Thank you Wendy, who suggested that those who submit something to the discussion may not wish to put their full title and affiliation in with their posts.
Bruce
Friday, November 27, 2009
Visual Culture Studies
My experiences teaching introduction to visual culture studies at NSCAD U during the 1990's were primarily good with classes ranging from 130-200 students and 4-6 tutorial groups lead by MFA students.
I found that inclduing plenty of visual material and inviting colleagues in from various disciplines to present their fields of expertise was a good way for them to recognise the compatibility of their discipline centred research and creative work to the interdisciplinary nature of [visual]culture studies. There was resistance to the course from some areas and especially when an administrative --cost saving act) attempted to meld several departments Art History, Art Education, English)into a faculty of visual culture studies under one assistant dean. The biggest problem was student literacy which is not unusual in an art school context. I have spoken to the person who presently teaches the course as well as graduate student tutors and generally students continue to be stimulated by the material and readings in the course. Students are more politically aware now but don't necessarily know how to put their political consciousness into action.
I found that inclduing plenty of visual material and inviting colleagues in from various disciplines to present their fields of expertise was a good way for them to recognise the compatibility of their discipline centred research and creative work to the interdisciplinary nature of [visual]culture studies. There was resistance to the course from some areas and especially when an administrative --cost saving act) attempted to meld several departments Art History, Art Education, English)into a faculty of visual culture studies under one assistant dean. The biggest problem was student literacy which is not unusual in an art school context. I have spoken to the person who presently teaches the course as well as graduate student tutors and generally students continue to be stimulated by the material and readings in the course. Students are more politically aware now but don't necessarily know how to put their political consciousness into action.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
cultural studies discussion
Subject: Re: [CACS] Teaching Cultural Studies continued
We face similar issues in our intro to Canadian Studies course at
Trent which unsettles students' assumptions about a "great and wide"
country they'd love to love. One curious recurring problem we have is
not only with our students, but with our teaching assistants
struggling with their role in the course, teaching political material
they may not support or they may have chosen to present differently.
On 26-Nov-09, at 1:32 PM, Wendy G Pearson wrote:
> I would also like to stay with this conversation if it moves off-list.
>
> My own experience has been primarily with teaching two very large
> introductory courses in Australia (CUL100 had between 550-650
> students each year and CUL101 ran around 375). As a large course
> with (usually) three lecturers and ten TAs, CUL 100 posed some
> interesting challenges. But the one thing that really struck me was
> how much the course confronted students' world views and how often
> they came back in the middle of second year to tell us that what
> they had resisted originally had finally struck home. I'm not sure
> to what extent different approaches to pedagogy might be able to
> speed up this 'eureka' moment or whether the time involved in
> processing a very different understanding of how the world works is
> itself absolutely necessary -- which, in turn, raises some
> interesting pedagogical questions.
>
> Wendy
>
>
We face similar issues in our intro to Canadian Studies course at
Trent which unsettles students' assumptions about a "great and wide"
country they'd love to love. One curious recurring problem we have is
not only with our students, but with our teaching assistants
struggling with their role in the course, teaching political material
they may not support or they may have chosen to present differently.
On 26-Nov-09, at 1:32 PM, Wendy G Pearson wrote:
> I would also like to stay with this conversation if it moves off-list.
>
> My own experience has been primarily with teaching two very large
> introductory courses in Australia (CUL100 had between 550-650
> students each year and CUL101 ran around 375). As a large course
> with (usually) three lecturers and ten TAs, CUL 100 posed some
> interesting challenges. But the one thing that really struck me was
> how much the course confronted students' world views and how often
> they came back in the middle of second year to tell us that what
> they had resisted originally had finally struck home. I'm not sure
> to what extent different approaches to pedagogy might be able to
> speed up this 'eureka' moment or whether the time involved in
> processing a very different understanding of how the world works is
> itself absolutely necessary -- which, in turn, raises some
> interesting pedagogical questions.
>
> Wendy
>
>
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