Best Pieces of Academic Work

"We Still Can"

I feel very strongly about being an effective art teacher and honing my academic profession and pedagogy as I am a teacher before an artist, versus an artist who is a teacher. However, I have found passion in sculpture and relief printmaking and would like to share the three pieces I am most proud of to date. My best academic work, lesson wise is attached in the box.com to the right with the coordinating label.

In my professional work I am focusing on the strength and development of my own personally sound and effective grasp art pedagogy, while simultaneously working very hard to become a "Jill of all Trades" in the art field by familiarizing myself with as many different mediums and techniques as I possibly can. All of these things will help develop my skills as an educator--I must have the content knowledge, not only of art, but how to effectively teach. I believe that through my interaction, instruction and observation during my field experiences I have determined that in a project based classroom (such as art) the enthusiasm and base knowledge of the project techniques absolutely drives the motivation of students for that project. I know that personally I will be more enthusiastic about printmaking and any three-dimensional project, however I have built the skill set and feel prepared to effectively teach within mediums that are outside of my "favored" zone.

I think one of the most important things I've decided about myself as an art educator is that I do not like the idea of teaching projects. I want to design a content rich curriculum full of important objectives which are presented in an easily understandable order that help a student grasp the importance and depth of art as a content area through understanding and appreciation. I want to teach them to see, not just look at art--and I believe that my enthusiasm for achieving this goal in teaching will step in when we are working in a medium that is not my personal favorite...as that really doesn't matter in an academic setting. What is important is the students are provided with a broad and content rich environment so they are exposed to many experiences so they may choose their own favorite while appreciating all mediums.

"Fahrt"
(A Journey in Deutsche)
8 layer reduction relief print

"A New Chapter"
(Anagama fired clay sculpture)