This course is taken in the first summer residency. Students solve studio-based problems and initiate investigations related to contemporary theory and practice in the field of art education; examine application of strategies to their classroom settings; and, reflect on connections to the questions shaping their classroom research study.

This seminar introduces students to contemporary issues in the visual arts with an emphasis on the transition from modernist to post-modernist approaches to art practice. Students attend each of the presentations in MICA’s invited-artist lecture series and make connections to their own studio practice and art teaching practice.

Drawing on qualitative inquiry methods, as well as approaches to art-making and teaching explored in the MAAE, students engage in reflective teacher practice in designing a plan for careful examination of their teaching.

Supported by online discussions, and using qualitative inquiry methods, students implement their plans for careful examination of their teaching by documenting and analyzing their teaching practice.

Supported by online discussions, and using documentation of their teaching practices from the prior semester, students use methods of qualitative analysis to reflect on their teaching practice in relation to the field of art education.

Based on the study conducted over the course of the year, students write an article for publication in a peer-juried art education journal. Selected readings from the article are presented before the faculty, peers, and first-year students.

In this online seminar, students examine contemporary literature in art education and look closely for ways this scholarship relates to their current classroom practices.

Students examine how the purposes of art education were represented in the early to later parts of the twentieth century. Students look closely for connections between earlier theoretical contexts and their own research studies.

Over Martin Luther King weekend, students return to MICA’s campus to share documentation and analysis of their teaching practice as implemented in the fall semester. Students receive feedback from faculty and guest scholars in preparation for continued development in the spring.

Students meet with their online studio instructor and peers to examine their in-process digital portfolios developed during the fall semester to discuss ways to further develop emerging visual themes.

In this professional development seminar, art education faculty guide students in identifying next- steps in their professional careers. Studio artists and artist-educators with national and regional reputations are invited to make presentations to the class on strategies that have successfully served their own career development.

In the second summer, this seminar deepens consideration of contemporary art practice and its potential to validate, inform, and engage today’s students. The artist lecture series enriches the conversation in which students are encouraged to make connections with their own studio practice and their teaching.

Through group meetings and individual conferences, students develop a formal presentation synthesizing new learning from studio investigations, strategies for making and teaching art, and conducting a classroom study. The thesis presentation is the culminating event in the program.