UF’s Master of Art in Art Education Program Is Redefining the Studio Experience

April 28, 2021

The University of Florida is known for its excellence in distance education. In fact, they have received top rankings for Best Online Programs from U.S. News & World Report. The online Master of Arts in Art Education (MAAE) is one such high caliber online program that allows students to work while advancing their education and features a dynamic online learning environment.

It’s no surprise that at a time when we’ve all had to become a little more inventive, the online MAAE has redesigned the studio experience. In lieu of our one week on-campus Residential Summer Studio, we are offering our online students the chance to take part in a two-week, at-home studio intensive.

This approach will give students the opportunity to foster good studio practice habits at home and will offer help finding a balance between their dedicated art practice and life’s other demands.

This new format features two different sessions, each providing time to work as a group and independently. During the group studio sessions, students will use virtual platforms like Canvas to work alongside their peers and professors. The extra week we’ve built into the at-home experience gives students the opportunity to live like studio artists, creating new habits they will use for life.

The at-home studio intensive sessions include:

Studio A

“Sketchbook”
Online Sketchbook

Sketchbook development is designed to activate the sketchbook as an instrument for making creative connections. Investigations into drawing, collaging and collecting will stimulate curiosity, inform experiments and expand creative habits. Students will explore image making, rehearse non-linear notation and seek creative associations from their quantity of evidence. Through learning lessons on the dynamics of drawing, students will discover habits of the mind by enlisting creative practice. Online demonstrations, exercises, readings, quizzes and self-identified site-specific fieldtrips are required to extend these skills. Students will make mixed media sketchbooks and post to online forums to examine the possibilities for creative sketchbook research—making connections to their developing drawing ability.

Studio B

“Animation”
Online Animation

Personal technology devices allow ever improving access to explore animatics with analog drawings, dioramas, cut paper, sculptural forms and more in the classroom. Add to this software applications to achieve frame by frame animation, FX magic, typography, and storytelling. The student is screenwriter, producer, set designer, composer, editor, actor and director, all at once. And most importantly, the student is a provocateur for pushing what can be considered contemporary animation in a video rich, social media landscape.

This course enlists visual technology skills and camera devices to drive creative experimentation in analog and digital animations. Demonstrations, storyboarding, animation history and personal research will drive a number of time-based visual experiments exploring storytelling to online collaboration.

How We Will Work Together Virtually

We are inviting students to convert their home studio into a space for ritual, dedicated art practice, directing their studio time to resemble the rigor of the in-person studio experience in Gainesville.

Students use communication mediums like Canvas, blog post updates, and group discussions to create a virtual studio space and share this experience with faculty and peers in real time. Synchronous, live and online studio work, demos and tutorials will drive our intensive work days across time zones. Students discover how to strike a balance to preserve dedicated art practice, amid life’s other demands.

Why This Is an Exciting Opportunity

We have heard from students that the Residential Summer Studio is a life-changing experience. When creating our at-home studio, we put a lot of thought into how to make it equally transformative. We truly believe our students will benefit by working as studio artists at home, developing an invaluable disciplined personal practice. Through this challenging time, the Art Education department at the University of Florida feels fortunate to be able to bring our students opportunities that continue to inspire, and we will continue to look out for the wellbeing of our students.