Abstract:

Moving to remote learning has caused insurmountable challenges for visual art education.

What does it take to maintain a creative community online via Zoom? What do making assignments look like in the time of month-long lock-downs, when kitchen tables and unmade beds in the home are the only kind of studio spaces available to students? What commonly available household equipment and materials can be used for art making? How to transfer making skills when interactions are limited to those via screens? How do we critique and present work when we cannot be physically together with it? What can be offered as an intellectually stimulating, emotionally rewarding, and a socially connected experience during a virtual art class, especially during the transformative and critical time of senior year?

Most importantly, what can be gained both for the praxis of art and for the practice of teaching and learning from our current situation? Are there benefits, good practices, positive examples?

This presentation will discuss experiences from teaching a variety of different senior level interdisciplinary studio art classes at the University of Washington. We will compare the regular face-to-face curriculum with the remote learning one, and see which types of assignments and learning tools worked best for improving student engagement and learning. We will discuss viable virtual alternatives to the gallery exhibition, as well as examples of assignments that focus on the art making process and on self-reflection, and does not prioritize the finished artwork. We will see that the benefit of working through remote learning can be a form of education that is better tailored to the individual student's needs, that students can be made more accountable for their own progress, and for moving each other and the whole class forward.

Keywords:

Art education, face-to-face learning, Remote Learning, Digital Technologies, Zoom, Lockdown, Student Engagement, Curriculum, assessment, Inclusion, Equity.