To our Toolkit Authors and Guest Curators:

Thank you for participating in the Teaching with UCAH Toolkit Program! We are grateful that you’ll bring your own disciplinary expertise to the study of the University Collection of Art and Art History.  The lessons will cultivate visual literacy abilities to interpret and evaluate the world around us—important tools for student success in any discipline or career field. And thanks to your work we’ll learn more about our university’s cultural heritage and make that information accessible to the public. Below, you’ll find information to guide you through the lesson creation process. At any point along the way, please feel free to contact Andrea Lepage, Elizabeth Teaff, Alston Cobourn, or Mackenzie Brooks. Thank you again for your participation!

 

Creating a Toolkit Lesson:

  1. Get in touch with Andrea Lepage to get started. She can help you to select an appropriate artwork that you’ll enjoy studying and connect you with appropriate university collections staff.
  2. Your Toolkit Lesson may take any form that you think works best to present disciplinary-specific information about the UCAH piece(s) you’ve selected. To see how others have organized their Lessons take a look at our Sample Lessons.
  3. You don’t need to provide art historical background on your piece unless you want to. We are most interested in learning about the ways that you can apply your own disciplinary perspective to the study of art, so please focus your time and energy on that aspect of the project. If you want to include a brief paragraph of art historical context but don’t have the time to write it, let us know and we’ll happily write it for you!
  4. You don’t need to have web design skills to work on a Toolkit Lesson. You’ll submit a Word file to Andrea Lepage who will format it for the Teaching with UCAH website. But if you prefer to do the design work yourself, just let us know, and we’ll get you set up with the necessary website permissions.

A Possible Template for your Toolkit Lesson (which you should feel free to adapt!):

  1. A brief introduction to the lesson.
  2. A discussion of the artwork and associated topics from your own disciplinary perspective. Think of this section as a brief lecture or discussion that you might have with students. What information would students need to understand the artwork from your disciplinary perspective?
  3. Sample assignment. Are there hands-on activities that would help to guide the conversation? How can you apply the main methodological tools of your discipline to the study of art? How can the implementation of hands-on activities with artworks enhance study in your own discipline?
  4. Prompts or questions for further discussion. Imagine that you are teaching the lesson to a group of eager students. What questions would you ask to engage them in a discussion about the material? What spontaneous activities would enhance their learning experience?
  5. Additional readings and materials. What texts could students read to learn more about the topic? You can include links to webpages, videos, audio files, bibliographical information for print sources, etc.
  6. Optional materials. If you wish, you may include handouts or PowerPoint presentations to facilitate the use of your Toolkit Lesson in the classroom.
  7. A brief bio. Please provide us with a sentence or two about yourself.
  8. Creative Commons licensing. We use a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike as our standard license to allow other educators to use our Toolkit Lessons in the classroom. Please let use know if you’d like to restrict use of your materials, and we’ll adapt the license accordingly.

Here are a few helpful contacts as you craft your Toolkit Lesson:

  • If you require high-quality reproductions of UCAH artworks, please get in touch with Andrea Lepage or Patricia Hobbs.
  • If you decide to incorporate additional images into your lesson, please consult our Image Resources page for links to free open-access images.
  • You’ll find lots of useful information on our Copyright page. If you have any additional copyright questions, please contact Alston Cobourn.

Thank you again for your participation!