BY: KETAL PATEL, PhD, 2021
Director of Field Experiences and Licensure Program
The Bachelor of Art Education licensure program is growing and building initiatives to support our pre-service students and collectively engage more students that wish to pursue a career as art educators in Prek-12 school sites.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, we've spent time to build capacity among our art education students by supporting a leadership team initiative among the undergraduate and licensure students. Our two cohorts voted in their peers to build opportunities to support one another and network with current art education professionals. The student leadership team is a sustaining group for emerging art teachers to share best practices for the future of PreK-12 art education.
With our leadership team pictured below and PhD student, Tamryn McDermott, I had an opportunity to connect with fellow art educators from around the state of Ohio at the Ohio Art Education Association (OAEA) Conference in November 2021.
Additionally at the conference Tamryn McDermott and I presented a session to explore the potential pathways and pipelines into art and art education programs. The session was designed as a workshop to collectively brainstorm with Ohio art educators to begin to understand the opportunities and challenges present for students as they bridge their PreK-12 art learning experiences and explore collegiate level art and art education programs and career pathways. The session invited participants to begin exploring the need for stronger partnerships to understand and help recruit and support diverse candidates for the field of art education.
One of the goals in having our pre-service students attend the OAEA conference was to foster engagement in the larger art education community and begin help shaping the discourses of what the future of art education can be. As a result of this session and participation at the conference, pre-service art education student, Kameron Caminiti, has taken on the role of pre-service chair for the state art association. And, art teacher candidate, Madison Gladman, has volunteered her time to engage and share with high school students what her experiences have been as OSU art education major. Such leadership opportunities are vital for pre-service students understand the power they have as educators and their role in recognizing who is and isn’t still represented in our field. When students begin to lead their professional associations, engage in recruitment efforts, and see themselves within a professional community they can be active change agents to further diversify the field to serve PreK-12 students across the state and nation.
In addition to professional networking opportunities, the cohorts are designing ways to connect with prospective students and sharing their experiences as pre-service art educators with communities around the Columbus area. For the 2021-2022 academic year, we have pre-service students and art teacher candidates placed at 42 central Ohio schools working with experienced art educator mentors and alumni to further build our strong art education community and practices across central Ohio. These partnerships are inspiring our art education majors to design potential ways to build their student association as well as find ways to connect with the local arts community and imagine possibilities as emerging professionals. As our licensure program continues to grow, we are working with our students to imagine how art educators are leaders and creative change agents with the communities they serve. A goal of the OSU licensure program is to train highly qualified art educators that are committed to their communities and are passionate to maximize learning for all Prek-12 students through the imagination and possibility of art education!
Patel has served for more than fifteen years as an art educator in public schools, in addition to extensive non-profit sector work in support of rural schools, the Lakota Nation, urban, and private schools across the nation. In her current role as AAEP Director of Field Experiences and Licensure Program, she continues to broaden educational dialogues to embrace approaches that increase access to better serve a broad range of students. Patel continues to explore these critical dialogues to transform AAEP’s BAE program to foster engagement across the state of Ohio further supporting STEM/STEAM initiatives, problem-based learning, and culturally relevant pedagogies and curriculum design. Her work centers participatory and narrative inquiry approaches as a mean to further amplify and understand the discourses of pedagogy and educational practices with educators and their communities across the state of Ohio and the nation.
