Lauren Golden

I believe that what makes me an excellent teacher both at High School and University level is my passion for Art History. The foundation of my pedagogical approach is the Socratic Dialogue. I believe that it is vital that the person, or group, come to ‘an answer’ themselves. This means that the individual learns to ‘think’ independently as opposed to learning by rote. No matter the age of the student my goal as a teacher is to strive to aid them in becoming truly engaged with the subject matter. For me, this is an essential part of the learning process and especially important as preparation for A Levels and continuing to Higher Education.

While a course textbook is important, I create all my own PowerPoint Teaching Presentations that are designed to take the student through the learning process of how to understand a work of art. Each 'slide' is designed for question and answer from me to the students that concludes with a summary of the discussion and formal qualities of the artwork. I know that this method of teaching/lecturing that is interactive with the students transmits my passion for Art History that inspires and educates to high standard.

Art History involves contextual understanding of many other subjects, such as History, Geography,Politics and Literature and so I continually assess the different methods and their success in promoting a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject - how to make intellectual connections. My lessons plans are varied that range from reading and taking notes, filling in worksheets to name a few, which are all designed to further good essay writing and the effective communication of information, critical thinking and ideas. All these activities can be continually assessed and adjusted to further enable learning and comprehension. Students are given documents and teaching that map out the writing of essays and everything I produce can be used by pupils of varying abilities. In fact, these teaching documents are designed to build knowledge slowly but surely. Those of a more advanced capability have opportunities to demonstrate their skills with the same documents and essay assignments.