Michelle Ridlen's MU Art Ed Blog

Michelle Ridlen's MU Art Ed Blog
Master's Student ~ Started Summer 2012, Anticipated Graduation December 2014 ~ Tiger for Life! M-I-Z...

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Annotated Bibliography


Annotated Bibliography

In switching my topic and research question, what I have discovered is that I feel pretty clueless where to start or how to hone in my research (I’ve also discovered my formal researching skills are pretty rusty.) [New research question: How does an art teacher's room reflect his/her teaching philosophy? Hmmm, or should it be DOES an art teacher's room reflect his/her teaching philosophy? This too probably needs some refining]

Starting research for my bibliography, I began with sources that may enlighten me to the language of semiotics and to how to define art teacher “philosophies”.  So I began with sources that Dr. Pinnow had mentioned, hoping they will give me more insight into this fascinating language. This might be some heavy reading, but will hopefully be very interesting.

1.   Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design
Reading Images builds on its reputation as the first systematic and comprehensive account of the grammar of visual design. Drawing on an enormous range of examples from children's drawings to textbook illustrations, photo-journalism to fine art, as well as three-dimensional forms such as sculpture and toys, the authors examine the ways in which images communicate meaning. Features include:
- new material on moving images and on colour
- a discussion of how images and their uses have changed through time
- websites and web-based images
- ideas on the future of visual communication.
Reading Images focuses on the structures or 'grammar' of visual design – colour, perspective, framing and composition – provides the reader with an invaluable 'tool-kit' for reading images and makes it a must for anyone interested in communication, the media and the arts.


2.   Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen (2001) Multimodal Discourse.
Multimodal Discourse outlines a new theory of communication for the age of interactive multimedia. Kress and Van Leeuwen show how two kinds of thought processes interact in the design and production of communicative messages: "design thinking" and "production thinking," the kind of thinking which occurs in direct interaction with the materials and media used. This book will be a key text in courses of language, media and communication willing to take on the theoretical challenges posed by multimodality, mulitmedia and multi-skilling, and it provides inspiring theoretical input for courses in interactive multimedia design.


3.   Gunther Kress (2009) Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication.
 The 21st century is awash with ever more mixed and remixed images, writing, layout, sound, gesture, speech, and 3D objects. Multimodality looks beyond language and examines these multiple modes of communication and meaning making.
Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication represents a long-awaited and much anticipated addition to the study of multimodality from the scholar who pioneered and continues to play a decisive role in shaping the field. Written in an accessible manner and illustrated with a wealth of photos and illustrations to clearly demonstrate the points made, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication deliberately sets out to locate communication in the everyday, covering topics and issues not usually discussed in books of this kind, from traffic signs to mobile phones.

I also decided I should look at what areas might define a teacher’s philosophy and the history of art education that may inform current teaching styles and methods.

1.   G. James Daichendt (2010)
Artist-Teacher: A Philosophy for Creating and Teaching 
Is an artist-teacher a mere professional who balances a career—or does the duality of making and teaching art merit a more profound investigation? Rejecting a conventional understanding of the artist-teacher, this book sets out to present a robust history from the classical era to the twenty-first century. Particular pedagogical portraits—featuring George Wallis, Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, Victor Pashmore, Richard Hamilton, Arthur Wesley Dow, and Hans Hoffmann—illustrate the artist-teacher in various contexts. This book offers a revelation of the complex thinking processes artists utilize when teaching, and a reconciliation of the artistic and educational enterprises as complimentary partners.


2.   Jane K. Bates (2000) Becoming an Art Teacher
This book introduces the student to the field of teaching, discusses theory and practice of Art Education, and synthesizes and prepares students to make the transition from student to Art teacher. It presents art education as an integration of philosophy, history, theory, and practice. Bates illustrates how to apply theory to practice as an art educator. Models, methods, and experiences are provided to enlighten, inspire, and amuse.



3.   Mary Stankiewicz (2001). Roots of Art Education Practice (Art Education in Practice Series) Weaving together accepted ideas about art, children, and schooling, the author tells the story of art education practice a century ago. Readers will gain insights into the circumstances under which curricular practices originated, and will better appreciate the beliefs that shape art education today.


4.   Arthur D. Efland (1989) A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts. Recent debates on the place of the arts in American life has refocused attention on art education in schools. In this book, the author puts current debate and concerns in a well-researched historical perspective. He examines the institutional settings of art education throughout Western history, the social forces that have shaped it and the evolution and impact of alternate streams of influence on present practice. The book treats the visual arts in relation to developments in general education and particular emphasis is placed on the 19th and 20th centuries and on the social context that has affected our concept of art today. The book is intended as a main text in history of art education courses, as a supplemental text in courses in art education methods and history of education, and as a resource for students, professors and researchers.


5.   Stuart MacDonald (1970) The History and Philosophy of Art Education. Dr. Macdonald investigates the continuous developments of Art and Design education in Italy, France, Britain, Germany, and the United States. The study traces the philosophies of teachers from the age of the guilds and the academies to today, and sets them in the context of the general education theories of their times. Stuart Macdonald clarifies the whole field of art education for research and teaching purposes. He points out that the knowledge of the principles and methods of art education is essential for a true understanding of the art of different periods. He makes clear that art education should be studied within the existing education disciplines of history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology of education. Essentially factual, using many quotations from primary sources not generally available, this book gives a disciplined grounding in a branch of the history of education, and describes the philosophies which continue to govern courses in Art and Design.


Then I began looking at some research that looks into effect of the environment of schools on performance –

6.   Pamela Woolnera, Elaine Halla*, Steve Higginsa, Caroline McCaugheya & Kate Walla (2007)
A sound foundation? What we know about the impact of environments on learning and the implications for Building Schools for the Future
Oxford Review of Education, Volume 33, Issue 1, pages 47-70.
This paper reports on a literature review conducted in the UK for the Design Council and CfBT (Higgins et al., 2005) which looked at the evidence of the impact of environments on learning in schools. We have reviewed the available evidence regarding different facets of the physical environment and provided an analysis based on different areas of effect, including the extent to which different facets interact (positively and negatively) with one another. Our conclusions suggest that, although the research often indicates the parameters of an effective environment, there is an overall lack of empirical evidence about the impact of individual elements of the physical environment which might inform school design at a practical level to support student achievement. However, at a secondary level of analysis, there are indications that environmental change can be part of a catalytic process of school development and improvement. The implications of these findings for Building Schools for the Future will be discussed.

7.   Metzger, Richard L.; Boschee, Pamela F.; Haugen, Terry; Schnobrich, Barbara L.
The classroom as learning context: Changing rooms affects performance.
Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 71(4), Aug 1979, 440-442. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.71.4.440 Studied the role of the classroom as a context that can affect memory, using a multiple time-series design. Two classes of 25 undergraduates each were given weekly quizzes in their regular classroom over a baseline period, were moved to a different room on separate target weeks, and finally were returned to their classroom. Moving had a significant deleterious effect, particularly on students doing well in the course. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)


8.   Carol S. Weinstein (1979)
The Physical Environment of the School: A Review of the Research REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Fall 1979 vol. 49 no. 4 577-610
This paper reviews research on the impact of classroom environments on student behavior, attitudes, and achievement. The first section examines studies of six environmental variables: seating position, classroom design, density, privacy, noise, and the presence or absence of windows. In the second part of the paper, research conducted from an “ecological” perspective is considered. A third section focuses on the effects of open space school designs. Finally, some future directions for research are discussed, and the advantages and limitations of various research designs are summarized.


Lastly, I discovered an interesting research article on educational semiotics and looking at field studies in France. (PESCE, S. (2011), Institutional Pedagogy and Semiosis: Investigating the missing link between Peirce's semiotics and effective semiotics. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43: 1145–1160. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2009.00633.x) This led me to look further into these resources, hoping they might be of use. I was not able to move forward in finding them in order to read them, but wanted to include them here as a possible next step.

Cunningham, D. J. (1987) Outline of an Educational Semiotic, The American Journal of Semiotics, 5:2, Special Issue, ‘Semiotics and Education’, pp. 210–216.

Deely, J. (2004) Semiotics and Jakob von Uexküll's Concept of Umwelt, Sign System Studies, 32:1/2, pp. 11–34.

Manning, P. K. (1987) Semiotics and Fieldwork, Qualitative Research Methods Volume 7 (Newbury Park, CA, Sage Publications).

McHoul, A. (1996) Semiotic Investigations. Towards an effective semiotics (Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press).

McLaren, P. (1989) Life in Schools. An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (Boston, Allyn & Bacon).

Shank, G. (1995) Semiotics and Qualitative Research in Education: The third crossroad, The Qualitative Report, 2:3. Available at: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR2-3/shank.html

Stables, A. (2006) Living and Learning as Semiotic Engagement: A new theory of education (New York, Edwin Mellen Press).

Tochon, F.V. (2002) Semiotic Consciousness in Education: An introduction, International Journal of Applied Semiotics, 3:2, pp. 3–8.

I definitely feel like my research has been too broad and I need to figure out the language for what exactly it is I’m trying to look into. This may take a question and answer session with Kathy and/or class members. 

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