The M135 E’telier: Addressing the Needs of Nonart Majors in Secondary and Postsecondary Art Education Programs

Abstract

This article describes secondary- and postsecondary-level students who might not be seriously interested in art but are required to take an introductory studio art course to fulfill a graduation requirement and those who enjoy artmaking as a pleasurable and socially engaging activity but are not enrolled in formal studio art courses. In the late 1960s, Guy Hubbard designed M135: Self Instruction in Art at Indiana University to address the needs of these diverse populations of students. The course became a foundational model for today’s M135 e’telier, which aims to meet the needs of ambivalent and leisure-time art learners. The e’telier provides an opportunity for students, whose skills and interests may range widely, to join together for support and mutual appreciation of one another’s artistic endeavors. Objectives, strategies, and outcomes of teaching and learning in the e’telier are described, with implications for contemporary art education in traditional and online contexts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge Guy Hubbard (1930–2009) for having shared his extensive notes, documents, and many hours of conversations with me about the development of M135: Self Instruction in Art and am appreciative of the additional information about the instruction of the course that was provided by Enid Zimmerman.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ The Carnegie unit, commonly known as an SCH, is a measure of the amount of credit a student earns for the study of a school subject. One credit hour equals 120 hours of study over the course of a year at the American high school or undergraduate university level. Generally, one SCH amounts to 1 hour of lecture plus 1.5 to 2 hours of studio work per week over 15 weeks.

² The survey was funded by a grant from the National Art Education Foundation.

³ Participants were solicited from online participatory artmaking sites. They responded to a survey instrument posted on SurveyMonkey.com.

⁴ This survey comment is from an anonymous respondent.

⁵ Information about the course’s origin and structure was derived from several conversations with and notes shared by Guy Hubbard between 2004 and 2008.

⁶ The tutors were advised and overseen by doctoral students and faculty of the Indiana University art education program.

⁷ End-of-course evaluation comment submitted by an anonymous student in May 1976.

⁸ “The term hypertext… is used to describe any computer program or application that involves linking and connecting” (Taylor & Carpenter, 2002, p. 7).

⁹ Hypertext as a way of presenting curriculum content began to be circulated three decades later (Taylor & Carpenter, 2002).

¹⁰ The Project Tomorrow survey included principal and student participants from 9,001 K to 12 schools in 2,710 school districts. The number of high school administrators, as opposed to administrators of elementary and middle schools, was not indicated in the executive summary.

¹¹ At the time of the report, the online offerings were predominantly credit recovery courses in academic areas.

¹² Class sections of 24–28 enrollees were subdivided into these smaller groups.

¹³ The course is now conducted via Zoom, a video conferencing platform with chat, audio-video, image viewing, and interactive annotation (drawing) features (see https://zoom.us/about).

¹⁴ Introductory surveys were taken by instructors of the earlier versions of M135 as well as the recent e’telier version.

¹⁵ Student names used throughout this article are pseudonyms.

¹⁶ This conversation has been edited from a longer, recorded student discussion of Lena’s work.

¹⁷ End-of-course evaluation comment submitted by an anonymous student May 10, 2017.