Module 2

Module 2: Field Trips to Museums

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.

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

2.2 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:

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

Mooc participants' nice ideas:

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.

2.4 Virtual museum visits

If you want to “visit” a museum virtually, there are three main formats available:

1. Browse through a digitised museum catalogue such as the one shown here:

2. Wander through a museum via a 360-degree photo tour, like this one.
3. Immerse yourselves in 360-degree virtual reality video, such as the following. (Note that you do not need virtual reality glasses for these videos, as you can use your mouse to move the video around. Of course, the experience is far more immersive using virtual reality glasses.)

For some more examples, see here:

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (the USA)
• London Natural History Museum (Great Britain)
• Google Arts & Culture webpage

ACTIVITY

How could you use these examples of virtual museum visits with your students? What opportunities do you see for using these resources in combination with an actual museum visit? What challenges would you anticipate when using such resources? Are you aware of more virtual museum visits?

Create a digital artefact where these questions are answered and where you can include links and examples. You can use any publishing tool you like, such as Smore, Sway, Spark, Google Docs, etc.

PADLET

Below it is my work:

2.5 Create a museum learning experience

ACTIVITY

Start reflecting on what you want to focus on in this lesson. Then create a worksheet or similar lesson resource (e.g. an online quiz, annotated map, etc.) which you could use in your lesson. Post your worksheet or similar lesson resource together with a short description in this forum thread. Browse through the work of your peers and provide feedback by commenting on one of them.

I share an activity I had with a french colleague of mine, Isabelle Dufrene, in an eTwinning project of ours. The students had found pieces of art and shraed them with their team, letting them find out their name, origin and creator. Then they created an eBook with their activities:

Here is the eBook with the team work of the students of both schools with the title

"Will you guess my masterpiece?"

based on the work they had in the Forum.

eBook with some of the mooc participants' ideas about some during and after visit activities: