Art History

About the Textbook

Khan Academy: (formerly SmartHistory)


Description:  Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker of Smarthistory together with leading art historians, and our museum partners have created hundreds of short engaging conversational videos and articles, making Khan Academy one of the most accessible and extensive resources for the study of the history of art.

The textbook consists primarily of narrated videos with supporting text articles. Students can access an interactive transcript to allow for multiple learning styles.  Additionally, the students are able to review the materials over and over again. The website includes a question and comments section in which students are able to ask questions and review questions and responses from other students.

The content is organized according to the following main topics:

• Art History Basics
• Prehistoric Art in Europe and West Asia
• Art of the Ancient Mediterranean
• Art of Medieval Europe
• Art of the Islamic World
• Renaissance and Reformation in Europe
• Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical art in Europe
• Art of the Americas
• Art in the 19th Centure Europe
• Expressionism to Pop Art
• Towards a Global culture
• Art of Asia
• Art of Africa
• Art of Oceania

Authors:

• Beth Harris - Khan Academy
• Steven Zucker - Khan Academy

Formats:  The resource is only available online. Videos can be downloaded.

Supplemental resources:  Canvas CMS was used to provide students with curated reading lists, and deliver quizzes and assessments.  I also supplemented the textbook with a series of reading assignments found here.

Cost savings:  I teach three sections of this course each semester, with approximately 50 students per class. The 10th edition of the book I used before currently sells for $107.50  for a used book in Amazon. This is an annual potential savings for students of $32,250.

Accessibility and diversity statement: 

The publisher provides no information about accessibility.  However, they have continually improved upon the transcripts for the video closed captioning. Additionally, Khan Academy has recently released "tota11y: An Accessibility Visualization Toolkit" that streamlines testing for accessibility violations. ("tota11y" on Github) 

License:

Khan Academy grants to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and use the Licensed Educational Content as made available on the Website by Khan Academy solely for your personal, non-commercial purposes. Unless expressly indicated on the Website that a particular item of Licensed Educational Content is made available to Users under alternate license terms, you may not download, distribute, sell, lease, modify, or otherwise provide access to the Licensed Educational Content to any third party.

Unless expressly otherwise identified on the Website with respect to a particular item of Licensed Educational Content, any reference to the “Creative Commons”, “CC” or similarly-phrased license shall be deemed to be a reference to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

About the Course

ART V01 Art Appreciation

Description: This course is designed as an introduction for the non-art major to basic concepts common to the visual arts and to acquaint the student with the major periods and styles of art. Painting, sculpture, and architecture from prehistoric times to Post-Modernism will be explored with particular emphasis on the art object as a form of cultural and social expression, and critical formal analysis. Field trips may be required. Formerly Art 1.

Prerequisites: None
Learning outcomes:  At the end of this course the student should be able to: 

• identify major periods in art history;
• identify specific artworks by artist, title and date; 
• demonstrate a facility with the terms and vocabulary of the visual arts with regard to Form, Content, Context, and Interpretation; 
• write a formal analysis;
• express a personal connection with artworks. 

These outcomes will be assessed by means of exams, written assignments, and participation.

Most of the students who take this class are first-generation college students. Only 5% of them have a working knowledge of art and 10%, a passing knowledge.  Students are required to take one course in the Arts area, thus the class has high enrollment with many sections offered. The predominant population is Hispanic (over 50%) followed by White (approximately 30%), while about 37% are ESL students. 

Curricular changes:  I had to provide some additional readings for students for particular artworks I wanted to discuss;  otherwise, the content functioned well for my curriculum.  

I used Quizlet to create flash cards for students to study.  I also used Desire2Learn and Canvas to: 

• Provide weekly reading assignments
• administer weekly quizzes
• Create discussion forums  

Teaching and learning impacts:  
Collaborate more with other faculty: No
Use wider range of teaching materials: Yes
Student learning improved: Unsure
Student retention improved: No
Any unexpected results: Yes: 

I believe that the students were eager to engage with videos, and I found that generally more students were prepared for class discussions. Also, the videos were much more conducive to group use and discussion than a written text. Older re-entry students have expressed a sense of disconnection and have resisted use.  

The videos watched with closed captions and/or interactive text will engage more learning types by connecting with both visual and auditory learners as well as textual. The conversational format of the videos is a supplement to instructor lecture, which is conducive to a flipped classroom format, including more class participatory and analytical activities.  

Sample assignments and syllabus

Assignment 1
This is an assignment in which the student must visit a local art museum and report on the visit.

Assignment 2.pdf
This is a short assignment that students complete for the class.

Syllabus
This is the syllabus I use for the class.

Textbook Adoption

OER Adoption Process

I became disillusioned with the textbook market as I think they are behind the curve regarding technology. There were textbooks that could synchronize with our LMS system, but the quality of the pedagogy was poor, and ultimately they were not worth the time or energy.  The more engaging video content resonates more with digital natives than the static text. The workforce is employing the more engaging dynamics of the latest web "versions," and so it is incumbent upon educators to provide content by those same means. I don't believe in an attachment to outmoded pedagogy simply for the sake of tradition. As learning modalities change, so should dynamics of our courses.

Another decisive factor was the cost. Because the price was prohibitive, many of my students were opting to forgo purchasing the textbook and hoping to find answers -- free of cost -- online. In the age of the information revolution, it is regressive not to embrace and employ the democratizing effect of free, quality, online content.  

In the current state of information inundation the web provides, using an online text also provides the opportunity to foster an additional skill, that of "self-curation," an ability to find and recognize worthwhile content, and understand its placement in the spectrum of discourses.  

I discovered the SmartHistory site (which has since been absorbed by Khan Academy) while doing research for class content. I discussed it with other colleagues and watched over time as its content expanded and improved. Eventually, I decided that the content was on par with, or at least as serviceable as any Art History text designed for an introductory survey course.

Student access:  

Students are able to access the book directly from the Khan Academy website; however, videos can be downloaded to a device for offline viewing. Many students use mobile devices as their primary mode of retrieving the videos and other links, so a reliable and functional mobile platform was necessary, which Khan Academy provides.

Device access does not seem to be an issue, the vast majority of students both own and demonstrate a functional literacy with a compatible device. Connectivity is an issue that affects using online text. Students without reliable connectivity may need to plan to use school resources for viewing and/or downloading; this limitation is on par with the need to schedule use of textbooks on reserve in a school library. I always offer, and have provided on a few occasions, a hard-copy alternative to the online text.

Student feedback or participation:

I did receive a number of favorable comments from the students about the textbook and the ease of accessing it.  They appreciated the fact that they didn't have to buy the book.

Margaret (Meg) Phelps 

I am a adjunct art professor at Ventura College. I teach Art Appreciation and History of Photography.