Art Education
Art Education Faculty
David Modler, MFA 鈥� 听dmodler@shepherd.edu
Professor of Art, Coordinator of Art Education
Enjoying an excellent reputation nationally, the Teacher Education Program is designed to lead to K鈥�12 teaching certification. The coursework offered through the Department of Education presents students with multiple opportunities to work in and observe K鈥�12 grade school settings.
Art Education Curriculum and Sequencing
More information about the can be in the 黑料吃瓜网University Catalog.听
The program supports the theme of 鈥淭eacher as a Reflective Problem Solver.鈥� Consistent with this theme, courses in art, art education, and professional education are sequenced to enable students to critically examine, interpret, and evaluate their own educational behaviors as preparation for a career in art education. As well, the program prepares students to research, plan for, and implement a curriculum that meets the standards indicated by the 21st Century Visual Arts Standards and Objectives for West Virginia Schools.听
The main purposes of the Art Education Program are to prepare future art educators for successful art instruction in the public school system, and as artist/scholars for future graduate studies.
As its name suggests, art education is a hybrid discipline, bridging the fields of visual art and education. As such, art education majors receive significant training from two departments. The function of the Art Education Program is to meaningfully connect these two arenas of inquiry so as to enable students to synthesize knowledge that will serve them as effective art makers, art researchers, and art educators.
Art education courses introduce majors to the historical and philosophical foundations, as well as to the methodologies of art education. In keeping with the Department of Art鈥檚 emphasis on contemporary practice, the Art Education Program emphasizes recent research and scholarship in the field, as practiced by today鈥檚 in-service art educators. Rather than adhering to any one educational philosophy, the art education program seeks to expose students to a diverse array of contemporary educational practices (including Discipline-Based Art Education, Community-Based Art Education, Choice-based Art Education, Critical Pedagogy and Visual Culture), so that individual students may draw the best from each as they begin to locate a unique voice as teachers.
Concurrently, in keeping with the Department of Education鈥檚 theme of 鈥淭eacher as a Reflective Problem Solver,鈥� the art education program is devoted to developing a community of original and critical thinkers. The intimate size of the program, with its seminar-sized discussion classes in its own permanent space, aims to foster such an intellectually and creatively stimulating community.