<p>Visual art teachers, from beginning to veteran, often report experiencing feelings of professional isolation and a desire for content-specific support and collaborative professional learning experiences. Mentoring and Induction Programs (IPs) offered by schools and districts continue to fall short of meeting the needs of beginning visual art teachers in particular. There are a large number of visual art teachers in the state of California, especially in Los Angeles County, yet there are no visual art specific support networks for beginning visual art teachers to help them navigate their first years teaching. Collaborative learning groups, such as communities of practice (CoP), may offer visual art teachers opportunities to learn together and support one another in shared learning, yet none have been formally documented in Los Angeles County as a means of supporting novice art educators. The Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA has established a community of practice called the Teacher Induction Program (TIP) to support beginning science teachers with content-specific pedagogy during their first two years of teaching. Using the TIP as a framework, a visual art professional growth support community was outlined for this study based on the needs and concerns of visual art teachers reported throughout the literature. Beginning visual art teachers in Los Angeles County were interviewed to help the researcher better understand their existing and desired supports, as well as their individual needs and concerns as new teachers. The visual art CoP was proposed to them to elicit feedback about its anticipated values (immediate, potential, applied) based on their lived experiences as first or second year PK-12 public school visual art teachers in Los Angeles County.

<p> Practitioners have agreed that service-learning programs or curricula guide students into developing a more robust connection to the community in which they live as well as amongst other members of that community (Eyler, Giles, Stenson, &amp; Gray, 2001). However, what isn&rsquo;t known extensively is <i>how</i> these outcomes have been generated (Kiely, 2005a). Based upon Milne&rsquo;s (2000) <i>reflective artmaking</i>, this arts-based ethnographic study introduces the terminology <i>reflective artmaking service-learning</i>, demonstrating how the coupled learning processes of reflective artmaking and service-learning respond to the call for research. The Capacities for Imaginative Learning (Holzer, 2009) facilitated my ethnographic analysis, providing specificity towards deconstructing the underlying mechanisms of processing and filtering. Conducted in Texas among Christian homeschool students, this study inquires, how does reflective artmaking coupled with service-learning help to make the underlying concept of &ldquo;community&rdquo; visible? This ethnographic study focuses on the educative (Dewey, 1938) value of an arts-infused program with Christian homeschooled youth (ages 11-17) in Texas. Significant findings include the ways in which experiential learning based on a constructivist epistemology and a focus on the self was a suitable, but yet limiting, theoretical framework. Suggestions include ways to use reflective artmaking coupled with service-learning to enhance the authenticity and applicability of projects and thus to enhance student interest and ownership. This study provides a broad set practitioners in educational programs and public, private, and home schools with practical, innovative, substantive, and customizable methods of incorporating arts-based reflection on civic engagement within their teaching practices.</p><p>

<p> The topic of this study examines how the art classroom can be a site to facilitate agency amongst high school students. The research questions for this study are: (a) How will implementing a unit of instruction based in youth participatory action research (YPAR), critical pedagogy, visual culture, and art activism facilitate a change in students&rsquo; attitudes towards their own agency to impact change? (b) How will implementing a unit of instruction based in youth participatory action research (YPAR), critical pedagogy, visual culture, and art activism promote agency within students to think of art as a tool to affect change within their communities? This study uses critical pedagogy to situate students&rsquo; concerns and lived experiences as a starting point. Through a visual culture arts education (VCAE) approach, I developed a discussion about students&rsquo; ability to critically examine how their visual experience produces belief systems that perpetuate social inequities. Lastly, this research utilizes Socially Engaged Art (SEA) to theorize art&rsquo;s ability to build awareness and propose solutions to social concerns. I conducted this study as a Youth Based Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project in which students are active participants within the research, design, and implementation of the study.</p><p>

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

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Color is with us everywhere, all the time. It is an integral part of our existence. Sensitivity to color and awareness of color's physical and psychological qualities is undeveloped in the normal, average human being. What can be done about this? Where can it be done? The answers to these two questions form the basis for this thesis. Color awareness as part of visual education and environmental sensitivity can be taught and should be taught in every educational institution. The key to BUCcessful instruction is informed, knowledgeable, color sensitive teachers and the exposure of students to workable color systems. Color instruction can be approached from many directions; an observation and study of nature, a research of man's uses of color, past and present, and the examination of the scientific aspects of color to name a few. All are expressed in some kind of color systems. Whether the systems are identified to the students is of less importance than the instructors having a good understanding of these systems to help guide the students to more complete color awareness. Research for this thesis consisted of an examination of available material on color in the Portland area. In addition a questionnaire was given to all teachers at the elementary level and to teachers of Art, Science and Home Economics at the junior high and senior high level in a test school district to determine the color curriculum, at what grade levels color was introduced and the methods of introducing color. Also a color quiz was given to first year art students in one of the three high schools in the district to determine the amount of color knowledge or information retained from previous schooling. All instructional material in the same district was examined and evaluated. The results from the questionnaire and the quiz indicated a lack of color awareness by the elementary teachers and, consequently, the students in first year art classes. This was felt to be in part due to the minimal Oregon state requirements in Art for elementary teachers, which therefore would result in inadequately trained teachers. The lack of acknowledgement of the importance of color awareness by faculty and administration were also prevailing influences. This thesis is being written in the hope of enlightening teachers on the importance and necessity of color awareness and sensitivity at all grade levels.

The author explores the benefits of making arts experiences and instruction a regular part of the elementary classroom routine and suggests ways to incorporate them. She investigates the connection between the arts and learning, to see how the arts enhance education. Through selected literature, government leaders, business people and educators speak out on behalf of the need for the arts in education. The author offers a variety of ideas and resources that the classroom teacher can use to become more arts minded in her lesson planning.

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