This course with its focus on curriculum development and pedagogical practices for students in grades 7-12 has been designed as the companion to TLAD-611G, where the focus is students in grades PK-6. In this manner, this pair of courses provides graduate students with an essential foundation to teaching the Visual Arts (art and design) from pre-K to 12th grade. This course explores the development of a conceptual framework for studio-based teaching and learning for students in grades 7-12 that aligns with the National Visual Arts Standards (NVAS). The course is guided by the belief all middle and high school students have creative capacity and that visual arts education plays an extraordinarily important role in its development. Further, the course places emphasis on instructional design that encourages curiosity, discovery, creativity and importantly personal point of view. Throughout the course, there is a focus on curriculum development and pedagogical strategies crafted to meet the cognitive and social development of learners as well as the personal interests of students while simultaneously introducing the work of a diverse range artists from historic to contemporary as models of practice. The course introduces an approach to pedagogy for art and design education that is informed by the graduate student's personal artistic practice combined with their understanding of the rich diversity of human visual expression. The course places special emphasis on the development of studio-based learning that centers on the intersecting domains of making and responding. In this way, curriculum and instruction is designed to deepen secondary students' (7-12) understanding of art and design as expression of enduring ideas. Graduate students examine these concepts through their own studio practice, critical readings, the development curriculum maps and lesson plans and through an integrated practicum experience that provides an authentic opportunity to implement instruction with high school students in the TLAD-Studio Lab.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA, MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

This course explores theories and practices of community-engaged pedagogy in art and design education, and the development of a conceptual framework for studio-based teaching and learning in community settings. The course introduces an approach to pedagogy that explores the complexities of community engagement to include social and political considerations of community-engaged practice; historical considerations for community partnerships; and pedagogies specifically designed for heterogeneous groups in a variety of community settings. Students examine these complexities through observations in community learning spaces, academic and public scholarship, reflection, and developing a community-engaged teaching philosophy. 

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

A field-based student teaching (clinical teaching) experience at the secondary level in a public school in Rhode Island or Massachusetts supervised by school-based clinical educators and faculty from RISD's Department of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design. A student teacher's performance during this six-week teaching assignment is assessed using the performance benchmarks of the Rhode Island Beginning Professional Teaching Standards (RIPTS).

Enrollment is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

The Department of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design requires MA candidates submit a capstone thesis in partial fulfillment of degree requirements. Candidates are given a degree of flexibility in determining the format for this work, but typically it takes the form of either a thesis monograph essay or a thesis book. The thesis monograph essay provides candidates with the opportunity to focus on a deep investigation of a single subject framed within the context of learning and through art and design. An essential characteristic of this approach to the thesis is in how it provides evidence of the candidate's ability to move beyond description to analysis and how they are able to place the subject of investigation within the realm of scholarship. The thesis book provides a candidate with the opportunity to make sense of their journey through their program in a more autobiographical and documentary manner. The thesis book format affords candidates the opportunity to explore how form can be exploited to visualize research. Whether presented as a thesis monograph essay or thesis book, this capstone requirement provides MA candidates with a formal opportunity to make public their understanding about a specific aspect of the nature of arts learning gained through their coursework, excursions into the scholarly literature and fieldwork experiences. The purpose here, therefore, is to conceive of the thesis not merely as an academic exercise but also contributing to program development as well as providing a reservoir of understandings that will inform the candidate's future professional practice as an educator.

Enrollment is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA Teaching + Learning in Art + Design