Art Education Online Site Earns National Recognition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 18, 2002
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Art Education Online Site Earns National Recognition
California State University, Chico art education professor Cris Guenter has received a 2002 MERLOT Classics award for the Web site K-6 Arts Lesson Plans, which she and her students maintain.
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) chose the site as an exemplary learning resource for teacher education. The national organization works to improve the effectiveness of teaching by expanding the quantity and quality of online learning materials reviewed by experts in the field. Other sites from other disciplines were cited for other awards.
“The site includes a searchable database of lesson plans. It serves as a resource for any teacher, beginning or experienced, who wants to integrate the arts (dance, drama/theater, music, visual arts) into the elementary curriculum,” noted the MERLOT Editor’s Council that made the choice.
Guenter started the site in 1997-98. The motivation to develop the site was to help provide a paper-free learning tool for student teachers that offered concrete examples of lesson planning in the arts. Guenter uses the Web site during class instruction to provide examples of connections between lesson objectives and assessment. Small groups of students review lessons that are subject-centered, that connect the arts to one another, and that connect the arts to other subjects in the curriculum.
“At the end of each semester, I add lessons from students who have willingly edited and revised their already graded lesson-plan assignment in the arts methods course,” Guenter said. “I design and author the teacher education comments for higher education faculty on the site, review all the lessons for editing and upload them to the online database. Like anything in education, the site remains a work in progress.”
Last summer, the California Art Education Association chose Guenter as the 2001 Outstanding Visual Arts Educator of the year. Her selection was based on 23 years of teaching kindergarten through university, her many honors and awards and her strong advocacy of art education.
Other honors for Guenter include her tenure as a CSU, Chico Master Teacher, and her selection as a California Outstanding Higher Education Art Educator. For the last three years, Guenter has worked with ArtsEdge, a division of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.
In September, she will attend the 2002 MERLOT International Conference in Atlanta, where she will present her winning Web site to the attendees. To visit the site, go to K-6 Arts Lesson Plans website.
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