Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CFA AR 597: Experience Design
  Students will study and design interactive experiences in physical space. Emphasis is on how user experince shapes design. Projects include designing usable, interactive environments across a range of scales from mobile devices to social networks to museum displays and finally full scale architectural spaces. Work will be generated and discussed in terms of: concept development, media production, prototyping and implementation.
• CFA AR 600: Contemporary Issues in Art Education (4 credits)
  With an arts-research approach, this course allows students to explore and respond to contemporary issues while developing their own craft and building a creative learning community. The course surveys the roots of contemporary art and pedagogy and the shift to postmodernism, including influential figures, theories, and trends and their impact on art education. A deep-dive investigation into masks as universal but complex, culturally-embedded phenomena provides students in the course with a unique lens. Students investigate the popularity of masks in global contemporary art and the roots of these masks that speak to culture, identity, privacy, and other issues of the moment. Responding to course content by creating art, students stretch and expand their knowledge of the mask form and use it as a tool to examine pressing issues in the contemporary art classroom. The in-depth focus enriches the background, ideas, and approaches teachers can bring to mask making, a valuable but often challenging project, but also use as a model. Through e-portfolio and online discussions, students create a community of learners. A culminating project, such as a unit plan or autoethnography, synthesizes traditional research methods with arts-research insights and tackles the complexities that arise in a multi-cultural curriculum, such as appropriation, transnationalism, and ahistoricism.
• CFA AR 601: Graduate Typography
  The ability to communicate graphically and typographically sits at the forefront a successful graphic design practice. Graduate typography presents an opportunity for advanced study of the relationship between form and language in order to develop a strong typographic acumen for print and screen. Students will build upon fundamental elements of typography to explore advanced practical and hypothetical applications. Projects rely on a mastery of traditional typographic methods as a basis to discover innovative typographic forms and concepts for print and screen. 4 credits. 3 contact hours per week. Fall or spring semester.
• CFA AR 610: The Inclusive Art Classroom (4 credits)
  This course will introduce the historical, legal, and educational facets of protected populations in the United States with a focus on art education. Discussed populations are those with needs that require individualized attention, awareness and considerations in an educational setting including students with physical, intellectual and cognitive special needs as well as other underrepresented student groups. The goal of this course is to introduce and explain characteristic behaviors, strengths and weaknesses of various disabilities and discuss strategies for differentiation of instruction, classroom management, and accommodations for the art classroom. Existing and emerging technologies and pedagogical methods will be discussed in order to make the artistic process accessible and meaningful to all students regardless of their emotional, intellectual, or physical capacities.
• CFA AR 620: Curriculum Planning (4 credits)
  This course offers the study of contemporary techniques for the implementation of goals and the use of essential questions when planning curricula and programs of education at all levels, such as PreK-8 and 5-12. The instruction includes consideration of enduring understandings and planning for knowledge transfer appropriate to students' stages of development, and community as well as individual needs. A substantial written curriculum document is submitted as a final requirement, at the completion of the course.
• CFA AR 621: Site-spec. Art
  This graduate level elective will be interdisciplinary and open to students in all majors, both in the Visual Arts program and all other schools in the university. The course aims to instruct students in the professional practice of making site-specific art commissions for public and private clients. The students will gain professional skills in the development of a site-specific work of art that will require the utilization of a variety of media, an interdisciplinary approach and team work. Students will also learn how to work and negotiate with prospective clients who wish to contract site-specific art for particular settings and architectural environments. Credit amount varies.
• CFA AR 630: Child Growth and Development in Art Education (4 credits)
  This course will examine the cognitive and artistic development of children, specifically focusing on the role of environment and culture in shaping the child and the layered integrations they form over time. Artists-teachers need carefully consider the nature of those who will learn, what is to be taught, and the values of the society in which education takes place. The course will offer opportunities to reflect on the various conceptions of a child that will guide educational practices from behavioral psychologists to artists and educators. The learners will engage in discussions, critical reading and writing, visual presentations, and qualitative inquiry to demonstrate their understanding of the psychological, cultural, and artistic development of children and adolescents. The theories of foundational developmental psychologists Piaget and Vygotsky will be considered as well as the theories of artistic development put forth by Lowenfeld, Burton, Golomb, Wilson, and others.
• CFA AR 636: Anatomy and Figure Drawing
  Drawing analysis of the human figure with emphasis on anatomical structure; study of the skeleton and muscle groups as they affect volume and surface definition. Drawing from the living model, prepared skeleton, and anatomical casts; as well as compositional work from memory. 4 cr
• CFA AR 638: Drawing Concepts
  Discussion of a broad range of drawing issues, including drawing from memory, and from secondary sources. Introduction of subjects explored in non-representational drawing traditions. Drawing process will be emphasized through a study of drawing media- such as water-based inks and paints, collage, and pastel- to address both aesthetic and technical concerns. 4 cr
• CFA AR 639: Figure Drawing
  The focus of this class will be to teach students to think and understand the principles of drawing as a visual language. Class will involve an in-depth study of the human figure. Students will make a series of drawings and sketches in a variety of mediums, including graphite, charcoal, conte, ink, etc. Students will study from a live model, and will use the human figure as a vehicle to better understand the fundamentals of organic form, proportion, and balance. 4 cr
• CFA AR 655: Elementary Methods of Art Education (3 credits; fall semester)
  Taken in the final year before a student's classroom teaching Practicum experience, this course provides an introduction to the methodologies of teaching art to children in grades pre K-8. In the course, students develop a personal philosophy of teaching and accompanying strategies that support children's learning in the visual arts. Topics of study include the artistic development of children in relation to cognitive, emotional, and social growth; approaches to studio pedagogy and general communication skills; and lesson planning that addresses national, state, and local curriculum standards. Students must pass components of a Gateway Assessment in CFA AR586: Child Growth and Development and CFA AR 559: Contemporary Issues in Art Education to begin their practicums. Students enroll concurrently the one-credit CFA AR656: Elementary Pre-practicum. This course meets with CFA AR 455; syllabi differ.
• CFA AR 656: Elementary Pre-Practicum (1 credit; fall semester)
  The elementary Pre-practicum course offers a supervised field-based experience in a PreK-8 visual art classroom setting in a public school, for a determined number of hours per week. Students develop abilities for an active engagement with students and practice elemental teaching skills. Students must pass components of Gateway I in CFA AR586: Child Growth and Development and CFA AR 559: Contemporary Issues in Art Education to begin their practicums. Students enroll concurrently the three-credit CFA A6655: Elementary Methods in Art Education.
• CFA AR 660: Secondary Methods of Art Education (3 credits; spring semester)
  This course is designed to prepare future educators to create and implement art curricula for students in grades 5-12, based on an understanding of the cognitive, sociocultural, and physical characteristics of diverse pre-adolescent and adolescent learners, and how those characteristics guide teaching and impact learning. By applying a knowledge of contemporary and historical practices, gained from readings, pre-practicum experiences, and discussions of theories and trends in teaching art, pre-service teachers develop their own philosophies and approaches. Course participants examine and content to the 5-12 state and national art standards and explore frameworks for integrating arts education with other content areas. A variety of media and concepts are introduced and explored and the participants engage in arts-based research, using their insights to design learning experiences that enhance critical and creative development. As a culmination, the students develop unit and lesson plans. Taken in the final year before a student's practicum experiences, students concurrently enroll in the 1-credit CFA AR 662: Secondary Pre-practicum. Students must pass components of a Gateway Assessment in CFA AR586: Child Growth and Development in Art Education and CFA AR 559: Contemporary Issues in Art Education to begin their practicums. This course meets with CFA AR 460; syllabi differ.
• CFA AR 662: Secondary Pre-Practicum (1 credit; spring semester)
  The Secondary Pre-practicum course offers supervised field-based experience in a 5-12 visual art classroom setting in a public school, for a determined number of hours per week. Students develop abilities for an active engagement with students and practice elemental teaching skills. Students must pass components of a Gateway Assessment in CFA AR586: Child Growth and Development and CFA AR 559: Contemporary Issues in Art Educationto begin their practicums. Students enroll concurrently the three-credit CFA AR660: Secondary Methods in Art Education.
• CFA AR 670: Advocacy & Policy in Arts Education (4 credits)
  This course introduces issues of policy and advocacy that are relevant to arts education practitioners. We explore the nexus between problems in arts education and the systems that influence schools, cultural organizations, and society. We identify and analyze policies that shape our own professional settings as well as the agencies and partners involved. We research stakeholders, socio-political contexts, resources, and strategies for improving arts education with culturally relevant advocacy. The course centers on drafting a policy proposal and advocacy plan that empowers artist-teachers to take stock of their own leadership skills and apply them to contemporary issues.
• CFA AR 680: Insightful and Creative Leadership in Arts Education (4 credits)
  This course is designed to acquaint and prepare in service art teachers with the basic skills and organizational strategies of leadership and management that are needed to serve within school systems and arts educational organizations. Our goal is to prepare in-service art teachers for insightful and strategic leadership within arts educational settings and to be effective agents of change along with being effective teachers and researchers. The course is grounded in theory as well as practice and brings together a community of art educators who will come together ' virtually' through collaborative exercises as well as will have opportunities to work with their own school leadership teams. This course will also bring in guest speakers, exemplary practitioners, researchers and policy makers from academia, public schools and school districts, charter schools and education management organizations, private and independent schools, business, and other organizations to share their experience, research, and insights about effective leadership practices.
• CFA AR 690: History of Art Education (4 credits)
  This course is intended to enrich art educators' understanding of the Western origins and on-going development of Visual Arts education in the United States, along with Invisible histories and Non-Western influences. It will acquaint students with the rich histories of their field through discussion, practical application, research and writing a historical paper. Beginning with the emergence of art education through an early apprenticeship model and progressing through the centuries to a post-modern understanding of what Visual Art Education means and is, grounds the content of this course.
• CFA AR 710: Comics
  
• CFA AR 747: Advanced Printmaking (Variable credit)
  This course offers intensive professional study in printmaking techniques to students who wish to focus on the print as they expand their personal visual statement, through workshop practice, critique and the refinement of critical thinking. Students may also add basic techniques to their vocabulary. Experimentation is encouraged while students develop technical skill and independent problem solving through print. In addition to demonstrations and hands-on guidance, the opportunity to combine printing applications and experimental media will be an option, as well as the opportunity to print at large scale. The class will be introduced to contemporary artists engaged in print practice through presentations, field trips to exhibitions and visiting artists.
• CFA AR 748: Advanced Printmaking
  Prereq: CFA AR 451, 452, or equivalent. Open to graduate students and qualified undergraduates with consent of instuctor. Printmaking workshop for intensive professional study of printmaking processes. Emphasis on development of individual methods and projects. 4 cr, each semester.

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