Ali Blake

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

In the work of becoming and being an educator, it is necessary and important to comprehend the evolving ways human development is understood, engaged, and implicated in the teaching of children, adolescents and adults. Humans are, to put it simply, different. And it is these differences that present opportunities and challenges in teaching and learning. This course offers an interdisciplinary investigation into evolving conceptions of human development, including, but not limited to, psychological, legal, historical, and sociological frameworks. Additionally, students will explore the histories of childhood as they impact and have impacted the material culture of schools and school design.

Investigating evolving conceptions of human development will provide teacher candidates with interdisciplinary perspectives to build their own understanding of students as subjects in formation. This includes gaining theoretical, historical, and pedagogical knowledge on a range of developmental issues in education. Readings include works by John Dewey, W.E.B. DuBois, Tom Shakespeare, Cris Mayo, Deborah Britzman, Stephen Vassallo, Alexandra Lange, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Maria Montessori as well as overviews of Disability, Race Conscious, and Queer Theories in education.

Course work includes an essay questioning & responding to human development, an analysis of childhood development as illustrated in children's literature, an interpretation of adolescence as represented through short films, along with a midterm and final project documenting the work of learning throughout the semester.

The Apprentice Teaching course continues learning experiences begun during practicum placements in the fall semester. This course provides licensure candidates with experience investigating significant, contemporary concepts and themes within a contemporary art and design context in elementary and secondary Chicago-area schools. Apprentice teachers will complete a 7-week elementary/middle school placement and a 7-week high school placement as well as attend a weekly apprentice teaching seminar at SAIC. Apprentice Teachers will be challenged to maintain high ideals of creative, critical, and relevant curriculum as they engage the complex realities of public school teaching.

Students will read a selection of texts that ground curricular theory within teaching practice. This will assist them in learning how to translate their curriculum development knowledge into pedagogy.

Apprentice teachers will plan, teach, assess their students¿ work, and evaluate the effectiveness of their lessons and teaching strategies. Apprentice Teachers will teach a culminating curriculum project, video-record their instruction of this project, and submit these videos along with written analysis to the nationally standardized, Illinois State Board of Education-mandated edTPA assessment.

This course explores current issues in museum education and audience engagement with an emphasis on implications for practice. Students will engage with concepts such as partnerships, accessibility, youth engagement, community outreach, public programming, and more. Students will also explore museum practice as it is shaped by legacies of colonialism, systemic racism, misogyny, and other forms of exclusion, in addition to addressing urgent questions about museums in the COVID era and beyond. Students will directly engage with museums in Chicago and elsewhere both remotely and in person (where safe and appropriate), and will regularly interact with practicing museum professionals, primarily at the Art Institute of Chicago. Discussions and projects will be supplemented and inspired by readings and other media, as well as museum visits and conversations with guest presenters. This course is based upon the premise that public cultural institutions must be seen as important sites for life-long and at-will learning (entertainment and pleasure). Along with libraries, public museums are one of our nation?s few institutions that offer all citizens access to essential opportunities and resources.

This seminar examines and analyzes the American art museum as a teaching institution based on observation, analysis, and critique of current museum education practices. Themes explored include audience analysis, evaluation methods, and the use of media, exhibition concept and design, and teaching methods. Efforts by museums to reach out to various communities, collaborations between museums and other institutions, and the way artists interact with and comment upon museums are also examined. Participants gain a detailed understanding of museum education practices in contemporary art museums.