AMICO Library Model Assignments

New media, including The AMICO Library™, promises to make new ways to study and teach art history possible. The AMICO Library is a resource that goes beyond what has been available in the past with slide libraries and illustrated books. The AMICO Model Assignments have been designed to illustrate some of these new pathways to teaching and study. None of the assignments themselves are especially complicated technologically. Instead, they are designed to show how the technology of The AMICO Library can be used to develop new insights and teaching approaches to art and art history.

Range of Assignment Types

A few assignments require students to do original research on museum art objects of the highest quality and significance that they have not been exposed to in class, something facilitated by The AMICO Library. Other exercises expand on such traditional art history assignments as identification and compare and contrast. Some assignments were prepared for individual students to use on their own outside of regular lectures and classroom assignments

Flexible Content Structures

All of the exercises are designed to be flexible and adaptable to different situations and contexts. Some, for example, may be used with examples supplied from The AMICO Library, with other examples chosen by the instructor, or with images researched by the students. Others could be used by individual students, groups of students, or by the instructor in a class discussion.

Provide Feedback

All the AMICO assignments have been tested against The AMICO Library to make sure there is sufficient content to complete the exercise. We are expanding this area with additional assignments on a regular basis and would appreciate understanding your needs for more exercises in a particular area or of a particular type. Also, we would like to post assignments from faculty of subscribing schools to make this area as rich and useful as possible. Please email feedback@amico.org if you wish to comment on the existing assignments, suggest future assignments, or contribute something you've created.

Model Assignments

Survey of Courses Offered

AMICO made a study of teaching at subscribing institutions in the fall of 2000 as background to the Model Assignments

• Survey of AMICO Library Subscribers by type of institution and courses (.PDF)
• Additional chart relating to the survey (.PDF)

Read the Press Release