Learning in a Museum

The Learning in a Museum course explores the educational value and potential of present-day museums for learning. 

The course investigates strategies educators can use to plan, implement and evaluate learning in a museum, and more generally transform their students’ museum experiences into connected, engaging, and integrated activities which lead to their intellectual growth.

Throughout the course, participants will:

• discuss the meaning of museum learning and how to set the stage for it
• review the learning-in-a-museum competences and evaluate strategies for currently working within them
• creatively adapt museum learning to educational projects and design active tasks for museum learning

2.3 After the museum visit

Main topics of the video:

• Give the students the opportunity to exhibit their learning
• Put on the board different exhibits
• Reading class, math class, social science class, science class, all work together
• Exhibits: visual art, art pieces, write poems , create labels etc
• Assess what has to be learned

ACTIVITY

Choose a traditional static exhibit in a museum you could visit / have visited with your class – you may search the Internet for photos taken by visitors or use your own experience. Go to this forum thread and briefly describe the exhibit or (if possible) post a picture, then describe the way(s) you could make this exhibit more interactive and explain how this could help facilitate the understanding of the exhibit. 


After a museum visit, an activity we had 2 years ago was the creation of a virtual museum of our local archaeological museum in Greece. 

The students took pictures of the exhibits they had worked on, and then created easily their own virtual museum with the web tool ArtSteps. 

It is interactive.


The visitor uses the arrow keys to move inside it.

During your museum visit-Mooc participants' nice ideas

2.2 During your museum visit

Tips and tricks for educators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:

My key points of the video above :

1. Sitting expectations
2. Focus on only 3 or 4 works of art
3. Make a conversation about them
4. Select large works of art to have space around them
5. Spot interesting details on the work of art
6. Ask the students how works of art help exchange ideas
7. Spot interesting works of art discussed and compare them with eachother
8. Cultivate deep engagement
9. Recreate a work of art with details
10. Bring a material like marble for the students to touch, since we can't touch the exhibits

In summary:

• Set clear expectations
• Select works of art strategicaly
• Use a theme to establish a clear focus
• Incorporate a set of activities

ACTIVITY

Let’s make a really nice long list of excellent activities at museums which we can use as inspiration for our next museum field trip.

My post:

Create copies of the exhibits exactly how the see them in the museum, with plasticine, clay and other materials.

 

My post in the FORUM

During your museum visit FORUM

Module 2.1 Planning your museum visit Activity

ACTIVITY

To ensure that a museum visit runs smoothly, there are many things teachers need to do in advance, such as complete school paperwork, organise transportation and chaperones, etc. Head over to this forum thread to discuss all the different tasks we need to think about as we plan the museum visit. 

My post:

1) The teacher visits the museum before hand to make a plan about the specific exhibits the students will focus on      

2) Discussion with the students about what they know about museums and if they have visited the specific museum before                                 

3) Search the museum's site online                          4) The students choose the exhibits they are attracted to                    

5) The teacher  designs hands on activities for the students, like spreadsheets, treasure hunt etc            6)  The students write what they expect to know after their visit                

7) The teacher and the students plan what the outcome of the visit will be, like, a book, a brochure, art crafts, a digital museum for their class blog etc    

8) The teacher creates an evaluation for the students as a self evaluation and an teacher's evaluation

Planning your museum visit forum

 
 

2.1 Planning your museum visit video

2.1 Planning your museum visit

There are usually three main parts to planning a field trip: 

• pre-field trip activitiescompleted in the classroom, 
• field trip activities at the museum, and 
• post-field trip activities conducted back in the classroom.

Some thoughts of mine during Module 1

Virtual visit in Acropolis museum in Athens

Game : Color the Peplos Kore

Facebook Question of the Week

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: If you could visit any one of these 11 museums here this year, which would it be and why? Please answer as a reply to this post, thank you.

My Facebook Team post:

My dream is to go to the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg in Russia because it houses many works of arts for which I have heard so many thing.

I would like to see:

• Madonna Litta of Da Vinci
• Rembrandt’s Danae
• The Three Graces inspired by greek myths
• the Dance of Matisse
• Saints Peter and Paul of El Greco

and so many others.

Hermitage Museum

Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg in Russia

If You Haven't Visited These 11 Museums, You Need a Culture Trip in 2018

1.3 Museums as constructors of knowledge

ACTIVITY

Consider how the hands-on learning approach facilitated in modern museums fits into your day-to-day curriculum.

What would be the best way to fit a museum visit into your curriculum? And how would you prepare your students to benefit from such interactive experiences? How would you follow up their experience?

1.2 Museums as community centers

ACTIVITY

Museums as community centres

What do Nina Simon’s ideas mean for learning in museums? How does the opening up of museums impact what and how our students can learn in a museum? Does the focus on community in museums distract from learning about the topics of a museum’s exhibit? Why, or why not?

My point of view:

Inspiring talk!

• In museums we can actively participate.
• Connect more deeply with each other.
• Do science experiments together.
• Being co-creators (how to improve a museum)
• Given tools are very important on how people interact in a museum.
• Make the museum relevant with ourselves.
• Artifacts as social objects.
• Encourage discussions in the museums.
• Social bridging.

Our students can learn in a museum because they will be active and active learning is a better and deeper learning. They will experiment in the museum. They will use objects. They will open up and discuss. They will be co-creators.  The focus on community is crucial. And as Lev Vygotsky has said, learning is an social function.

Padlet

1.1 What is a museum?

ACTIVITY

What is a museum?

Let’s start by reflecting on what a museum is. Without any further prompts or research, write down your own definition of a museum.

Padlet

My point of view:

A museum is a place with exhibits of a certain topic, place and time. There are many kinds of museums, according to the topic of the collection which is presented to the public.Some kinds of museums are:

• eco museums
• computer mus.
• lighthouse mus.
• food museums
• mobile museums

and so many others!

Mooc intro

Twitter: #MuseumLearning