel that education should take a holistic approach to prepare all parts of a student, academic, creative, social, and emotional, for living their best quality of life inside and outside of school. With this in mind, I wanted to create a project where students could take steps to educate themselves as whole people. To support this, I developed two research questions: How can I provide a better education for my students as whole persons in my high school art classroom?

What are the outcomes for high school art students when they investigate topics of social and emotional learning as participants in a bookmaking project?

This research was conducted at a suburban high school west of Chicago.

The school is 57% white, 20.5% Hispanic, 11.7 % Black and 7.4% Asian. The population is 28% low income, and has a 93% graduation rate. I conducted the project twice, once in the fall semester of 2019 with 14 level three and four art students and then again, with a new group of 13 level three students, in the spring semester of 2020.

For this project, students were asked to engage in activities and conduct research on topics of a social and emotional nature that they felt were relevant to their whole selves. Students then created books based on their research and their thinking. Data in this study was captured through photos, journaling, and conversation.

The project, paired with research on connected educational literature, allowed me to see how crucial it is that education be informed by students’ own experiences, interests, and goals. Furthermore, it pushed my students to explore topics that were generated by their own thoughts, needs, and ideas.

Giving students this freedom allowed me to see that this is a more fruitful way to approach topics of a social and emotional nature than mandating a prescribed curriculum.

There is much work to be done in creating an education for the whole person.

This project has helped me to look for new ways to include student inquiry in all levels of my art teaching so that I can help students build an education that is best for their whole selves. I would recommend that other high school art educators interested in doing similar work do the same and take the time to learn about and listen to their students as whole people.

Master of Arts in Art Education

17

Master of Arts in Teaching

18

Ruben Felipe Pachas

Anagha Prasan

Teaching Indigenous Peruvian Dance to Non-Indigenous People

A Hybrid Identity

Master of Arts in Art Education

This project involved teaching Peruvian indigenous dance to non-indigenous people to understand how to preserve indigenous culture, values in the world, and to better relationships between humans and nature. The questions for this investigation were: What occurs when non-indigenous students explore a curriculum designed to foster an understanding of indigenous Peruvian dance and the Quechua culture? How does learning indigenous dance serve to teach indigenous cultural values such as respect, communication, integrity, care of nature, and social interaction? How will my participation in this exploratory project affect my role as a teacher of indigenous Peruvian dance?

Participants at three different institutions took part in this project. The first was an urban parochial school with eighty participants from 5th, 6th, and 7th grades who were 95% white and 5% international students. The second institution was a dance studio, with ten student participants, 5-10 years old, of 100% of Peruvian American descent. The last one was a teacher dance workshop with twenty participants of different ages with 60% Hispanic and Latinx and 40% white teachers.

This research employed fun, indigenous stories and techniques in teaching and learning about indigenous dance and culture during the fourteen-learning lessons. Students connected their own experiences with new knowledge through the cognitive, social, emotional, and artistic aspects of each lesson. The classes took place for one hour per week with each class at the school and the dance studio, and for three hours a day, once a month, at the teacher workshops.

Documentation and reflections were gathered from these three places using videos, photographs, surveys, and interviews with teachers, students and parents, as well as observations.

Through indigenous Peruvian dance, participants discovered that each participant makes an essential contribution to living in peace and understanding with nature and other human beings. During this project, the participants engaged with an atmosphere of enriched culture that gave life to Peruvian culture and created new forms of learning that enriched their own lives. This study also helped students to understand others and be more tolerant of differences.

Teaching exploring indigenous techniques has much potential for strengthening the self-esteem and cultural identity of both teachers and students. Through decolonizing methodologies and indigenous processes, we may build a better worldview for educating on the existence of indigenous cultures and what we can learn from our encounters with the history and culture of Indigenous values.

19

Master of Arts in Art Education

I investigated the professional identities and roles of curators and educators in art institutions, focusing on the potential benefits of a collaborative, hybrid identity fusing the two roles. I began my survey by examining the trajectory of Institutional Critique art practices from the 1970s into the contemporary context.

I was interested in how artists engaged in the curatorial process to critique museums and exhibition venues and thus paved the way to an art world that was more socially responsive and aware. The crux of my interest was in determining if and how curatorial and educational practices could intermingle to produce robust visitor experiences that were not only aware of social issues, but also shared knowledge and authority with the audience.

In the relationship triad of Artist-Curator-Audience, the role of the mediator between curatorial work and audience engagement has historically been performed by museum educators. As artists became increasingly socially critical, so did the curatorial process and, as a result, in-gallery education was also transformed. Given this, my research focused on the following questions: Did curatorial or educational museum professionals seek to intertwine artistic, curatorial, and educational practices? If they did, why, and for what outcomes?

Were there times when curatorial and educational values and goals overlapped?

Was conflict between curatorial and educational goals a generative process?

With these research questions in mind, I set out to gather narrative accounts of seven individuals working across a variety of art institutions. I also drew from my own experience as a Graduate Curatorial Fellow at SAIC to provide an autoethnographic perspective to my study. Drawing on the literature survey, interviews, and my own experiences, I have concluded that there is tremendous value in encouraging a collaborative understanding of both professions. My initial hypothesis that educational and pedagogical practices were constructive for forming an engaged curatorial identity was supported by my findings. I also came to believe that a large part of the curatorial frame of mind is highly effective for educators – an aspect I had not considered early on. I conclude this thesis with a few proposals and considerations for a post-graduate curatorial program proposal.

20

Maryam Rasoulzadeh

Jenna Russo

Cultural Storytelling through Puppet, Illustration, and Performance Art with High School Students

Cracking the Code: Analyzing Effects of Dress Code Policies and Reimagining Uniforms with K-12 Students

My curriculum encouraged American high school students to investigate cultures more closely and to tell a cultural story through artmaking. My main questions in creating this curriculum were: How can we take advantage of America’s multiculturalism in art education? How can we combine illustration, puppet and performance art to narrate a culturalstory?

I utilized action research to learn about the different cultures of my American students as well as to observe and understand their process of artmaking. This research depended on the student participants. The students were researchers, artmakers, representors and critics. To begin I familiarized the students with the concept of cultural storytelling, and they learned how to narrate their favorite story in an artwork. As a teacher example, I narrated an old Persian story “ Zahhak: The Legend of The Serpent King” through a pop-up book. The story introduced the students to some of the features of Persian culture such as costumes, the appearance of people, architecture, and ways of making different atmospheres and environments for each scene of the story. Each student then identified their favorite cultural story, summarized its key elements and researched various details. By following up with various details elicited on different worksheets, they sketched the main characters, illustrated an appropriate background image and then designed a puppet of the main character.

Later they photographed the puppet in front of its background. Other students took the project further, creating and documenting a performance by narrating and moving their puppet in front of their illustration. The project concluded with a self-assessment.

During this curriculum, students learned from each other about different cultures through storytelling and artmaking. Being involved in this project through multiple modalities resulted in their deeply internalizing these experiences since they engaged with their minds and most of the senses. All of the students were fully involved in this project, and most of them were successful in making final artworks of good quality. This curriculum is an example of how contemporary art making and storytelling can be utilized by teachers to introduce specific features of their communities in their art curriculums.

I investigated the effects that wearing school uniforms and enforced uniform policies have on students. How does having to wear a school uniform affect students’ experiences, behavior, and overall feelings about being in school? How might students alter their uniforms to add personal style? I was drawn to this topic after my experiences with student teaching in two CPS schools that require all students to wear a uniform. As someone who has never had to wear a school uniform, I found myself wondering how the students felt about them. If students had the option, would they alter or eradicate their school’s uniform policy and dress codes? How do students’ experiences, behaviors, and overall feelings about being in school change when allowed to “dress down”? What does it mean to wear a uniform in general? These questions drove my research and served as inspiration for the curriculum project that I have developed.

During “dress down” Fridays - when students can dress as they wish while conforming to the school’s dress code - it appeared that students were happier, more comfortable. Crucially, they seemed more motivated in the classroom without the surveillance and policing they invoked while in uniform. Security guards relaxed as well, reinforcing the atmosphere of ease throughout the school.

I felt closer to my students as each Friday passed because they expressed their styles, personalities, and interests through their clothes.

The goal for my curriculum project, YOUniform Crests, is for students to investigate the definition of uniform. After discussing the historical contexts of uniforms and analyzing their school’s policies, students design a uniform crest, similar to the school crest or logo currently displayed on their shirts. The purpose of this project was to allow students to express themselves through their uniforms by adding their personal touch. In a restrictive dress code environment, my project provides students more opportunities to make art about themselves. By giving students opportunities to make personal and cultural connections to their artwork, students will be free to express themselves in a material space in which they had lacked opportunities for self-expression.

Master of Arts in Teaching

21

Master of Arts in Teaching

22

Ben G Salus

Yuefeng Shi

Layering M.O.S.S. (Memories of Significant Spaces) Exploring Personal Narratives Through Mixed Media Collage

Chinese Visitor Experience in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Research of Accessibility, Equality and Effectiveness of Chinese Visitor Supports

Layering M.O.S.S. (Memories of Significant Spaces), was a curriculum project which used mixed media and paper collage. The project investigated how students explore and describe their memories of personally relevant places through collage making. Students reflected on how their memories affect personal change and the trajectory of their lives through the layered and multifaceted nature of remembering. How do middle schoolers in a Chicago southside school view their memories? How might questions and prompts, after each layer of work, deepen a student’s understanding of their past? The project focused on students’ memories of significant spaces as a means to share and explore a significant piece of their view of themselves.

My school placement, a k-8 public school on Chicago’s southside, was in a thriving, deep-rooted, community. Middle school students who attended the school varied greatly in personal, cultural, and academic backgrounds. The school is 56% African American, 31% Caucasion, 8% Latino along with a diverse group of other races and cultures. In addition to the students who resided nearby, years ago the school expanded its borders to include students from other areas, introducing new challenges and concerns. The school has faced increasing problems with homelessness, abuse, and other issues. It was a common occurrence to have atypical needs in five or more, out of twenty-five students.

To begin the project, students filled out worksheets that encouraged them to think through their memories and consider an approach to their collage spaces. The students’ works, struggles, and processes were collected through video/photo documentation, notes, interviews, exit tickets, and a daily journal. I found that students’ memories could be classified into two categories, singular, impactful memories and recurring experiences. Students reflected on their own development, through either paradigm shifts in understanding or personal changes that occurred over time. As students included more layers, the memories became richer and often more complex.

Offering students a way to look at their memory places as layered allowed them to uncover details within those memories and to consider changes over time. The project helped students see how the multiple layers of images and text revealed multiple timelines and life trajectories, painting identity, as ever-changing. While identity itself may be impermanent, it defines us at each moment as we move through time. Teachers can use such a project to allow students to explore and view identity and life trajectories as in flux.

The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), one of the most popular encyclopedic art museums in the world, has made great strides to improve its relevance to visitors. Many visitors have enjoyed such improvements and are having a better experience when visiting the museum. However, like many museums, AIC struggles to improve services for international visitors. For this thesis, I began with the story of my own experience visiting and later working at the AIC as an opportunity to examine the museum’s visitor accessibility for Chinese visitors.

The following questions were addressed: In what ways does AIC currently provide access designed to address the needs of Chinese visitors? How does my experience as a Chinese visitor and, later, as a museum employee, illuminate the challenges of interpretation and accessibility for a broader audience of Chinese visitors? What recommendations emerge for member services from this project that could be useful for AIC to consider in improving visitor services for an increasing population of Chinese visitors?

This research consisted of my story as a visitor to the Art Institute of Chicago, and later reflections, as an insider with more knowledge of audience research.

It includes my personal narrative about visiting the museum and working collectively with museum staff, interviews and mini case studies that illuminate the importance of additional language presence in the AIC, where a set of experimental Chinese labels are being developed in the Chinese Gallery. I conducted randomized interviews with AIC visitors, volunteers, and staff about the language access inside the museum for a month. Additionally, I wrote narrative reflections of being in the AIC with local Chinese families and my experience as a guide with Chinese volunteers.

Many interviewees agreed that AIC, as an encyclopedic museum, fails to welcome the diversity of international visitors in terms of the language access.

Some of them felt that AIC should provide a multilingual presence not limited to English. The mini case studies included my personal search for adding Chinese guides, interpretations and insights from Chicago’s Chinese population’s general reaction and reception of AIC. These tested my personal pedagogy of gallery teaching in the museum setting.

Museums need to include international audiences, but they often fail to address language accessibility, which is necessary to stay relevant to the communities they are serving. This thesis contributes a narrative collection of visitor experiences, alongside my reflections, resulting in recommendations for better services for international audiences.

Master of Arts in Teaching

23

Master of Arts in Art Eduation

24

Martin Soto

Rebecca Wolsten

Frieze Frame: An Exercise of Student Agency in Art and Critical Pedagogy

Hospitality in the Art Classroom

Master of Arts in Teaching

Frieze Frame was a critical curriculum project I developed to explore the parameters of student agency in a public school during my apprentice teaching.

The frieze is a device used in the curriculum to formally frame relevant student narratives conveyed through class generated tableaux. The curriculum asked students to conceive and create art projects that addressed critical issues in their education. This research investigated what impact student agency had on their learning while making visual art to inform and justify an emancipatory curriculum.

Participating students interrogated conditions that impeded their education, leading students to act as agents of change by making works of art that connected their personal prior knowledge in visual arts learning.

The following questions guided my research: In what way does student agency enhance learning by enacting student conceived art projects? How can students engage in a self-critical process that raises questions about their previously unexamined thinking and habits? I sought answers by observing and teaching art classes in sculpture, multimedia, and art & activism for approximately 120 racially and culturally diverse students across the 9th through 12th grades for seven weeks at a recently opened magnet school on Chicago’s northwest side. Most of the 498 students enrolled had been classmates since kindergarten at their sister elementary school. They demonstrated a familial congeniality and a culture of cooperation.

Frieze Frame asked the students, as experts of their learning, how I could learn to teach them best. The students rendered the answers through poems, surveys, and student-generated works of art. They made art that investigated the limitations and opportunities of their learning environment. Each student proposed at least one issue to use in their project that warranted counterarguments. Students proposed ideas, problems, and solutions related to their schooling that was visually frozen and framed in works of art.

This curriculum project built on what other researchers and scholars have said about critical pedagogy, broken forms of teaching, and alternative humanistic pedagogic practices. As such, I opened a space in the curriculum for dialogue, met the students where they were academically, and allied with them to learn the skills needed to make and convey their meaning through works of art. Critical pedagogy gains the strength of the imagination, creativity, and agency inherent in artmaking to address academic learning and real-world problems.

25

Master of Arts in Teaching

The purpose of this study is to explore how culturally sustaining pedagogy can affect hospitality in the classroom. Hospitality in the classroom, an aspect of this pedagogy, welcomes those who walk through the door without any pretenses or expectations. My research asks, what happens when students are invited to voice their own stories in the classroom? Student-centered curriculum can lead to richer and more hospitable meaning-making in the art classroom by focusing on students’ lived experience while they learn at their own pace. When students make personally meaningful artwork, they become invested in their projects as they think about why people make art and the role of art in culture. Culturally sustaining pedagogy is integral in the art classroom because honoring each individual works against homogenizing students’ individuality and hospitality welcomes all students to participate. In the curriculum I designed, students are able to voice, name, and celebrate their stories outside of disempowering narratives they may have been conditioned to believe. Students are able to exist in a classroom that respects and honors individuality by valuing each student’s lived history and experiences.

This study is focused on 24 students in grades 10-12 in a choice-based classroom in a charter school on the Northwest side of Chicago. My research took place in early 2020. The student body was extremely diverse, which informed the curriculum I designed. For the main project, students made artist books about content they chose using techniques and materials they also chose.

I encouraged students to bring their whole selves to their projects to make for an opportunity rich in meaning-making. The class spent time looking at artworks from a diverse set of contemporary artists and discussed what motivates art making. We looked at and discussed a wide range of work, including Nina Chanel and spoke about police violence, Chris Ofili’s painting celebrating African American culture, Omar Velasquez’s paintings about the island culture of Puerto Rico, and Mexico City artist Curiot Tlalpazoti’s painting referencing afterlife mythologies. This led to a rich discussion of what art can be about and how we can use our inherent knowledge to make meaningful works of art. The class learned and experimented with several art-making materials and techniques to prepare for making their books, which they then shared with each other during small group feedback sessions. At the end of the project the students had a gallery walk and discussion of the works. I found that students were able to foster hospitality and empathy in the art classroom by allowing others to see more personal aspects of themselves through their art.

26

Maggie Zeng

Wenhan Zhang

Cultural Identity in Typography

Puppet: A Bridge to Connect Other Worlds

Only a few typefaces are available to graphic designers to express cultural identity. I gained experience creating type posters and typeface specimens for Franklin Gothic in my undergraduate studies. At that time, I noticed that there are many typeface designers trying to remove cultural representation from their typographical design in order to make their designs accessible to a wide audience. The purpose of my research is to explore the importance of typography and engage students in the graphic design field to use typeface to represent their cultural identity. A set of research questions drives my project: How could the current typographical education be improved to better represent cultural identity? How do students in art school understand both their cultural histories and heritage in order to use typography to represent identity?

My action research project took place over two months at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. I gave out surveys to 34 undergraduate students enrolled in graphic design classes and interviewed three professors in the Visual Communication Design and Art Education departments. Later I set up two 90-minute workshops for students in which they designed their own typefaces. One workshop was for white students; the other one was only for Chinese international students. Both of the groups were undergraduate students at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, who had basic graphic design skills. They used different materials to redesign letters “e” “d” “o” “g” “v” on 10 inch by 10 inch cards.

I collected data from surveys and interviews, recorded observation notes during the workshops. I also took photos of workshop interactions. The students’ artworks were essential to my research and written reflections. My workshop challenged their expectations for understanding typography and helped them use typography as an expression of cultural identity.

My thesis explored how students use the process of creating and performing with puppets to learn more about themselves and others. The data included photos of my students’ artworks from my seven-week apprentice teaching in a Chicago Public School. The purpose of my curriculum project was to explore self-identity through the process of creating puppets and performing puppets in the art classroom. “Who am I?” is one of the most essential questions for most people. Many of us started to ask this question when we were children, but as the time went by, we often stopped such questioning.

In this action research project, I developed a curriculum that used puppets as a tool to teach art and help students explore their own identities. Making puppets incorporates many types of learning and teaches students about drawing and sculpting in a way which can provide a comfortable and relaxed learning environment. The process of creating puppets requires creativity and skills that can improve students’ sensibilities of shapes, colors, materials, textures, and sizes which are very useful for their observing and understanding this world.

The sociologist Erving Goffman believed that one can understand a society through analyzing people’s everyday behavior. The process of performing puppets helps students improve their abilities of cooperation, problem-solving, imagination, narration, and their knowledge of themselves. Every culture has puppets. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued that because of accelerating globalization and increasing immigration no culture is isolated from others.

Through the process of performing puppets, students not only found their own cultural identities, but also learned about other cultures through the puppets of others. Puppets can become bridges between worlds, and they may also serve as a bridge between students as they explore their own identities.

Master of Arts in Art Eduation

27

Master of Arts in Teaching

28

Reclaiming an Education Amidst a Pandemic Sarah Ross, MAAE Director Adam Greteman, MAT Director As you, MAAE and MAT graduates of 2020, conclude your time at

that such worlds come into presence. For the last few years as students,

SAIC amidst a global pandemic, we first thank you for your diligence,

faculty, and staff we have had the great opportunity of finding words, making

compassion, and understanding as our communities have faced a whole

art, developing our understanding, and much more through the work of

range of challenges. Education and art––art education–– has a responsibility

art education. Such opportunity was and is an immense responsibility

to respond to the conditions we find ourselves in, conditions that are

and privilege. Upon graduation, it is our hope that you can go out into the

simultaneously ever-changing and exacerbated by systemic injustices and

world bringing with you the words, the skills, the ideas, and importantly the

inequalities. You have all spent the last few years reading, writing, discussing,

relationships you have built to imagine the world differently and help usher

teaching, and making your ways into important critical conversations and

in new, more beautiful and just worlds.

communities. Such work, we sincerely believe, will assist you as you leave SAIC and bring your diverse knowledge, skills, and imaginations to the work

The SAIC Art Education department of which you will soon be alums is

that lies ahead for our global communities.

committed to critical, creative, meaningful, and transformative education and therefore the development of critical, creative, meaningful, and

Education is never a process we encounter alone, so we acknowledge

transformative educators. The real challenges that art education faces

and thank the parents, partners, friends and family that have provided

such as privatization of public education, the impact of neoliberal policies,

innumerous kinds of support, kindness, and love during your time in graduate

systemic racism, poverty, sexism, white supremacy, homophobia,

school. We also acknowledge and thank our colleagues at SAIC - the faculty

transphobia and censorship has been ever-present in experiences,

and staff - who have provided guidance, feedback, and helping hands in and

discussions, and readings. And in this we saw new and urgent meanings as

outside of the classroom.

we encountered and continue to encounter the COVID-19 pandemic.

When you all started your graduate education, we were in the midst of any

Yet, encounter we must––courageously, imaginatively, creatively, and we

number of challenges to democratic norms. Over your time at SAIC, you have

think most importantly, kindly. And in that encounter we hope that we

witnessed an impeachment trial of a U.S. president, acts of white supremacist

are able, together, to reclaim, argue for, and articulate the importance of

terrorism, increased hate crimes against queer and trans people, especially

education, of ART education and the possibilities that the worlds we inhabit

trans women of color, and continued forms of economic inequalities. Many

can and should be different.

of these issues laid bare the continued challenges, we face in our classrooms and daily lives. They have provided us with material lessons that our work

Here, at the end of your time with us in the Department of Art Education,

matters and challenged our imaginations to find ways to act up and fight

we hope that you have been able to claim your education and that you will

back.

reflect on the time spent here to shape your futures as artist-educators.

Further, we imagine that you, very soon, will be guiding your own students,

The arts and education––as they happen in schools, museums, social centers,

in whatever contexts, to claim their educations within and through the arts.

prisons, universities, and the streets––have provided us with spaces and

This claiming practice is one in which you and your students see themselves,

ways to not only imagine the worlds we want to see, but also make demands

yourselves, in the curriculum, the art works, and the pedagogy, especially

ones that have erased and excluded so many. To have claimed an education, to continue to claim an education helps us in the long pursuit of justice and demands that we imagine possibilities beyond, but with attention to our present circumstances.

THANK YOU

to the students, staff and faculty of SAIC Department of Art Education

Through the work you have done here at SAIC and the work you have done beyond your thesis in your educational and artistic lives, let us continue to engage this necessary work with imagination, ethical integrity, political astuteness, aesthetic sensibilities, and perhaps a touch of humor and a dash of kindness. We sincerely thank you for your presence as students AND the opportunity to learn from and with you these past years. We very much look

Thanks to Professor Drea Howenstein as she retires after 26 years of innovative, compassionate and dedicated service as an artist professor at SAIC. We had planned to celebrate her contributions at the 2020 Art Education Symposium.

Drea, we hope to see you there next year!

forward to hearing about your work in the future.

But before then, a huge congratulations to you on your accomplishments.

Olivia Gude Chair of Art Education Adam Greteman Director of Master of Arts in Teaching Sarah Ross Director of Master of Arts in Art Education

FULL-TIME FACULTY

Steven Ciampaglia Adam Greteman Olivia Gude Andres L. Hernandez Drea Howenstein Nicole Marroquin John Ploof Sarah Ross

STAFF

Kathleen Mary McGrath Senior Administrative Director Kristi Moynihan Administrative Assistant Valerie Vasquez Licensure Specialist PROGR AM DESIGN BY : Nika Gorini

ADJUNCT AND PART-TIME FACULTY

Cheryl Boone Salome Chasnoff Cheryl L. Gold Rebecca Keller Niema Qureshi Lavie Raven Laura Sapelly Madilyn Strentz Christine Marme Thompson

AFFILIATED FULL-TIME FACULTY Linda Keane

DEPARTMENT OF ART EDUCATION 37 South Wabash, Suite 713 Chicago, Illinois 60603 arted@saic.edu