Art Logic Course

I would appreciate any relevant insight on this idea of a new course: Art@LenaNechet.com

Course Description

Art logic course teaches step-by-step analysis of information and presenting it as memorable pictures using art composition principles, with emphasis on scientific concepts and examples based on foundational ideas of major disciplines and practical optimization.

Foundations

The art logic course should be based on a collection of visual approaches and research:

• newest memory studies, mnemonics, and research in the neurobiology of creativity;
• scientific illustration, visualization, symbolization, and visual design;
• color theory, graph data models, and mind-mapping techniques;
• systems analysis, algorithms, logical design, modeling, and conceptual diagrams.

Course Goals

The course should provide the participants with a set of reliable skills in applying principles of visual composition. Upon completion, students should be able to sketch out any concept on a piece of paper in a few minutes. The course should give tools for five main things:

1. Understanding complex concepts in most disciplines and creating mental structures for knowledge expansion, to serve as a foundation for future learning;
2. Communicate ideas across fields when terminology and frameworks are different, for the sake of collaboration and persuasion;
3. Solving problems faster and better by starting with an essential model;
4. Managing energy, time, and matter easily and consistently;
5. Generating new projects, for innovation and progress.

Teaching Style

This course should be media-independent and interactive. It should teach step-by-step thinking about new ideas and problems. It should explain in detail how to apply the most efficient ways to identify:

• main structures and connections, what is necessary and what is sufficient;
• what is primary and secondary, what is most important for which goal;
• causation and outcome, or dependency and subordination, correlation and coexistence, etc.

It will explain in theory and with multiple examples, how to:

• root the base structure or principle in memory with color, line, shape, and relations;
• attach the new data to an already existing base with visual means;
• avoid mind biases, logical fallacies, and exclusion of potentially important unknowns.

Course Structure

Immediate application of logical and art analysis skills will be the key in this unit-based course, where interactive lectures will be followed by playful group critique sessions. The last project will incorporate all or any approaches to the subject of analysis.

The grades will be based on these aspects of the student's work:

1. enthusiastic participation in games and discussions with comments, answers, and questions;
2. argumentation during critique sessions with
   
   1. presentations of interpretation of  self-generated plans and external sources;
   2. followed by short oral exams throughout the course.

The evaluation will be somewhat unusual: the more original ideas are proposed and implemented, and the more the students co-create the class and the assignments, the better the outcome.

Variations

The "Money Art" course teaches visualizing the basic principles of personal finance in colorful artwork and solving money-managing challenges with graphic sketches.

My Inspiration

One of my professional goals is to design a course I always wanted to take myself if it existed. I see many opportunities to implement visual aids in our societies, which would optimize the use of our precious resources. I noticed that educational systems are oriented more on filtering people with talent or existing skills, testing them via assignments with minimal practical instruction and with a trial-and-error approach, and trying to shape either good students or good employees. I want to fix that.

My Relevant Experience

1. Tutoring mathematics and studying it, especially mathematical programming and optimization;
2. Using both process and object-oriented programming;
3. Certification in web ergonomics and implementing it in web development;
4. Teaching foreign languages with complex syntactic analysis;
5. Teaching art composition and color theory, and working with life models.

Obstacles

There is a lot of talk about STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, plus Art) curricula, but it is not widely implemented yet. There are no easy ways to introduce such an interdisciplinary course in traditional educational institutions. I could not find a graduate degree that could open the doors to an introduction of such a course.