Faculty Research
Professor Burton's research interests have, until recently, focused on attempts to understand the cognitive, affective and socio-cultural underpinning of artistic-aesthetic development in young people from birth to early adulthood. She argues that artistic-aesthetic development is a natural proclivity of the human mind intimately connected to the construction and representation of personal and cultural meaning. Her work has led her to challenge some of the more narrow claims of stage theory, arguing instead for a conception of development that moves forward into early adulthood in smaller overlapping phases forming a kind of non-linear continuum within which individuals moved back and forth according to the challenges offered by their environments and their experiences with materials. Recently, Dr. Burton's interests set this continuum within a more complex “ecological" conception of artistic-aesthetic development within which mediators such as teachers, school environments, cultural spaces, peers and parents move in and out of the developmental continuum intervening as shapers of individual interests, skills and narrative journeys. Currently Dr. Burton is exploring new ways of thinking about digital materials and their role in artistic-aesthetic development and the impact this has not only on children and adolescents but also on the education of artists and art educators in higher education.
Professor Hubard is interested in the humanizing power of art and in how educators can help promote meaningful art experiences for all learners. Most of her scholarship to this point has focused on museum settings. Through studies and conceptual essays, she has addressed questions including: How are different ways of knowing (rational thought, emotions, perception, kinesthetic responses) relevant in people’s relationship with works of art? What forms can dialogues about artworks take in museum education? How might museum educators help negotiate contemporary viewers’ personal responses with the contexts that framed the creation of works of art? In what ways are art experiences educational?
Her commitment to nurturing meaningful art experiences for all learners has also led her to conduct research on the role of studio learning in non-art graduate education. She is particularly interested in sustained, “free-standing” studio courses (vis-à-vis activities where art is integrated into other subjects), and in students’ perspectives on how such courses contribute to their overall graduate education.
Dr. Jochum’s art practice is accompanied by research into the role of art schools, new media art and media art education, and art as a social practice. His scholarly practice is reflected in his writings as well as through his projects. The community building aspect of art as well as the interaction between audiences and the arts is pivotal in his work and has been exemplified through several of his recent art exhibitions. Doing and Undergoing, a college-wide art exhibition of site-specific works, for example, made the entire architectural structure of a graduate school become the site of interactive learning experiences for its community. The intersection of art making and art teaching is another core element of his scholarly and artistic practice. Cognizant of the dual identity of teaching artists, his research aligns artistic practice and pedagogy in order to rethink art as a form of education. His research focus on teaching and learning studio art in higher education has led to the Remixing Art Education symposium in 2014, which will continue in 2015. Cognizant of changes in the learning environment, including the hybridization of media and digital technologies, Dr. Jochum integrates a broad variety of media into his practice. He is currently devising a curriculum concentration in Creative Technologies that explores how new media can be best integrated in the meaningful teaching, learning, and making of art.
As an art-teacher educator and researcher Iris Bildstein is interested in the ways in which art-teacher education programs prepare pre-service candidates for the rigors of in-service teaching in contemporary schooling. She is equally interested in ways in which art teachers can inform and help bridge the gaps that often exist between practice and theory in art education. Additionally her work focuses on issues that emerge in and through art teachers’ reflections through narrative portraiture as it brings the individual’s experiences and voice to the forefront of discussion about art teachers and art education reform.
Other areas of research interest include ways in which art teachers build sustainable practices over many years and the role of mentor in pre-service candidates’ development and preparation.
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My research interests focus on the lifelong professional education of art educators. I have a particular interest in the relationships between personal identities and subjectivities—including artistic identities and affiliations—with professional learning and growth as an art educator. Ambiguity and tension, and their relationships with learning are essential concepts in my research. Therefore, my lines of inquiry as a researcher/inquirer center on locating and charting the multiple connections among art practice, pedagogy, teaching and learning contexts, and teachers’ learning—all of which thrive upon the life forces of dynamic tension and uncertainty. My doctoral research had a specific exploratory focus on the impact of tension or dialectic opposition, on the professional learning of university-based art teacher educators, i.e., faculty members who, among other things, prepare pre-service and in-service art educators in pedagogical content. Future research goals include deeper explorations of university-based art educators’ aesthetic practices in tandem with their pedagogies, and longitudinal explorations of art teacher educators’ on-the-job learning through negotiating tensions rooted in identities, personal and professional backgrounds, and values about art and education (their own and those dictated by their work contexts and by the fields of education and art education at large).