Exploring Teaching Through Research
As a committed life-long learner I enjoy researching and identifying resources to help me become the best teacher for my students. Below are inspired documents drafted for my Master’s program at MASSArt — they span topics from art advocacy to social justice teaching practices and beyond. Dive into my research and explore my thoughts through infographics, research papers, and passion projects.
Art Therapy
The human experience and our subsequent sense of identity is a story of loss, love, joy, grief, confusion, etc. — an exhaustive list of BIG emotions that few of us have the tools to recognize or process. On top of our inability to deeply understand our place in the world, we also are living in a time of uncertainty and isolation — coming off of a global pandemic that has continued to wreak havoc on our lives amid one crisis after the next. Our students and their communities can benefit from a greater capacity for sorting emotions and building resilience to face the ambiguity and pain in their lives.
Asset-based Pedagogy
Asset-based pedagogies, whether the original tree or the new branches, all take root in the common belief that students should be able to show up authentically in the classroom. It draws on student cultures to deepen and inform everyday instruction, creates a community of learners — granting students agency by empowering them to be critical thinkers, and supports students by centering learning around the important contributions they can make to their own classrooms.
Student-led Classrooms
Student-led learning puts the student at the core of the classroom. It is an education style that emphasizes self-directed education, creativity, and discovery, rather than regurgitation of concepts with the teacher as the center and holder of knowledge. Students are encouraged to incorporate their own interests into projects. In student-led teachers act as facilitators and students as knowledge holders. With these methods they are able to become leaders in the classroom, connect with the peers while sharing their perspectives, and contribute to a thriving classroom ecosystem.
Racism, Discrimination, and Expectations of Student's Achievement
We often look to students to do the work to close achievement gaps caused by systemic structures that were created to actively work against them. We are failing our students by overlooking the importance of tackling societal inequalities by fully engaging and empowering students (and their communities) to help co-create what Richard R. Valencia, author of Students of Color and the Achievement Gap, deems as "systemic transformations." Read more via the links below.
Exploring curiosity
Your journey through meaningful investigation will manifest curiosity into a core idea that will drive your work. Explore ideas, themes, and questions - letting them guide your decisions when approaching media, product, and skills. Let Curiosity Be Your Guide.
Developing Themes: Time & Change Unit
Time is one of our most coveted "possessions" as a modern society. As a people we have sought to understand the interwoven nature of time and change from the beginning of humankind. We always seek to make more of it and often struggle to embrace the flux between temporary and lasting impact. Through this theme we can better understand the dependence of change on the concept of time, the origins, & how we might learn/grow from past, present, and future perspectives. After all, the present future will become the past eventually — time and change are an inevitable force.