The symposium includes activities such as keynote lectures, panels, graduate student forums, master workshops, children's art exhibitions, and open classrooms. All attendees will have opportunities to engage in discussions, gain new perspectives, and reflect on current issues in arts education. This conference is endorsed by the International Society of Education Through Arts (InSEA).

This workshop is about the principles of interpreting contemporary artworks/visual images and of teaching them in schools. It will focus mostly on interpreting works from other cultures and will be interactive in nature. 
We will compare two educational approaches to the discussion of visual images. The older one was called “criticism” and it divided criticism into four stages. The last stage was “evaluation” of the work discussed. A more contemporary approach is called “interpretation” and focuses on meaning, rather than evaluation.
 

Conceptual frameworks are used in research studies to set forth interconnections among concepts presented in a significant body of inquiry. Conceptual frameworks can take form graphically as maps or diagrams and as written narratives focusing on interrelated concepts based on existing systems or relationships embedded in well-established theories. A conceptual framework, as integral part of any research design, usually is established before an inquiry commences and supports and informs a study under consideration. It is constructed by a researcher from existing bodies of inquiry that enable finding links between associated literature and an inquirer’s own research goals. Once a study is complete then a conceptual framework can be consulted as to whether an inquiry aggress with, disagrees with, or adds new connections among the concepts found in the originating conceptual framework. As a result of their studio art backgrounds, their abilities to render ideas visually, and their participation in contemporary visual culture, art education researchers and practitioners are unique positions to create graphic, conceptual frameworks along with traditional written explanations. In this workshop, observations about the use of conceptual frameworks in art education research will be introduced, exemplars from art education research studies will be presented, and participants will be engaged in discussion and activities about understanding these frameworks. The concluding activity in the workshop will involve participants breaking into small groups and creating a conceptual framework from the same literature abstract that, when completed, will be contrasted and compared across groups.

This workshop is specifically designed for teachers who are concerned by children's drawing skills and practices development. Based on graphic experiments and case studies, we will examine the bases of graphic communication and its evolution through the process of learning; especially how they have evolved simultaneously as a human means of communication, a technique to express visual thinking, but also as tools for research, creativity, and cooperation.This functional and communicative approach will be confronted to the typical goals of arts education in the aesthetic, the practices, and the Art knowledge fields. Through discussions and debates, participants will explore the constraints and paradoxes of the goals of art education curriculum and formulate possible solutions.

This master class welcomes students and faculty who are interested in constructivist teaching or art museum practice (or both).  Constructivism is a modern epistemology, or set of ideas about how people learn, that holds that individuals construct their own knowledge based on their prior knowledge and experiences. The presenter will briefly discuss constructivist ideas and juxtapose them with a traditional view of knowledge transmission from the teacher to the student. To model constructivist teaching, the presenter will share a label-writing activity from her museum education class. Participants will then have an opportunity to try the label-writing activity or consider how they might incorporate constructivist techniques in their teaching. Participants should expect to be actively engaged in this master class. The atmosphere will be informal, and there will be discussion, questioning, and reflection, rather than lecturing.

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