Art Education Junior Review

Many Art & Design majors are required to participate in a review session during the Junior Year. For Art Education majors, the Junior Review serves as the final review before graduation because student teaching within the major occurs in the spring of the Senior Year. The Art Education Junior Review takes place during the final Fine Art Program Review session of the academic year, typically from 3:00-5:00 pm on the Friday before finals week of the spring semester.

Overview of the Junior Review

Because there is not a unique capstone course in the art education major and seniors pursuing that degree are wholly engaged in student teaching during their final semester of the senior year, the end of the junior year is the appropriate time to review each student’s progress toward an exit portfolio of work. With one semester of regular coursework remaining, students can receive advice and criticism regarding the quality of the work in their portfolio, its presentation, and its suitability to the teaching profession, with ample time remaining to address deficiencies and shore up strengths. While not an Exit Portfolio per se, the portfolio submitted for the Junior Review should be treated as if it were in order to gain the greatest benefit from the experience of its review. You should present a portfolio as if it were part of a public school’s official application and interview process for an open teaching position.

You will be asked to present the portfolio during the final Fine Art Program Review of the academic year. That presentation will be made in front of all of the fine art program faculty and its students.

Evaluation of the Junior Review Portfolio will focus on the quality and diversity of the work presented and what that work demonstrates in the way of competencies that the student would bring to the teaching profession. You should include quality work from every discipline you have studied here at ACU, with an eye to demonstrating skills and techniques that you could pass on to a classroom full of students.

Additionally, you should come prepared to answer questions about your art and about your suitability and commitment to the teaching profession. At the bottom of this page you’ll find some questions that you should be prepared to answer during the review session.

The Junior Review Portfolio

Have clear goals in mind while assembling this portfolio.

  • Only high-quality work from every discipline you have studied
  • Work that demonstrates your full range of skills and competencies (figurative, abstract, and non-objective styles; varied techniques/approaches within a discipline, etc.)
  • A body of work that demonstrates your unique strengths and makes it easy for you to talk about them while the work is displayed
  • A presentation style that highlights your work and effectively informs your viewer by proper labeling of your work

 

The items below must be organized neatly within a Google Slide document ready to be presented at your review meeting. Please share the completed Portfolio with Professor Robert Green (greenr@acu.edu).

Here is a portfolio template for your use:
DO NOT EDIT OR CHANGE THE FOLLOWING TEMPLATE!! Instead, OPEN the presentation template, CLICK on “File” and then “Make a copy...” From that point forward, you’ll have a file that you can edit.

Sample Portfolio Template.

Here are two student portfolios that present strength and diversity suitable to applying for an art teaching position:

Important Instructions for Documenting and Presenting your Art in the Portfolio

  • If your work is already in digital format you can often import it directly into the presentation software.
  • Photos of your work should be as large as possible and in focus. One image per slide. Plan to include multiple views of 3D pieces, but do so on subsequent pages (three views of the same sculpture each on its own page). If you want to show a detail (close-up) of a 2D work, again present the detail on a subsequent page and clearly label it as a detail.
  • Photograph your work in even, indirect light (outdoor in the shade or indoor pinned to a wall that’s not directly under an overhead light. (please watch this video tutorial on photographing work).
  • Simple adjustments to contrast, brightness, and cropping are expected where appropriate (please watch this video tutorial on editing images).
  • A minimum of 15 finished works should be included.
  • Presentation backgrounds should be solid black or white without elements that distract from your work or its labeling. Your work is the star, not the background.

Interview prompts for you to consider:

  1. Does visual art as a subject belong in a public school classroom? Why?
  2. What insight do works in your portfolio give as to what kind of an art teacher you would be?
  3. Is it important for you to continue to be a practicing artist if you are hired to be an art teacher? Why?
  4. What does being an artist or creating art do for you? In what way is it important to your life?
  5. Can you explain the differences between fine art and craftsmanship? How would you approach teaching and assessing these skills in your students?
  6. Can you identify an art lesson prompt that summarizes the most important things a student should learn in an art class?