THE ROLE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN MY TEACHING 2

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Jill Withrow Baker Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved THE ROLE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN MY TEACHING By Jill Withrow Baker Paper Prepared for Pratt Institute’s Decoding Digital Exhibition Explore the work of Pratt students and alumni succeeding in the digital world February 3 – March 31, 2014 Pratt Institute Libraries, 200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205 Used with images I created and have used to teach students online, from my courses over the years. SUBJECTS TO BE CONSIDERED: 1. How do Pratt creative professionals explore, keep up with, and contribute in digital technology? What work are they producing? What path led them become a digital creative professional? Was it intentional or did it come about through other objectives? What are the obstacles they face and how do they address them? 1

Transcript of THE ROLE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN MY TEACHING 2

Jill Withrow Baker Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

THE ROLE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN MY TEACHING

By Jill Withrow Baker

Paper Prepared for Pratt Institute’s

Decoding DigitalExhibition

Explore the work of Pratt students and alumnisucceeding in the digital world

February 3 – March 31, 2014

Pratt Institute Libraries, 200Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205

Used with images I created and have used to teach students online, from my coursesover the years.

SUBJECTS TO BE CONSIDERED:

1.How do Pratt creative professionals explore, keep up with, and contribute in digital technology?

What work are they producing? What path led them become a digital creative professional? Was it intentionalor did it come about through other objectives?

What are the obstacles they face and how do they address them?

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What skill sets had they developed to help them follow this path? What skill sets did they need to enhance?

2. Fine Artists Working Digitally –exploring how artists transition from traditional media to digital work

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BECOMING AN ART PROFESSOR

How did I leap the hurdles of technology and end up teaching through digital technology?

My goal when I entered Pratt was to teach fine art on the college level.

I graduated with an M.F.A. in Painting from Pratt Institute in 1981 and immediately applied to 100 colleges that I had found had availableteaching positions in their Art Department, with my resume, including my new degree, and requested to be considered for the job. I got back no positive reply from any of them.

Then I traveled to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Convention (http://www.aaup.org/about-aaup) in 1981, with greathopes, as hundreds of colleges were looking for university teachers and had sent representatives to interview for candidates. I found hundreds more available candidates were there. I went through the posting procedures for all available college teaching positions and applied to be interviewed for all the art teaching positions. One of them, the University of Hawaii, responded to my post with an appointment time.

I went to the interview that had been set up for me, well-prepared, happy and expectant. But when I appeared at the door, the two young men sitting at the door to the interviewee’s office took one look at me and said it had been a mistake. They weren’t hiring women professors and they had thought my name was Will, not Jill.

No one was hiring women professors in those days. Believe it or not, at the higher education level the only people being hired those days were men. It was a harsh reality that I had to accept for years, untiltimes and minds changed. Meanwhile, with my degree and a little training from an independent teacher in NYC, I soon got a job doing paste-ups for a big, slick magazine on Madison Avenue, Institutional Investor. The practice of manually pasting up copy and type, a job commonly called “layouts and mechanicals,” was not taught at Pratt at the time. Most publications used a manual technique of cutting out, waxing and laying type on templates for offset printing. The work was

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not hard if you were an artist, and I worked at the magazine for quitea while in the Production Department. Eventually, since I knew the editor, I was able to show my work to the art director and soon was taking special assignments doing illustrations for articles in the magazine. After this, I also did illustrations for other magazines andbooks.

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A couple of the illustrations I did for specific articles in Institutional Investor

But, as I said earlier, my real goal was to teach art on the college level and this was far from it.

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In 1982, I moved to Los Angeles. After a couple of years there I got ateaching job at Pierce College completely by accident, when a wrong number was dialed by an art department head and I answered my phone athome. The man on the other end of the line stumbled around for a moment and hesitantly told me he was the head of the art department atPierce College in Los Angeles and was looking for a young man with this [wrong] number, as he had a teaching position open and wanted himto interview for it. He was desperate and needed an immediate hire. I said I was qualified and gave him my credentials. He said for me to come on over and I got the job!

This could have happened to me at any other time of my life and I would not have been able to take the job. But actually this real eventin my life serves a good example of the benefits of being prepared when opportunity knocks.

I had my graduate degree from Pratt. I had applied to the State of California for a teaching position in their community colleges (they told me there weren’t any at the time), and in applying for it, applied for and received a life-time credential, using my M.F.A. from Pratt. Had I not earned the degree, applied for community college teaching in California, and gone through the process of receiving the credential, I would not have been able to take the position when it dropped into my lap. I had done all I could to teach on the college level and was ready when the opportunity suddenly presented itself.

On his part, the college art department head knew a Pratt degree is well-respected, women were okay to hire, I had the proper California credentials, and he was desperate to hire an art instructor right away.

This job experience opened the door for me, and I have taught art for colleges and universities ever since, even though, in between, I foundmyself working in other art-related jobs.

I had taught for Pierce for a year when they cut the budget and I was let go because Liberal Arts courses at universities are the first onesto be cut when a budget is cut. And in a university the last one hiredis the first one fired. But I then was able to go to work at other

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colleges, since I had a good reference under my belt. There were no art department jobs available, but I applied to teach and was hired byThe University of Phoenix to teach Humanities, because anyone with a liberal arts graduate degree (Art, Music, Literature, Dance, etc.) is also qualified to teach Humanities.

After a year, the University of Phoenix, for whom I worked for seven years, had me learn to teach online courses, and for the past 14 yearsI have taught courses online and in the classroom for universities, often both on-ground and online at the same time. This may make you wonder how this relates to my original goal and what I have ended up doing. You will see, as we go along that I continued to try for and hadn’t forgotten my original intent.

The University of Phoenix is the largest university in the U.S., with an enormous number of students learning on home computers, as well as campuses in 32 major cities in the U.S. Contrary to what some think, The University of Phoenix has extremely high standards. I began teaching in “on-ground” classes, where I met the students face-to-face. When they asked me if I could teach online, I had to be trained by them to teach according to the high standards to which they held. They provided a website for professors and for students that mimicked a college classroom, a website that was comprehensive. The textbooks were completely online textbooks, and this was before Kindle! The professors had their syllabi and lectures and advanced notes for teaching prepared for them by experts for each course. They could adapt their syllabi and lectures according to their desires, but they had to cover certain topics during the semester, and had to teach fromthe chosen textbooks, which were excellent. The main thing I had to learn was the software that was used for teaching, which was similar, if you are familiar with it, but more advanced than the program called“Blackboard.” You may be familiar with Blackboard, as it is one of themost commonly used programs for universities to use for online courses.

At the University of Phoenix, the main course I taught, Humanities, was actually “History from the Artist’s Viewpoint.” I was qualified toteach Humanities, because I had a degree from an accredited graduate

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school in the Arts, Pratt. I knew a lot of Art History from undergraduate courses (I went to Baylor University for my undergraduate degree) and from Pratt’s graduate Art History courses, which was required if I was to earn an M.F.A. This was extremely fortunate, because I was expected to teach and immediately respond to about 100 students with all kinds of inquiries about Art History. I did not really enjoy my classes in History during my undergraduate college days, but suddenly I had to know it, so I learned by reading the Humanities textbooks I was teaching from and calling on my memory of my Art History courses. It was like a miracle to discover that whatI knew about Art History jibed with actual historical events.

By the way, during my Pratt days and continuing until she graduated from high school, I was a single mom, supporting myself and my daughter with no help from anyone else. Since graduating from high school, my daughter has finished college, married and has a family herself. But while I was attending Pratt and until she graduated from high school, I earned most of my living as a teacher, though not especially in the field of teaching hands-on art, like drawing and painting, as I had planned.

In both New York and Los Angeles, I tried and actually was able to find work as a free-lance artist, but found it difficult to make a sufficient living this way, even though I constantly had commissions and took jobs that utilized my abilities as an artist. Not only was the pay insufficient, but I found the income a free-lance artist makesto be unreliable, as it came in spurts. I also had to hustle in between jobs to find companies or clients who wanted to use my skills,and most of the time the jobs were short-lived, as they were over as soon as I completed the project. I worked for a catalog company for awhile as an artist, but found that the pay was bad and the working conditions were terrible. So I set out to find other arts-related jobs. And I did find them!

Fortunately, besides short-term, free-lance artist’s jobs, there were three types of full-time jobs that I found called on my artistic abilities and turned out to be worthwhile, fun, long-term positions. Ihave held each of these at least twice and enjoyed them:

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1. Working for a newspaper or periodical. Magazines and newspapers have a great need for artists who can use art-related computer programs, such as Publish, Quark, Photoshop, ClarisWorks and Multi-Ad Creator. I especially enjoyed working with and manipulating images for use on the front page, to accompany news stories and in advertisements. I was good at this and worked in this field for some years.

2. Working with an internet magazine, or “webzine.” In this position, I used Dreamweaver to put stories, images and web pagesonline, Photoshop and other related programs to create images that illustrated articles in the webzine. I mounted articles and news stories on the internet daily for some period of time. In this venue, gifs or animations can be used, but so can every other kind of digital illustration.

This is one of the illustrations I did for Vanderbilt’s Exploration webzine.

3. Teaching art privately or for organizations or for public institutions. I wanted to teach students drawing and painting in an undergraduate or graduate classroom on the university level, but when I couldn’t work for a college-level educational institution, I taught privately in my own studio or for a public

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facility, such as the Parks and Recreation Department of several towns I lived in or near. For years I taught art in my large studio. I found that teaching art for most public organizations was only a part-time job and did not pay well. I earned more by advertising and privately teaching children and adults in groups or individually.

4. Teaching for a University or Art College. Of course, I preferred this venue for earning money and this was my motivation for earning a graduate degree. When I was finally teaching for a university or college, it provided a steady income with a generous paycheck coming in once a month to support me and my child.

WHAT ROLE DOES DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY PLAY IN THAT PRACTICE?

What skill sets did you developed to help you follow this path? What skillsets did you need to enhance?

I was very handy with a computer. First of all, while in New York, I took courses at the Manhattan venue of Pratt Graphics, located on the block behind my loft. Secondly, I was familiar with all the programs in Microsoft Office (Creative Suite) and Adobe, as I had had to earn a living using them in managerial assistantships and secretarial and journalism-related jobs (At which I worked while receiving my degrees and afterward, while I sought employment in my chosen field.) When I worked for large corporations, such as Vanderbilt, I was occasionally sent to advanced workshops by my employers in the use of programs such asPhotoshop, Microsoft Word and Dreamweaver.

I did research. While teaching or doing art-related jobs, I spenthours every day reading and looking over the internet for information, poring over images on Google Images, looking for artwork I could use myself or in my online courses. I keep digital files of images that illustrate Art History, filing the images by date. I also continued to learn about related subjects that I could use as a teacher, because as a professor, you are

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expected to know everything about everything. Once I was teaching, I continued to add to my knowledge base by concentrating on one or another area at a time, learning everything I could about it. It was fun to continue learning about areas that I had particular interests in, because it gave me fodder for my classes and it challenged my brain.

I continued to learn about the computer. I knew art well, but I had to continue to learn computer programs after leaving Pratt, so I took workshops and read everything I could, to learn new computer skills. My employers expected me to be proficient on thecomputer and to know programs that were commonly used in the field they specialized in. As an artist, I needed to keep up withthe fast pace of technological advancement in my field. New, useful computer programs kept on coming out, and I needed to learn the new ways to create and use art online. I learned how tomanipulate images to post on my teaching program for students to learn from or to illustrate what I was discussing in my online lectures. I created many PowerPoint presentations to illustrate my lectures. (The students were also required to create two PowerPoint presentations per class as assignments.)

I continued to take college courses whenever possible. I took courses in education to find out how and why humans learn, as well as subjects related to what I was teaching.

REALIZING MY GOALS

I now teach for the University of Southern Indiana, as an “Associate Professor” in the Department of Art. The university is in Evansville, Indiana and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. I moved to Louisville two years ago from Evansville. When I lived in Evansville, I taught Art inthe classroom, but I was also teaching Art and Humanities online. WhenI moved to Louisville, I just continued teaching Art online and not one of my students was the wiser. Of course the staff and officials atthe university know where I live and accommodate my desires and needs as they arise, but most everything can be done online now, as you

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know. If a student has a problem, I deal with it through the university website, or through phone calls or the mail or through an e-mail. But if a document has to be signed immediately, the Assistant Director of the Department sees the person needing the signature and signs it for me on an expedited basis. Nowadays, if you teach online, it doesn’t matter where you live, how old you are, what you wear, whatyour gender may be, or what you look like. Online courses have none ofthese restrictions, whereas they seem to be important if you teach on-ground.

”How can one teach Art online?” you may ask. Well, I do not teach practical classes online, such as Drawing or Painting. Those classes are taught in the classroom by hands-on teachers in face-to-face situations through actively using methods taught by example, as the students create their projects. Online, I can teach the theoretical courses in the Art Department of my University, classes for which there is actually more demand than for practical, hands-on classes, such as Aesthetics, Color Theory, Composition, Perspective and Introduction to Art. Most of my students are seniors, about to receivetheir degree, but they have put off taking a required liberal arts course before they do. So I usually find myself teaching 40-year-olds,people with jobs, children and families and absolutely no art experience or knowledge of art. They often choose my Introduction to Art course because “Art is easy.”

HOW DOES ONLINE LEARNING WORK?

Each online university or college has a proprietary website with toolsfor learning,

a “classroom” where the student meets your teacher and other students and are asked and answer questions in written form in “strings” where you can respond to other students’ answers, challenge them and answer questions,

a “library” where the student can find reference books and your textbook,

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a private page seen only by the student and the teacher, on whichto post quizzes, answers to private assignment questions and turnin midterms and finals, and

a “gradebook,” in spreadsheet format, where the student can go tosee what grade was made on any assignment and how it compares to past grades, individual class standing and percentage standing (how much of the course has been completed, grade-wise). This last site is important in that the student and teacher can track day by day, how the student is progressing in the class.

There are other areas, such as customized chat rooms, that are also available in this online website that relate to the four areas above, as well as links to resources for assistance with learning, access to staff, administration and counseling.

In order to teach online, colleges and universities train their professors how to use their proprietary website. As I mentioned before, one of the most commonly used website programs by universitiesis called “Blackboard,” a huge program that is customized for each educational institution. Teachers of on-ground classes also use it forkeeping grades and posting assignments, for their students to go to atany time.

One of the benefits of an online class is that the student progresses at his or her own pace, as long as they complete the course in the time allotted. I have known students to look at the syllabus online, complete the assignments and turn all of the assignments in within a week, finishing them before any of the other students. However, in most online classes, in order to participate fully, a student must go to the website and participate in the “classroom,” which is close to real-time participation in that every couple of days there is something new to read and respond to. If the student does not respond daily (or bi-weekly or however many times the professor requires the student to respond during the week), the student cannot receive the full benefit or grade for the course taken. Just as a student must attend a certain amount of classes in an on-ground setting, the student must also “attend” the “classroom,” read the questions posted and respond to them and also respond to other students who have posted

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their answers. The “A” student usually goes online every day during the class, even if it meets only three times a week, to see what is new and respond to it. This is close to real-time participation in anycourse you might take on-ground.

MY PERSONAL TAKE ON TEACHING ONLINE COURSES

How do I teach my classes? I use a variety of techniques, including some of the following examples:

I give the students current news stories—some of them weird and some of them shocking, such as the story about Chris Burden having a friend shoot him in the arm, as a work of art—then ask them to research the artist further. They will discover for themselves that Chris Burden doesn’t do this all the time, but actually produces some beautiful works of art. ( See the following for an interview with Chris Burden: http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/chris-burden-extreme-measures?utm_source=New+Museum+News&utm_campaign=2d98b7846c-2013_08_EVENTS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d75ce29a31-2d98b7846c-406120717)

I ask them to research a period of art, such as Rococo, and give me information about it and their opinion of it. They discover for themselves that first appearances are not what it is about, but that there are motives and reasons behind why it is done.

I ask them to make PowerPoint presentations for the other students about a particular artist that they might choose from among those mentioned in their textbook.

I ask them to do projects, such as having a child under the age of 4 draw a person while they stand silently by, after having learned in our class about the mental process of drawing, to takea photograph of the final drawing and quote the child’s explanation of their artwork. When all the students see all thesedrawing from the children, and the ages they are, they can clearly see how the human mind matures, formulates and portrays visual images of the world surrounding the child.

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TEACHING AS A PROFESSIONWhat skill sets did you need to enhance?

The professor must be self-disciplined and post questions, challenges and lectures every time there is a scheduled “class.” I usually designated 3 days a week to classes (M-W-F, for instance) and had prepared an appropriate lecture for each one. I also carefully read every student’s posted answers and the responses to their posts by other students. It was time-consuming for me, but at least I could do it in my pajamas or even after midnight, whenever I had time. I learned to put aside a couple of hours per day to perform this task. By the time I had taught the class twice, I had lectures written I could use for each new class, and just tweaked and updated them for each new group. I liked to rotate information and add new information that became available in the art world as it appeared, for the sake ofstimulating thought in each new group of students I taught. It helps to be timely and use “breaking news” when teaching.

Outside of the University there are resources and organizations dedicated to the advancement of better teaching and to teaching onlinethat are beneficial to belong to if you are a “distance education” teacher. The internet offers a myriad of sites that offer assistance and hints on becoming a better teacher and how to use new technology in the classroom, online or on-ground.

One of these organizations is The Sloan Consortium. The Sloan Consortium has webinars and conferences you may attend to learn about the latest technology available for successful online teaching. The following is a link to the site where the annual conferences are listed: https://aws.predictiveresponse.net/view_as_a_page/index.php?org=477&lea=36-10000688859-0&ite=2840.

There is also a weekly webinar listing: https://aws.predictiveresponse.net/view_as_a_page/index.php?org=477&lea=27-10000594377-0&ite=3041.

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MY PHILOSOPHY OF THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Why teach online? (See bolded answers below)

Just as Time Magazine predicts that DVD players, Blu-Ray players, Stand-alone GPS units for cars, dial-up internet, low-end digital cameras and physical car keys will be dead in 5 years, so I predict that “brick-and-mortar” colleges as we know them today will also be dead and there will be only a few students wandering around a college campus (Singleton, Micah, Time Magazine, Time Tech, “5 Tech Products That Will Be Dead in 5 Years,” Jan. 02, 2014, http://techland.time.com/2014/01/02/5-tech-products-that-will-be-dead-in-5-years/?xid=newsletter-weekly, by Techlicious / Micah Singleton @techlicious).

Where will all the students go? To their bedrooms at home, on their laptops as they travel, or in their dorm rooms to take classes on their desk computers, as many already do. I’ve found more and more of my students who take my online course live on campus. In my online courses, I also find a percentage of the students are actually taking the course from a great distance, from faraway states or countries, such as Iowa, the Philippines or, as in the case of one of my last classes, one of the students was a Corporal traveling all over the world.

My theory is that in the future only practical, hands-on courses will be taught in brick-and-mortar campuses. Most classes will be taught online because theoretical courses are more easily taught online and students learn theories easier when they are tailored to the way students learn, as online courses tend to do.

In the future, I believe that if students are taking hands-on courses,like mechanical drawing or auto mechanics or painting they will go to a physical classroom where the teacher monitors them as they work on aproject, such as in a chemistry lab or in a printmaking studio. If they are taking a theoretical-based class, they will be at home, taking courses on their home computers. Statistics already show that math is learned much easier online, as are other theoretical subjects.To see an example of how easy it is to learn an advanced math theory,

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go to http://mrmeyer.com/betteronlinemath/. Within two minutes of viewing this “game,” you will be knowledgeable about how to create a midpoint formula by using abstractions like x-y pairs and a coordinateplane. This particular teacher demonstrating this simple way to learn,Dan Meyer, has a blog about online learning at http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=15398.

In addition, all theoretical courses will be taught online, because itwill be cheaper for both universities and students, and the learning process is more successful. I already see this in that more and more of my students at the university are taking my online course from their dorm room. A student living on campus does not have to get dressed and walk across campus to a classroom to spend one or two hours there, at a certain time every other day. You may call them lazy, but you may also call them “efficient.” It not only saves the student gas or shoe leather, but it saves overhead for the universities that allow it. Universities don’t have to maintain the brick-and-mortar buildings that house classrooms or hire cleaning or security personnel. All they have to hire is a webmaster and an instructor with a computer on her desk at home. The instructor does not have to drive to campus, spending money on gas and spending time looking for a parking place and walking across a huge campus in the sleet and snow. Neither does the commuting student. Neither instructornor student need a car at all.

However, they both need a good computer, which they probably already own and use frequently. The university I teach for, at this time, is servicing and maintaining my computer, installing the best programs, training me in new programs as they appear, setting up webinars and training sessions on-ground, so that I might be valuable for online teaching. They don’t require me to attend faculty meetings or events on campus. They are just very happy I know how to use a computer and have agreed to take on this new sort of job. It is a unique sort of position I hold at the university, as I am free of all kinds of restrictions and requirements. I do, however, have to maintain discipline over my own time, adhere to university requirements for what is taught in my course and answer the phone or e-mail whenever they want to reach me (which is almost never). In this internet world,

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I don’t even have to pick up my paycheck, as it is automatically deposited.

In other words, I have created my own job. That’s the way the world ofthe future will work. Today, students are creating their own courses and even their own universities, as they choose which Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to take from which ivy league college (See thisarticle on “The Top 10 Sites For Free Education With Elite Universities”: http://www.bdpa-detroit.org/portal/index.php/comittees/high-school-computer-competition-hscc/29-education/57-moocs-top-10-sites-for-free-education-with-elite-universities.html). And that is what scares a lotof colleges and universities that are just now coming into this tech-age. The administrations of colleges and universities have placed moreand more emphasis on maintaining, building and expanding a physical campus, something which severely impacts the financial situation of their institution, rather than simply providing a meeting place for professors and students, where students learn knowledge and skills.

Most universities are beginning to tailor how they provide an education that students will find useful in the workplace by consulting employers and finding out what they want in an employee. And they are finding there is great disparity between the university environment and the workplace. In the actual workplace, employees workon projects individually and in teams. This is not how students are taught to perform in universities today, even though educators know their current methods are not practical. An employee in the workplace has little to memorize, yet today’s colleges admit memorization is themost desirable skill to become successful in the classroom. Yet colleges do not offer any alternative, except in online classes that treat each student as an individual.

In the typical college classroom that teaches theoretical subjects today, students are taught en masse, in groups of 30 or more, up to 300 at a time. They are expected to work alone and accomplish their projects individually. They take generic tests and only work together only under the most covert of circumstances; individually, they try tostuff into their brains the information that they will need to pass

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tests. Everyone knows that what is memorized the night before the testwill be lost tomorrow, thus nullifying any so-called learning gained in university classrooms.

Modern educators know that the use of all five senses is optimum and the use of at least three of them, plus physical activity, is necessary to actually retain information. However, in a large, on-ground class that teaches theory in a university today, a reading-and-lecture-and-test method is used. Students are expected to sit for one or two hours listening to a lecture, then they are expected to regurgitate it during a test. The best readers and those who can memorize are the winners in this atmosphere. In online courses, students are expected to do projects that require self-examination anddemonstration of what they think, research in order to learn and to dophysical activities that reveal truths.

In today’s global world, critical thinking, tolerance and respect for others are important to success. Critical thinking cannot be learned where there is no guided interaction among students. Debate encouragescritical thinking, but in the typical, large classroom there is no time or practical way to encourage debate. There is usually no interaction among students inside the classroom (though there may be outside of class), so critical thinking, tolerance and respect for others’ ideas is not practiced, taught or learned. In online courses, students are expected to respond to and challenge other students’ mindsets in a polite way. This requires thought, judgment and use of proper vocabulary.

Teamwork is important online. In online classes, the average “lecture”is a page of introduction. Students form teams that meet in person if they live close enough, or online in one of several ways, including customized chat rooms, to plan and work together on a project to be presented to the class as a whole. Individually, I ask them to tell metheir “favorites” from among various artists in a period, or from among art works in a school, or from among answers giving several possibilities. I then ask them why they chose as they did. This and other thinking and writing exercises encourage critical thinking, such

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as politely challenging other members of the class when they make statements in the online classroom.

WHAT DO I TEACH, IF I DON’T TEACH MY STUDENTS HOW TO DRAW?

Critical thinking is one of the desired goals of my classes, along with tolerance for all other cultures and peoples, and useful knowledge that can be utilized for the rest of their lives as they create or view art, wherever they may be in the world or in whatever position they may attain in the workplace. In my classes we learn about cultures, religions, traditions and even methods of creating art. Thus we learn how to interact with all kinds of people we may encounter in life or on the job, valuing their origins and their modus operandi. It is much more than art that I teach.

Post Script: Today I teach only one course online. But I work 40 hours a week on art. I have opened my own private studio in Louisville and show my work, as well as create my work there. I have learned how to promote myself and exhibit my oil paintings and collages all over the world. I still do graphic art and illustrations. I teach free, privateclasses in painting at my church. I have illustrated a dozen books andcontinue to create prints and oil paintings.

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WORKS CITED

Singleton, Micah, Time Magazine, Time Tech,5 Tech Products That Will Be Dead in 5 Years, Jan. 02, 2014, http://techland.time.com/2014/01/02/5-tech-products-that-will-be-dead-in-5-years/?xid=newsletter-weekly By Techlicious / Micah Singleton @techlicious

American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Convention (http://www.aaup.org/about-aaup)

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WORKS CITED

Singleton, Micah, Time Magazine, Time Tech,5 Tech Products That Will Be Dead in 5 Years, Jan. 02, 2014, http://techland.time.com/2014/01/02/5-tech-products-that-will-be-dead-in-5-years/?xid=newsletter-weekly By Techlicious / Micah Singleton @techlicious

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