Goals

Make chapters more engaging by moving engaging material to the start of each chapter.
Streamline and simplify the material. Cover less material but have a deeper understanding. really focusing on what matters most.
Improve assignments and testing materials. Refining questions on exams.

Goal 1

In my sensation & perception course, we discuss monocular and binocular cues of depth. Going forward I would like to include a discussion where I give students examples of Medieval and Renaissance art and have them compare and contrast. Medieval has some depth cues but is lacking depth cues present in many examples of Renaissance art (Brooks, 2017). I could also use examples from other ancient civilizations like ancient Egypt, China, or possibly even paleolithic art in the form of cave paintings.

Previously I used the famous “The School of Athens” to highlight the artist’s use of monocular cues to give the illusion of depth. However, in this case, I did not have students compare to art that lacked monocular cues, and the discussion was directly led by me with a heavy lecture component.

Raphael’s “The School of Athens” utilizes many examples of monocular depth cues to give the illusion of depth.

Below you can see potential examples using two paintings depicting “the last supper”. The art from the medieval period is noticeably flatter in appearance than the later Renaissance period depiction by Da Vinci. I suspect that this difference would be immediately apparent to students but it’s possible they have never considered details of what makes art appear to have depth. I would give students a variety of examples and have them explore what is different and why in think-pair-share style groups. Then I would introduce the concept of monocular and binocular cues and how they relate to the perception of depth. I would also use this exercise to highlight the difference between sensation and perception (of depth in this case). After this instruction, I would have students consider new art examples and list the monocular cues that were present or absent.

“The Last Supper and the Agony in the Garden,” Spoleto, Italy, circa 1300, appears flat because it lacks many important monocular cues of depth.

The famous “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci (1495-1498) appears to have depth because of improvements in the use of monocular cues in art during the Renaissance. What kinds of cues is DaVinci using to give his art depth that are missing from the 1300s painting?

Goal 2

I noticed that the slides provided by the book publisher are often poor quality. There is often too much text on each slides which is overwhelming for students and takes a long time to record notes. I discovered that even slides of my own contained simply too much information. Additionally, sometimes there was superfluous information or information that was presented in a confusing manner. I also noticed sometimes we cover topics that take up time that might be better spent getting a deeper understanding of another more essential topic.

Going forward, I would continue to streamline my slides by reducing the amount of text on search slide an carefully considering the material that is being presented.

Goal 3

Over the course of my time teaching experimented with different platforms and styles of assignments and examinations. I would like to continue to build my exam questions giving more thought to each question and each multiple choice answer offered. I also want to make sure that the questions reflect the material that I think is important for students to learn and remember.

Reference

Brooks, K. R. (2017). Depth perception and the history of three-dimensional art: Who produced the first stereoscopic images? I-Perception, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2041669516680114