Teaching + Learning in Art + Design
Teaching + Learning in Art + Design (TLAD) offers graduate students a progressive and dynamic center of inquiry and practice that links academic study with community engagement beyond campus. In both of our degree programs, you work to develop new practices in art and design teaching from kindergarten to college and beyond.
Degree programs
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.
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. Through our programs you’ll discover diverse learning opportunities at RISD and Brown University, and through community collaborations in Providence and across Rhode Island.
Fall 2025 community partner: Steel Yardlings at The Steel Yard
Steel Yardlings is one of the many opportunities for community teaching offered as an extension of TLAD’s MA and MAT curriculum. The program is a collaboration between TLAD and The Steel Yard, a nonprofit industrial art center and shared studio space in Providence.
Basing lessons on Steel Yard class curricula, TLAD graduate assistants guide hands-on and immersive art experiences scaled for younger learners.
Since graduating from RISD, Britney Coppick has dedicated herself to fostering creativity and connection through art. After helping teens in public school classrooms develop powerful and unique artistic fingerprints, she joined the Worcester Art Museum as its studio youth programs supervisor, where she cultivates meaningful art experiences work in dialogue with the museum’s collection. Deeply passionate about serving diverse communities, Coppick believes that, by championing community voices, art can act as a transformative experience for all people.
After earning his MAT from RISD, Tom D’Amore began teaching high-school photography classes in the Providence area, and by his second year redesigned his school’s curriculum to offer more opportunities in digital art. Through his efforts, emerging artists enjoy greater access to digital tools, as well as opportunities to learn portfolio development, website construction and business fundamentals. As he makes strides in the early stages of his career, D’Amore thrills at the chance to teach art making—the thing he loves doing most.
For Melita Morales, centering the arts in education makes possible the embodied learning that inspires students to acquire knowledge. Following 15 years of K-12 art teaching, Morales completed a doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Boston College, focusing on how transdisciplinary education can bolster how we understand the world. As an assistant professor at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Morales is advancing her research in the political education field, working with students of all ages who want to create a more humane and humanizing world.
Featured stories
Creative practitioners in a wide range of disciplines are invited to experiment with the notion of teaching as creative practice.
Dozens gathered at Woods-Gerry Gallery in June to commemorate two decades of POD and its commitment to supporting access to art education.
Four incoming first-year students discuss the enormous impact that POD has had on their lives.