IN-PERSON: Applying Education

Abstract

In the move to online learning brought on by COVID-19, community art schools were severely affected given the double problem of having to share methods of tactile artistic creation digitally and the voluntary nature of a community art school. At the Pointe-Saint-Charles Art School in Montreal, three educators (members of the Shortcuts for Teachers Artist Collective (STAC)) moved quickly to develop processes and strategies for creating engaging and meaningful on-line art education curricula for participants of all abilities, backgrounds and ages. In this presentation, we will discuss the processes of three artist-teachers who created 5-8 week courses conjoining their own interests and research, while aiming to meet the needs of the students and art school. Classes shared the artists theoretical interests and practices taken up in the instructors own projects, while creating courses that centered student growth and perspectives. This presentation will begin by discussing how we came to develop community partnerships as educators, followed by introducing the three online classes and their pedagogical aims. We will discuss our collective and individual problems we had to overcome as teachers new to online learning and in the community, and how the community setting came to help us develop our pedagogical practices. This will include how the digital space led to classes developed around emergent technologies such as AI and virtual spaces such as galleries. We will conclude with some takeaways about our practices as we have moved mostly to teaching in in-person spaces.