Beaconhouse National University (BNU)

Course Code: AE 701 | Contact Time: 6 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Studio

This course provides opportunities for in-depth explorations of the properties, structures, materiality and expressive uses of various materials. Ideas investigated through the entire body extend personal visual repertoires of the students by facilitating critical questioning and reexamination of their experiences with materials. The course also provokes insights into the role of concrete materials in supporting, integrating and challenging the different directions they suggest, as well as the different possibilities for teaching and learning embedded in these.

Course Code: AAE 702 Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week Credits: 3 | Theory

This course is divided into two components covering historical foundations and philosophical foundations respectively. In the former an introduction is provided to major historical events and underlying beliefs that have influenced contemporary art and design education programmes within South Asia and beyond. It also addresses the history of ideas and its role in the development of arts and design conventions over the ages. In the second component of the course, philosophies and theories of education and arts are analysed with a focus on their application to making and teaching art.

Course Code: AE-703 | Contact Time: 1.5 Hours Per Week | Credits: 1.5 | Theory

This part of the course offers an examination of curriculum design, arts integration and assessment. Students learn about curriculum theory and design and have the opportunity to apply methods learned in art and design education contexts in Pakistan. Considering the lack of local or national standards, the course also aims to initiate an inquiry into the factors that determine evaluation criteria, assessment and standards, particularly from the students’ own experiences as teachers and students.

Course Code: AE-704 | Contact Time: 1.5 Hours Per Week | Credits: 1.5 | Theory

In this part of the course, theories of cognition, social learning, information processing, motivation involved in critical and creative thinking and problem-solving (across different age groups and development levels) are investigated as they apply to the teaching and learning processes, especially relating to art education. Emphasis is laid on a discussion of ways in which developmental insights are basic to designing challenging lessons in the visual arts that enrich learning and transformation across the lifespan.

Course Code: AE-705 | Contact Time: 1.5 Hours Per Week | Credits: 1.5 | Theory

In a culturally diverse context such as Pakistan, the classroom is a potent learning community. However, often educational systems create problems for students who are deemed different, failing to develop their unique potential and for learning to be meaningfully contextualized for them. Using self-reflective writing, dialogue and discussion the course offers teachers the opportunity to reflect on how they might help every student succeed in a diverse learning environment, how they might negotiate issues of diversity, improvise their teaching practices and how they might use differentiated instruction.

Course Code: AE-706 | Contact Time: 1.5 Hours Per Week | Credits: 1.5 | Theory

This course offers a hands-on exploration of interactive digital and electronic technologies to support teaching. Applications for teaching art are reviewed through approaching technology as a material to explore and investigate. Skills and analytical methods employed in the course enhance the students’ ability to communicate with their own students, colleagues, parents, and communities using relevant modes of communication employed by youth in schools, colleges and other educational settings. These include the Internet, social media, mobile telecommunications, digital archives and social learning portals and modes.

Course Code: AE-707 | Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Theory

This course is a field work component occurring in-between the summer semesters to support and develop the teaching or other educational practice of students during the year when they might be engaged in their full-time teaching or related professional responsibilities. Assessment of the course is done in a variety of ways including site visits, use of online social platforms and portals, video conferencing and reflective teacher journals. This course is conducted off campus.

Course Code: AE-708 | Contact Time: 6 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Studio

This course provides a stimulating context in which students begin to identify social, cultural and pedagogical contexts for their art practices. Using a variety of mediums students are encouraged to think as art practitioners, researchers and facilitators of art making. Students explore scale, local and global contexts of contemporary art and art as a social and educational practice in their immediate local environment. In addition, they learn to manage various technically challenging skills and develop a personal narrative and relationship with materials and teaching context in mind.

*Studio courses will be offered with variations in content, subject to availability of teaching artists.

Course Code: AE-709 | Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Theory

This is an introductory course in qualitative research methods which explores art education as a form of inquiry that is grounded in the theories, practices and contexts of art and design educators. Building on traditions in the social sciences and practices in the visual disciplines, students are guided to carry out research and writing in a real-world context. Students are introduced to scholarly writing guidelines and conventions, through which they learn to search for, analyse and evaluate relevant academic research. By the end of the course, it is expected that students narrow down an individual research question for their thesis.

Course Code: AE-710 | Contact Time: 1.5 Hours Per Week | Credits: 1.5 | Theory

This course frames teaching practice in the context of theories of art curriculum, teaching strategies and methodologies, classroom dialogue, and critical pedagogy and the potential art education has for transforming students and the culture we live in. It provides an overview of pedagogical methods for teachers to reflect on how they might engage their students in art-making and learning activities in schools and higher education. Drawing on their own teaching and learning experiences, students develop age-appropriate teaching strategies and practices including lesson and unit planning, instructional strategies, and assessment procedures.

Course Code: AE-715 | Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Theory

This course is a self-directed independent study with a fieldwork component. Student-teachers are able to expand upon any concerns that were identified during the summer Research Methods in Art Education course. Student-teachers will initiate the ground work for their research, write a detailed literature review and will ultimately be led to choosing their thesis track between writing and a project format. They are also led through methodical stages of identifying and expanding a theoretical framework for their research.

Course Code: AE-712 | Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Theory

This is an advanced research practicum course offered over the final year of study for evaluating student research and teaching practices. Students design the methodology for their thesis research in light of their identified question, chosen thesis track and underlying theoretical framework. They also put this methodology in action, collecting relevant data through fieldwork conducted according to research protocols. Instruction is delivered through close one-on-one contact with an advisor, allowing opportunity for meaningful exchange and consistent reflection.

Course Code: AE-714 | Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week | Credits: 3 | Theory

Through this course, students conclude their final thesis in consultation with a thesis supervisor. They chart the course of their investigation according to their chosen thesis track, in light of the requirements set by the nature of this investigation and following the protocols of formatting, citation and archiving. Students also undertake a systemic periodic process of evaluations and revisions in conversation with thesis supervisors.

Course Code: AE 715 Contact Time: 3 Hours Per Week Credits: 3 | Theory

This seminar course guides students’ independent work in research to develop a Master’s Thesis; a written academic report or project which reflects students’ analytical, organisational and problem-solving abilities with regard to a research focus. The Thesis Seminar in conjunction with 3 other courses (Thesis Advisement I, Thesis Advisement II and Research and Professional Practice) provides instructional support for their research and writing. In this course, students assess their findings and are acquainted with methods of analysis through which they conclude their research.