ArtReach at a Glance
Sept.2015.V2
September Showcase
The ArtReach student interns spent significant time this summer developing and reflecting on arts integration in practice. The student interns will share their work with university faculty, WUSD faculty, and their peers on Saturday, October 17, 2015. Check out October newsletter and the ArtReach website for more information. Preview their wonderful work below:
Amber Barreras
Over the summer, I had the amazing opportunity to work on and explore the idea of helping students make connections to the art classroom through video games. I did extensive research and created a resource website dedicated to helping educators understand why video games can be important to students and the art classroom. The website includes: how the culture of video games can translate into the art classroom, video game console history, video game art history, how video games can relate to real world art, how to talk about video games in the classroom as an academic study, video resources, lesson plans based around video games, plus articles and resources from other authors who have looked into video games working efficiently in the classroom. I plan to keep this site continually active and growing with additional content.
As a future educator, I created this website with the hope that it can inspire other educators to use relevant culture (such as video games) to create a interactive and inspiring learning environment for students.
Conor O'Malley
I'm an undergraduate student studying Elementary Education. One topic that interests me is teacher education, particularly the transition from the role of being a student for over a decade to becoming a teacher. Through the internship, I wanted a chance to help bring awareness to the practices that pre-service teachers might not even realize they're performing. I created a blog populated with articles that I've heard discussed by the innovative circles within education. By writing about topics revolving around pedagogy, I believe that I provide another avenue for pre-service teachers to explore these ideas, with one advantage being that this blog was created by a peer. I wanted to provide a means of arriving at the forefront of educational considerations and navigating the shifting landscapes we all experience today, both for myself and others.
Katie Chipman
Teachers are often required to create an art project with little or no materials. This summer, I explored different ways students, ages 5-12 years old, could produce masterpieces while on a budget. Many of the art projects are simple, cheap, and used
recycled materials . Throughout the summer, students exploring different art
mediums, styles, and tested their problem solving skills by finding out how materials work together. At the end of the summer, I created a booklet of the different project examples, and how they were created. The projects are adaptable for different ages and abilities. These one paged lesson plans will hopefully give teachers and students the tools and ideas to create art projects with recycled and cheap materials anytime, anywhere.Annie Dudgeon
Art Metals education allows students the opportunity to experience one of the world’s most treasured and respectable art forms. What began as a utilitarian art of industry evolved into a magical and stimulating media that challenges the artist both physically and mentally. It teaches the brain to slow down and think, something that students often struggle with. It encourages planning and problem solving, experimentation, motivation to take on challenges, work ethic to build and create, and perseverance to continue when obstacles present themselves.
While it is a beautiful form of art, it can also be a dangerous one if safety is not taken into consideration. Artists use tools and chemicals, which if not handled properly, can be detrimental to their safety and their health.
The typical art teacher does not begin their career as an art skill expert. We are generally given an overview of most of the media we may teach in the classroom without being trained as a master in any given area. We are often “flying by the seat of our pants” teaching students while still learning the material and techniques for ourselves. Lacking sufficient knowledge can create a dangerous situation in a metals classroom environment. It puts the safety and health of our students at risk.
Professor and Metalsmith, Teresa Faris and I set out to develop a tool that would be useful to art teachers to use to create, recreate, or maintain a metals studio for students that is safe, non-toxic, and stimulating. It contains resources, suppliers, and product information available within arm’s reach. It outlines which tools should be included for students and how they are used. It also includes two more advanced techniques, sinking metal with a tree stump, and salt water etching, to encourage teachers to promote a higher level of skill and creativity in their classroom that will comfortably transition into a university level metals curriculum.
The ArtReach Team
Leadership Activity
Kristin Goble
Edric Johnson
Mark Schroeder
Nicole Trackman
Faculty Fellows
Shari Van Alstine
Susan Chandler
Teresa Faris
Elizabeth King
Wade Tillett
Student Interns
Amber Barreras
Kathleen Chipman
Annie Dudgeon
Conor O’Malley
Whitewater Unified School District Participants
Joshua Barret
Sara Brautigam
Liz Elliot
Mareta Hale
Christine Hayes
Stacy Johnson
Stacey Joseph
Chelsea Kuhlow
Abi Pulvermacher
Joan Schlough
Karen Tordera
Valerie Troxel