The largest gathering of visual arts, design, and media arts educators in the world—the National Art Education Association (NAEA) National Convention—is happening this year both in person in New York City and virtually, March 3–5, 2022. UT Austin Art Education faculty presented at the preconvention early February and will be presenting at the conference itself in March. The NAEA 2022 Research Preconvention is organized by the NAEA Research Commission, generously supported by the National Art Education Foundation and open to all.
Christina Bain, Donalyn Heise and Dawn Stienecker conducted two presentations on February 12, 2022. Their first presentation was titled "Teachers' experiences during a pandemic: Gathering a national portrait and individual sketches." This session reported results of three related research projects: a national research project designed to better understand art teachers experiences during a global pandemic, follow up interviews with a small group of US art teachers who provided in-depth narratives about their experiences, and a description of a month long online professional development workshop we offered to support local teachers during the pandemic.
The second presentation was titled "Moving beyond the day of the dead project in EDI art curriculum: Connecting teaching, art teacher preparation & research." This session described an action research project focusing on the development of EDI resources to meet the needs of Texas art teachers.
UT alumna and manager of School and Family Programs at the Nasher Sculpture Center Erin Frisch (MA in Art Education, 2021) presented during the pre-conference as well in two workshops. The first, titled, "Object, Self, and Community in the Work of Betye Saar" explored the transformation of a single object through the found object sculptures by Saar as a springboard for art-making and discussion; while the second, "Writing Verbal Descriptions for Vision-Impaired Learners" examined how can educators can create an experience that provides an entry point to works of art while activating multiple senses for vision-impaired learners.
To view additional pre-covention research presentations, see the NAEA conference site.
During the convention itself, held in New York from March 3–5, 2022; Heise and national speaker and seasoned special needs teacher Adrienne Hunter present the workshop, "Creating Together to Overcome Adversity Come" on Thursday, March 3rd from 2–3:50pm at Hilton/Rendezvous Trianon/3rd Floor. The workshop will encourage participants to create multimedia fiber art using a plethora of materials that will transition from an individual project into a collaboration while learning about trauma-informed principles, mindfulness, and resilience to support social and emotional learning.
Visual Arts Center gallery manager Clare Donnelly (MA in Art Education, 2017) and ST.ART Pre-College director Amelia Fleming (MA in Art Education, 2017) will present on the panel, "Moving from Me to We: A Showcase of Collaborative Research in Art Education" on March 3 at noon. Donnelly and Fleming are two alumnae who have collaborated since 2019 to produce a professional development series for K-12 educators at UT Austin, experiencing the joys and challenges of organizing multiple iterations of this program. During the panel, they will share some of the lessons they’ve learned along the way: how to acknowledge individual strengths and setbacks, how to share resources and the workload, how to lean on one’s communities and one another, and how to make sure to have fun along the way.
Art Education alumna Beth Link (MA, 2016) will lead a talk on March 4 titled, "Teaching Across Cultures: Reflecting on and Reimagining Multiculturalism in Elementary Art Education," discussing how art educators can responsibly teach about art from across the globe and deepened their critical multicultural teaching.