The College of Fine Arts and Department of Art and Art History proudly congratulates Dr. Ann Johns on receiving The University of Texas at Austin President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award. This award recognizes excellence in undergraduate education in the core curriculum.
Dr. Johns is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Art History and has served as the Director of the Learning Tuscany Study Abroad Program since 2006. Johns is admired for her dedication to undergraduate teaching and service, a dedication that extends far beyond the classroom to a larger curricular and educational agenda. Her innovative use of synchronous massive online courses (SMOC) has brought the study of Art History to students across the university. Art History majors and non-majors alike are given an incomparable foundation in the skills of critical thinking, visual literacy, and evaluation of source information.
Where other SMOC courses focus on synchronous learning, Johns and her team have created a true hybrid course that best serves the needs of art historians who know that there is no substitute for seeing works in person. Johns' SMOC course blends engaging, live lectures broadcast online with onsite visits to the Blanton Museum of Art for close observation of art guided by direct instruction with Teaching Assistants.
Only the second faculty member to have received the President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award at the College of Fine Arts, Johns joins her colleague, Art History Professor Julia Guernsey in the honor. "Ann has made a lasting and important contribution through her teaching and service to a body of students from all majors," said Guernsey.
"These students come-often, for the first time-to learn about the history of art and its impact through her Signature Courses, her introductory art history courses, and especially to her SMOC course which is host to some 400 students."
Attentive to all aspects of the undergraduate art history experience, Johns works tirelessly in her role as the Director of the Learning Tuscany Study Abroad Program. Johns has described Learning Tuscany as a holistic growth and learning process. Meaning that students not only learn the importance of seeing and learning about art in context, but how to negotiate foreign cities and understand the challenges of mass tourism and soaring museum attendance in the 21st century.
Speaking to the student experience of the Learning Tuscany program, Department of Art and Art History Chair Jack Risley said, "The 24-hour nature of this assignment was made clear to me when, over the course of a day, I witnessed Johns fielding repeated phone calls from a group of students on their way to the Venice Biennale. First telephone call-they had bought the wrong train tickets, second call-the conductor asked them to get off the train, third call-panic, fourth call-Johns speaks to the conductor. And so on, day in, day out. I cannot overstate the tenacity of Ann Johns in this role."
The culminating event for Art History undergraduates, the Undergraduate Art History Symposium on April 20, is a much-anticipated event for Johns who serves as the faculty advisor for Art History Honors students. "My goal for all of my classes is to use art as a prism through which to teach students a variety of skills," said Johns.
"For the lower division classes, these skills are critical thinking and visual literacy. For my upper division classes, the goal is to teach sophisticated research skills-reading, writing, and presentation-through group projects, individual research, classroom discussion of challenging readings, and direct engagement with art," Johns remarked. "Which is why I particularly enjoy the Undergraduate Art History Symposium. I look forward each year to watching the Art History honors students learn, struggle through real research, and thrive over several semesters to the final completion of a well-researched piece of scholarship (aided of course by our world class libraries)."