It all started when…

The Art Education ColLab began with Dr. Kristin Vanderlip Taylor’s dissertation research, which explored possibilities for supporting beginning visual art teachers as they transitioned from the university setting to the professional field. Through conversation with her colleagues at CSULB, Kristin discovered that Dr. Laurie Gatlin and Dr. Brian Trimble were both interested in the same idea! Together, they formed a pilot group of beginning visual art teachers (BVATs) from CSUN and CSULB in their first year teaching art with four veteran art teacher mentors for the 2021-22 academic year. Meeting monthly online as a whole group and individually in mentor/mentee teams, this mentoring community of practice helped eight novice art educators navigate their first year in the field, sometimes as the lone art teacher at their school sites.

Expanding to eleven BVATs and six mentors in 2022-23, Year 2 allowed for a few in-person sessions to take place in addition to the monthly virtual meetings, including: an initial meet-and-greet artmaking workshop, the California Art Education Association conference at CSULB,  a museum field trip to the Cheech Marin Art Museum in Riverside, CA, and an optional weeklong summer institute at CSUN in June.

Data collection each year includes: a Photovoice project, Visual Journaling, a BVAT questionnaire, and a mentor focus group. Findings from the first year were presented at the UNM Mentoring Conference in October 2022, along with a published paper for the UNM Mentoring Conference and an article documenting the creative practices of the Art Ed ColLab in the International Visual Journal of Art Education IMAG, with additional presentations at various conferences (CAEA, NAEA, International Arts in Society, and International Online Arts in Teacher Education). The content-specific support and resources shared among members in this community of practice have been noted as one of the primary highlights, in addition to the confidence-building and feelings of community and belonging experienced by participants. As a High-Impact Practice (HIP), the Art Ed ColLab strives to ensure that newly-credentialed art teachers are supported in their initial years teaching with others who may share similar lived experiences as art teachers, alleviating feelings of professional isolation and finding solutions to the challenges they encounter. 

We were excited to have our first and second group of BVATs return this academic year (2025-26) as mentors in this cyclical community of practice, and we are currently engaged in a longitudinal study about art teacher retention and job satisfaction as a result of participating in the Art Education ColLab.

The goals of the Art Ed ColLab are threefold:

• to retain new art teachers in the profession and help promote job satisfaction through whole educator support

• to build a cyclical, sustainable community of practice that continues to grow and support early career art teachers

• to serve as a model of early career teacher mentoring/professional learning that is content-specific and directly addresses the needs and well-being of beginning teachers

Kristin is currently working on a book called “Cultivating Mentor Communities with Care: A Practical Guide to Sustaining Early Career Educators - The Art Education ColLab and Beyond.” It shares the story of the Art Education ColLab as a mentoring model for anyone interested in developing communities of practice to holistically support early career educators’ well-being. Stay tuned for updates on its progress and where it’s available!