Teaching + Learning in Art + Design
Teaching + Learning in Art + Design (TLAD) offers graduate students a strong foundation in contemporary theory and practice in art and design education. Recognizing that access to high-quality visual art education is a matter of equity and social justice, TLAD students work across a broad spectrum of contexts to design and deliver transformative art and design learning experiences.
Degree programs
Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)
The intensive, one-year MAT program readies you to teach as an art educator within a K-12 setting, culminating in a recommendation for K-12 art teacher certification.
Master of Arts (MA) in Art + Design Education
Individualized to meet each student’s interests, the one-year MA in Art + Design Education prepares you to pursue careers in art and design education with museums, nonprofits and other organizations outside the traditional K-12 classroom.
In (and out of) the classroom
Our programs attract artists and designers who want to be agents of change in a variety of settings, including PK-12 schools, art museums and galleries, nonprofits, and community organizations. TLAD students take advantage of diverse learning opportunities at RISD and Brown University, and through community collaborations in Providence and across Rhode Island.
Featured stories
SPUR Grants Support Site-Specific Research
RISD students and recent alums are using funding from RISD Research to develop interdisciplinary projects with communities around the world.
Opening Doors for Young Artists
Project Open Door students are back on campus this summer, trying their hands at everything from textiles to toy design in long-running RISD program.
The Regenerative Earth Collective
A transdisciplinary, student-led initiative reimagines RISD’s relationship with the ecosystem that surrounds it.
After RISD, TLAD alumni go on to work as art educators and advocates in a broad range of contexts. Graduates from the MAT program teach art and design at PK-12 public, private and charter schools in the US and around the world. MA alumni hold leadership and education positions in museums, school districts and government agencies, and even start their own community-based art programs.
Alumni at work
Tom Flint MA 18 | filmmaker/educator
“The joy and thrill of working on a film project arises from the diverse mixture of ideas of the different artists involved,” says Tom Flint, who after graduating from RISD founded Filmbuilding, an educational program based in the Boston area. Designed to promote cross-cultural exchange and alternative forms of learning through co-creation, Filmbuilding runs workshops that continue to connect makers of all ages across the world, and has developed partnerships with several schools and arts organizations. “Within the context of education, the collaborative aspects of filmmaking are perhaps its most valuable attributes,” says Flint, who has widened Filmbuilding’s initial focus to explore how discovery-based filmmaking can address socio-cultural divisions in the US.
Tamara Kaplan MA/MAT 00 | arts leader
Tamara Kaplan built on her BFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University by turning to arts education, simultaneously pursuing double master's degrees in teaching at RISD. In 2000 she began working with Providence's New Urban Arts (NUA), a nonprofit organization that offers a safe environment for low-income high school students to make art and develop caring relationships with adult mentors. In 2013 she earned the RISD Alumni Association's Art and Education Award for her groundbreaking work at NUA.
Mudita Pasari MA 17 | educational design strategist
After graduating from RISD, Mudita Pasari returned to her native India, where she embraces a multi-hyphenate, socially engaged role in education and design. As associate dean of academics at the New Delhi-based school The Design Village, she helps advance a learning model centered on independent inquiry. At the same time, Pasari maintains an independent studio focused on biodiversity, and is a co-founder of The Emergency Design Council, a collective of RISD alumni whose mission is to solve urgent problems through design interventions.
