Open Art Histories: Reimagining How We Teach Visual and Material Cultures

Presenters: Alena Buis, Johanna Amos, Sarah E. K. Smith, Jen Kennedy, Elizabeth Cavaliere, Devon Smither

Open Art Histories (OAH) is a platform for art, art history, visual art, architecture, communication, and museum studies teachers and instructors in Canada. Our goal is to build a generative and supportive network for addressing the pressing pedagogical challenges confronting these fields, including globalizing art history, teaching English-as-an-additional-language students, decolonizing the discipline and classroom, and advancing accessibility and inclusion. This collaborative workshop explores how we might adapt our pedagogical practices to best represent a field in flux, one that is no longer bound by a single historical narrative or set of objects? What approaches or tools might we develop or adopt to make our increasingly dynamic field accessible to the increasingly diverse students in our classrooms? How can open access, online resources, and new technologies, which have dramatically transformed the way both text and object are encountered, shape course content and delivery, while providing dynamic, tangible, and sustainable outcomes for students? Participants will consider the challenges in teaching visual and material culture both within the discipline of art history and beyond as a way to order and reimagine, reinvigorate, reinvent, and reshape the teaching of the discipline for our times.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this session, participants will be able to: identify the challenges in teaching visual and material cultures in the 21st century; make connections between the challenges and pedagogical tools (resources, programs, apps) currently available;
and, envision ethical and sustainable open educational practices in their own teaching and curriculum.

Creating a STEAM textbook as a learning tool

Presenter: Jennifer Swann

Creating textbook chapters is time-consuming and, in general, does not include the target audience. One solution is to have the students create the material assuring accessibility. This presentation describes a class in which undergraduate students worked together to create textbook chapters in behavioral neuroscience. During last summer the work became a STEAM project supported by the Mellon Foundation in which I collaborated with an art professor and student artists to illustrate the work. Students learned how to acquire, synthesize, and describe complex, abstract concepts in text and illustration. The professors learned how to bridge the gap between their disciplines.
Deliverables also included an art exhibition and a peer-refereed publication.

Learning Outcomes: How utilizing undergraduates in the creation of an open-access textbook benefits the students
How both artists and scientists benefit from working together.
How librarians can assist with the process.