Teaching and Learning at Vol State

Almost all disciplines have long-standing traditions within their field that are the most widely accepted methods of conveying information to students. In a few specific traditional lecture courses, particularly Art History lectures, there is usually little room for discussion. Instead, there is one room, one projector, and an onslaught of slides and images all shown in the dark which only helps to create a comfortable environment for students to drift off and wake up suddenly when the light switch is abruptly flipped at the end of class. In addition to this issue, there have been many concerns as to how those images are chosen, how the information is presented, and which parts of the art history timeline are given more attention than others. This seems to be of importance for many areas of study, however these issues came to light for me through teaching Art History. Hip Pendant Representing an Iyoba Queen (‘Queen Mother’). 16th century. Nigeria, Court of Benin, Edo culture. (Metrop