Undergraduate Courses

This course integrates children's literature, the arts, and technology. Thematic teaching methods specific to these individual content areas will develop prospective teacher's ability to use poetry, prose, storytelling, visual arts, dance, music, drama, computers, the internet and digital media with students grades one thru six. These subject areas will be taught in modules and simultaneously integrated through class activities and field research projects.

An exploration of children’s literature and its role in classroom instruction, including an examination of the developmental needs and interests of children and the selection/evaluation of children’s books and media.

Explores the major reasons that people read, ways to engage adolescents in meaningful reading, ways to understand and enhance readers' meaning-making processes and experiences, and ways to assess adolescents' reading development over time. This course also addresses the language and literacy needs of English Language Learners and ways of addressing those needs through modifications of curriculum and instruction.

A seminar course designed to encourage the integration of theory and practice, taken concurrent to first semester of student teaching.

A seminar course designed to encourage the integration of theory and practice, taken concurrent to first semester of student teaching.

A seminar course designed to encourage the integration of theory and practice, taken concurrent to third semester of student teaching.

A seminar course designed to encourage the integration of theory and practice, taken concurrent with last semester of student teaching.

Exploration of dramatic play in integrated early childhood classroom.

Materials and strategies for creating an integrated early childhood curriculum with a focus on infusing the curriculum with music and movement activities.

Taken concurrently with the final semester of student teaching, this course focuses on the development, planning, and implementation of curriculum for diverse learners in early childhood and early childhood special education settings. Emphasizes curriculum integration, the role of the environment in supporting curriculum, methods of observation and assessment, and pedagogical practices. Encourages informed experimentation with various pedagogical and methodological practices in order to develop in students the capacity to create curriculum responsive to the diverse learning needs and experiences of young children and their families.

A survey of contemporary theoretical, technological, and socio-economic structures that link music and participatory/interactive media and entertainment forms. 'Interactive' models in the new music industry include social networks, music search and recommendation engines, personalized Internet radio and streaming, mobile music, live entertainment, and the use of music in video games and smartphone applications. These are examined and contextualized with a view to identifying business opportunities for musical entrepreneurs, creators, fans and facilitators.

Study of dance as cultural practice, exploring dance from a broad spectrum of cultures. Focus on theoretical and practical application of key concepts and dance forms as they relate to cultural identity, representation, and education. Includes critical analysis of dance in the studio, film, and written materials. Implications for curriculum and instruction are stressed.

This course is an introduction to visual methodologies and critical theory as well as contemporary practices in art and culture. Students use media and materials of their own choosing to explore and respond to the issues raised through readings, presentations, class discussions, writing assignments, and group critiques.

Building on Interdisciplinary Art Practice I, this course is an introduction to visual methodologies and critical theory as well as contemporary practices in art and culture. Students use media and materials of their own choosing to explore and respond to the issues raised through readings, presentations, class discussions, writing assignments, and group critiques.

Course ​will provide a forum in which to explore and engage the relationship between photography, performance and contemporary art. Through class assignments and readings in contemporary theory we will develop a critical vocabulary for an understanding of the relationship between photography and performance and a forum in which to challenge and push our individual art practice to the next level.

This course focuses on the processes that inform “how one makes the object”, thereby helping students better understand their personal visual language and how to effectively employ it. The lens of history is used to stimulate dialogue, identify influences, and ultimately integrate the individual student’s point of view. Emphasis is on the examination of the larger continuum of historical & contemporary art. Studio meetings and individual critiques form a fundamental aspect of this course. Readings include Thomas Allen nelson, “Kubrick, Inside a Film Artist’s Maze”; Roberta Bernstein, “Jasper Johns, Paintings and Sculpture, 1945-1974, The Changing Focus of the Eye”; Kathy Halbreich, “Social Life”; Yves Alain Bois, “Painting as Model”.

This course provides space and guidance for students to work on self-driven, individual and group projects in art and media. Course content consists of texts, site visits, presentations, workshops, and critiques built around each student's individual practice. Faculty and guest critics will hold regular studio visits, to help guide students through their process. Students’ material and technical investigations and theoretical inquiries will be addressed in group workshops and demonstrations. This course will culminate in a public presentation of students’ work.

The artist's body measures the world. In this class student/artists use their own body as a starting point to make art through painting, digital photography, video, and/or performance as well as a mixture of these mediums. These media interchanges allow student/artists to incorporate painting and photography / video into their art at once. Art processes and their mixtures will be taught along with the contemporary history and conceptual ideas of interdisciplinary art to help frame juxtapositions.

This interdisciplinary studio course focuses on a wide variety of creative producers and practices which dissolve the boundaries between art and design. Design is explored as inherently impactful on our experience of the material world and our experience of reality. Focusing on broad areas of culture including fashion, the museum, the store, the government, and the home, we will look at how creative producers employ design tactics to change the way we experience life and living. Each week will be geared towards a specific topic within culture, presented through slide lectures, film screenings, field trips, and guest artists. There will be presentations and critiques of student work created in response to related assignments.

Contemporary environmentalism is an issue dominated by scientific, technical and policy discourse. The terms of this political environmental discussion begs the questions; what role does and can art practice play in the contemporary environmental movement? What have artists contributed to contemporary urban environmentalism? To explore these questions we will use the local urban street as our site of ecological analysis, intervention and exhibition. Building on a history of ephemeral political actions of the “Reclaim the Streets” and other political movements the focus will be on durable or sustainable interventions in urban ecosystems involving both human institutions and infrastructure, and the work of other non human organisms. Students will work on projects that re-imagine our relationship to natural systems.