Art Ed Radio

Summer offers great opportunities and possibilities to better ourselves as people, artists, and educators. This episode is the perfect tool to help you decide exactly what you are going to do this summer. Holly Bess Kincaid joins the show to talk about her Fulbright-Hays Seminar which allowed her to spend last summer in China. She talks about experiencing educational culture in China (3:00), seein...

Contemporary pop artist, Romero Britto, comes on the show to talk to Tim about his life and his work. Britto is known around the world for his colorful, bold, and optimistic artworks drawing inspiration from the joys of everyday life. He believes in art as an agent of positive change, and he and Tim discuss why this positive approach is so important. Britto also talks about his upbringing in Brazi...

Do art teachers need to be artists? Absolutely! We don't need to be creating work at the highest level, pursuing gallery shows every month, and constantly chasing sales. We do, however, need to be creating in some fashion; the habit of consistently creating artwork makes us better, more engaging teachers. Andrea Slusarski returns to the show as she and Tim talk about making time to make art (8:00)...

Art teachers everywhere can identify with the "penny-pinching blues." It seems every year art budgets are cut. Teachers have to beg, borrow, and get really creative to ensure students have enough quality supplies to last the year. In this episode, Andrew brings up broad strategies for advocating for (and using!) your budget while Tim shares some great classroom hacks to help teachers get the bigge...

We've all had projects that have flopped, but how do we transition out of that failure into something meaningful? Andrew joins Tim on the show as they discuss the need to figure out how to make those failures relevant. They also talk about salvaging learning experiences for our students when things aren't running as smoothly as we had hoped. Tim provides tips on using reflection and discussion as...

In this episode, Andrew brings up a topic that we all agree happens on a daily basis: student immaturity. It's a topic we don't always feel comfortable sharing as somehow confessing this is an admission of classroom management failure. If creativity is the currency of art teachers, immaturity is the currency of our students. Be it fart jokes, sexual innuendo, or "that's what she said" remarks, stu...

In this episode, Andrew shines a light on a pretty serious and worrying thought… the death of art education. While this may seem a bit melodramatic, there are serious shifts underway that are undermining and changing the status quo of art education. Right off the bat, Andrew brings on special guest Danny Gregory whose blog post, "Let's Get Rid of Art Education in Schools," had the art teaching wor...

In this episode, Andrew will shed some light on new acronyms from the art ed world including STEM, STEAM, and PBL. He'll share how to start incorporating these teaching philosophies into your classroom in order to get your students thinking like designers. He'll even talk about why having the STEM vs. STEAM debate isn't worth your time. Joining Andrew will be his longtime friend and colleague, Rya...

Art clubs always start out with a sense of excitement and passion, but that feeling rarely continues all the way until June. How do we keep our students interested and our art clubs productive throughout the school year? Tim and Andrew get together for a great discussion on these topics, offering some specific takeaways that can keep your art club going strong. The guys talk about new ideas for sc...

A classroom where every student is intrinsically motivated is an art teacher's dream, but it's rarely a reality. In this episode, Tim brings back AOE writer Abby Schukei to continue their discussion from Episode 002 on how to best motivate our students. This time, they are also joined by art teaching superstar Nic Hahn, author of the blog  Mini Matisse . The three discuss how we can teach students...

Too often, art teachers rely on the canons of art history when introducing the subject to their students. This episode is here to tell you there's a better way! Tim shares some of his best resources and reasons for teaching contemporary artists (listen for a cameo from the great Don Masse). Andrew comes on the show and he and Tim discuss their favorite contemporary artists (4:00), what art history...

In this episode, Andrew sheds light on how teachers can use technology to end the dreaded nightmare that is grading in the art room. Teaching is tough, and teachers have to learn how to work smarter, not harder, to survive. Using tools like apps, websites, and learning management systems to help is a no-brainer. Andrew welcomes TAB, tech, and assessment extraordinaire Linda Papanicolaou from sunny...

The NAEA convention is an annual event that draws thousands of art teachers together for learning, reflection, and celebration. Tim and Andrew decided that this year's convention, in Chicago, would be the perfect time and place to record a special bonus episode of Art Ed Radio. Listen as the guys recap their convention experience (3:00), Andrew tells what it's like to be a presenter (4:45), and th...

In this episode Andrew will dissect how we as art teachers can fit into the current “big data” educational paradigm. Art teachers are all too familiar with the buzzwords, Professional Learning Communities, Common Formative and Summative Assessments, Student Learning Objectives, and standardized tests. Everything in education seems to be about hard, quantifiable data. This shouldn’t leave teachers...

In this episode Andrew will share our deep dark secrets… that there are plenty of things in the art room that students love, but art teachers hate. Andrew and his faux-grumpy partner Tim Bogatz look at specific media and projects teachers can’t stand which normally boil down to students making really obvious and unoriginal aesthetic decisions. From zentangle and tie-dye, to glitter and even Pinter...

This episode is a great discussion on color theory, as well as the hows and whys of teaching it. Andrea Slusarski, aka The Nerdy Art Teacher , joins Tim to talk about using color theory to develop student engagement and a better classroom experience for her students. Listen for a discussion on the exciting parts of science and color theory (5:00), why we need to ditch our color wheel projects (9:3...

Discussing 3 times the art world broke the Internet, and how those viral moments can be utilized to engage our students. They talk about the infamous dress (8:00), the Old Navy shirt that every art teacher hates (12:00), and the red Starbucks cup (18:00). Andrew shares some lessons learned from a failure in his classroom, and shares why he wants his students to think like designers. Tim talks abou...

Andrew takes his first turn in the host chair for a discussion with Tim on the biggest things we do--the projects that define our programs. Andrew discusses inspiration, collaboration, curriculum (2:45), with maybe a mention of zombies thrown in. Tim talks about his underwater photo shoot (7:00), trying not to get fired after throwing things at his students (9:00), and why we need to always contin...

Art of Ed writer Abby Schukei joins Tim to share strategies to help every student find success, which encourages and empowers them to continue to create. They talk about Instagram and how social media allows us to move artwork beyond our classroom walls (10:00), and why Abby lets her worst-behaved students do whatever they want--within reason (19:00). Tim closes the show with some important though...

Andrew and Tim are excited to be debuting the first episode of Art Ed Radio. They tackle the age-old question of originality, what purpose it serves in the art room, and what we can do to ensure that our students are creating original work. Listen for the guys talking about Chuck Close (11:45), Andrew working weightlifting into the conversation (16:00), Tim talking about his mantra of “make it you...