Eleven students and two faculty members—Colleen Brennan and Judith Briggs—from the teacher education area of the School of Art in the College of Fine Arts spent two weeks this summer working with the art education department at Australian Catholic University (ACU) in Sydney, Australia. They went there to examine how New South Wales secondary visual arts teachers implement the unique Frames curriculum model.
According to Briggs, they divide their “art education curriculum into conceptual Frames—the subjective, the cultural, the structural, and the postmodern in order to direct ways of identifying, investigating, explaining, understanding, and judging works of art. The Frames enable art educators and students to find connections between artistic forms, practices, their content, and their context.”
During this study tour, students and faculty visited teachers’ classrooms in various secondary schools throughout Sydney to observe teacher practice, to talk with art students, to discuss student-created artwork, and to examine curriculum materials in various schools throughout Sydney while also enjoying the sights, museums, and attractions in the area to learn about historic and contemporary Australian art. This very successful exchange will result in an Australian art teacher visiting the School of Art this spring for a couple of days.
