Connect & Collaborate - Emerging Trends in Art Education

Our 80th Annual Art Education Conference is dedicated to timely topics that fuel best practices in art education through hands-on workshop sessions and speakers. Topics will include STEAM, Art & Literacy, Technology, Advocacy and more…offering art educators a chance to connect, share and collaborate.  In the spirit of “keeping it local” this conference will feature many speakers from our own Kutztown University Art Education Community and highlight how the sharing of ideas can lead to great change.

Keynote Speaker:  Dr. Marilyn Stewart

Keynote - Alumni Auditorium
Where the Road Meets the Rubber: Reflections on Art Education in Practice at KU and Beyond

Emerita Professor Dr. Marilyn Stewart will share her perspective on art education at Kutztown University, noting some of the ideas and practices that have cycled through the past several decades and have found their way into art education settings at home and beyond. Looking forward, Dr. Stewart will comment on contemporary art education ideas and practices that appear to hold promise for our future.

Marilyn Stewart retired in May 2017 as Professor of Art Education and Co-coordinator of Graduate Programs in Art Education at Kutztown University, where she was the 2016 recipient of the University’s Arthur and Isabel Wiesenberger Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Stewart is senior author of Explorations in Art grades 1-6, and co-author, with Eldon Katter, of the Explorations in Art middle school series, co-author of Rethinking Curriculum in Art, author of Thinking Through Aesthetics, and Editor of the Art Education in Practice series, all published by Davis Publications. She is a frequent keynote speaker and consultant in national curriculum projects, including her recent work as Director of The Dinner Party Curriculum Project and Coordinator of the Educator Guides Project for the PBS series, Craft in America.  A member of the Writing Team for the National Visual Arts Standards and the Model Cornerstone Assessments, she has conducted over 200 extended institutes, seminars, or in-service days in over 35 states.  A Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association, Marilyn was named by the NAEA as the 2011 National Art Educator of the Year.

Super Session
Lisa J. Lucas
Practicing Presence: Creating a Culture of Wellness & Collaboration

This experiential session will utilize evidence-based research to explore how a well-trained mind can support a culture of engaged students and educators. Key to engagement is the recognition of the importance of self-care. If we want a culture of wellness, it is essential to cultivate our own healthy habits and routines so that we can connect more authentically with our students, collaborate more mindfully with our colleagues, and manage our stress more effectively so that teaching and learning is fulfilling and joyful. Want less stress and more ease? Practice Presence!

Dr. Lisa J. Lucas has decades of experience in education, as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator, consultant and is currently a Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She has experience in public, private, parochial, and pre-school settings. In her current role as a teacher educator she has developed practical self-care and stress reduction strategies for educators that integrate mindfulness and social-emotional learning. Dr. Lucas is the author of Practicing Presence: Simple Self-Care Strategies for Teachers published by Stenhouse Publishers. She works with educators to explore how to elevate engagement in the workplace by establishing habits and routines to cultivate attention, self-awareness and emotion regulation. For more information about Lisa see: www.practicingpresence.life

Workshop
Liz Hamilton Quay
[Transfer]mation 

In this hands-on workshop, we will transform uninspired cloth into a one-of-a-kind, collaborative piece of art!  Learn how to take your designs from paper to fabric through a variety of image transfer techniques.  Working as a group, your individual creations will be integrated to make a unified surface design on cloth.  

Workshop
Kris Tuerk
Visual Literacy and the Accordion Book Room

Visual Literacy encourages connections through integrated approaches of teaching in all content areas.  Art and Nature Observational skills provide meaningful and purposeful strategies for teaching design thinking, color theories, reflection and how to implement our natural surroundings to illustrate our world.  Visual Literacy arises from our ability to see things from many different angles. In this double session, you will be creating your own accordion book and learning to refresh your skills of being an explorer in our natural world. Join us to practice the power of observation. Take time and come to a place with the creativity that comes from allowing the soul to blossom in its own colors and shapes. The deeper you go to find your true self, the more poetic your language and ideas become.
Come. And. Play.

Workshop
Delaney DeMott
Community Natural Dye Workshop

This natural dye workshop focuses on the upcycling/renewal of old clothing through naturally derived dye stuff. There will be a focus on the communal history of natural dye in this area and the use of natural dye as an alternative to environmentally harmful synthetic dyes. The workshop will encourage advocacy for the environment by keeping used clothing out of landfills, teaching alternative dye techniques using native plants and highlighting the histories of handcraft in our community.

Workshop
Professor George Graf
Collaborative Design - Working From Models

This workshop explores teamwork and finding each participant’s greatest value in a group production situation through the design and building of a wooden sculpture.  After viewing examples, each person will create their own model using popsicle sticks and hot glue. The participants will be divided into smaller groups and each group will select one model to build on a larger scale.

The participants will have group discussions about design concepts, construction methods, best practices, and safety. Participating in this workshop will involve the use of power tools and hand tools. All the materials are included. Bring your cameras to record the final examples in the event that you may want to try this project in the classroom. 

Session
Amy Migliore
The Learning Portfolio: Utilizing the Power of Digital Presentation Spaces to Foster Student Success

This session will surround the National Core Arts standards, highlighting the potential of involving students in the standard of Presentation. How can secondary students become partners in developing a personalized learning portfolio that shows their growth and emerging artistic self? What are the benefits of collecting and/or presenting evidence of both formative efforts and summative results? Using Practice-based research about learning in the arts, and developing creative selves, the workshop leader will facilitate a collective discussion about presentation and possibilities for involving students in the process of creating a digital portfolio. Attendees will be encouraged to share their experiments and successful attempts in this area as part of the collaborative focus of the workshop.

Session
I Found my Muse on eBay.
Kevin McCloskey

Antique prints inspire Kevin McCloskey's illustrated natural history books for children. The NY Times called his books "stylish comics-inflected early readers" and "a winning combination of facts and gross-out fun." He is at work on his fifth book with editor and art director Françoise Mouly of TOON Books.

Session
Concept & Inquiry-Based Learning 
Benjamin Hoffman

With an interest in concept-based learning, students are being exposed to material that is focused on large, transferable ideas that transcend time and place. With inquiry-based learning, students may explore topics that are not directly covered in class and develop inquiries for themselves. Participants will develop an inquiry-based lesson, research a desired topic, present what they’ve learned, and reflect on the process (all skills that encompass an inquiry-based lesson).

Session
STEAM – Bringing STEAM to Life
Andrea Usner

This session will focus on the emerging trend of the integration of STEM into the elementary/middle school art classroom. Classroom STEAM: The Integration Foundation Model (Investigate, Discover, Connect, Create, Reflect) created by Susan Riley will be explored. Participants will investigate various ideas about ways in which to bring STEAM to life in their classroom. There will be will an opportunity to take part in hands-on activities while gaining a deeper understanding of how art making is problem- solving and high-level thinking.

Session
Eliseo Rivera
Framing Bodies: Identity and Surveillance in the Age of Hypervisibility

What is the difference between public and private identity? How does hypervisibility in the age of social media influence our private life? How can photography help frame our own narratives? How do we use photography to generate inclusiveness, empowerment and empathy? This workshop will be a presentation and discussion on an in-progress lesson Mr. Rivera will have with his middle school photography students. The lesson is focused on the forms in which surveillance has allowed people to be identified, classified, and dispossessed through the past and present with the progression of technology (i.e. data collecting, social media). The lesson then moves on to explore how in the history of photography, the camera (sometimes through the very same method of surveillance) has been used as a tool for reframing the body— forming personal identity and building empathy for marginalized people. Students will then practice ways to address these issues by experimenting with technology and the camera to create works that engage with personal identity as well as generate empathy, inclusion, and empowerment for marginalized people.

Session
Celebrating “Happy Mistakes” in the High School Art Room
Barbara Resto

Unless you are teaching in a bubble, as an art educator you have most likely been frustrated with those students who don’t think they can, so they don’t even try. In this session, you will learn techniques on how to provide a safe environment that celebrates making those happy mistakes and how to create a space where students can fail in order to succeed.

Session
New approaches to Public Art Here and Now
Beth Krumholz

At the center of the concept of Creative Placemaking is observing, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work, and play in a particular space in order to understand their needs and aspirations for that space and for their community as a whole. With this knowledge, we can come together to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale “Lighter Quicker Cheaper” improvements that bring immediate benefits both to the spaces themselves and the people who use them.

Session
Working Collaboratively with the Special Education Teacher and Paraprofessional in the Art Classroom
Karen Rosenburg
Wendy Finchen

This session is for new and preservice teachers, and anyone else who is interested in learning successful strategies on how to work with special education teachers and paraprofessionals to benefit the special needs student in their classrooms.