2005 ALA Conference June 25, 20051 Natural History as Narrative: Using Museum Exhibitions and Artifacts to Teach History Elizabeth C. Babcock, Ph.D. Director

2005 ALA Conference June 25, 2005 1

Natural History as Narrative: Using Museum Exhibitions and

Artifacts to Teach History

Elizabeth C. Babcock, Ph.D.Director of Teacher and Student Programs

Education [email protected]


Objectives

Explain why museums can be exceptional learning environments for elementary and secondary history students and their teachers

Describe The Field Museum’s object-based approach to professional development for educators

Explore how The Field Museum’s focused field trip framework, professional development initiatives, and primary sources have improved teachers’ ability to teach history (and other subject areas)


Reflections of an anthropologist on museum-based education

© The Field Museum, GN89574_13Ac


© The Field Museum, GN90488_020d


Reflections of an anthropologist on museum-based education

© The Field Museum, GN89576_12Ac


Museums as exceptional learning environments

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Museums are one type of informal learning environments

ILEs allow and promote enculturation of visitors into social practices pertinent to that context (e.g. how to experience a museum)

ILEs tend to use primary source objects as teaching tools, rather than text

Participation connects learner with a particular identity (girl scout, museum-goer, nature-lover)

ILEs tend to promote self-directed learning--Paris and Hapgood,

2002


Museums are particularly effective informal learning environments

Museums are “powerful learning institutions” because “they afford unprecedented opportunities to explore, observe and sense a fairly limited set of contextually relevant, highly structured, concrete experiences; all within a socially and physically novel, but safe environment.”

--Falk, 2002


Museum-based learning is constructivist learningIf…

Learning is essentially meaning-making;Meaning making is a social activity; andThe museum experience is primarily a social activity;

Then…The museum experience is essentially about meaning-making, and museums are especially powerful tools for learning.

--Vygotsky 1978; Hein 1998; Rowe 2002


Museum learning is context-dependent

Museum-based learning emerges from the interaction of these three contexts through time:

Personal: motivation & expectations, interest, prior knowledge & experience, choice and control

Sociocultural: within- group sociocultural mediation, facilitated mediations by others

Physical: advance preparation, setting, design, subsequent reinforcing events and experiences

Personal

Physical

Sociocultural

Time

--Lynn Dierking (with Falk), 2002


Museums represent an exceptional learning environment for inquiry-based learning

Real world questions or problems Collaborative problem solving Multiple ways to demonstrate competence, often

through culminating project or artifact creation Requires scaffolding, or a learning framework provided

by the teacher that encourages strategic thinking Choice over learning topics Multimodal and multimedia information Pertinent technologies

--Paris and Hapgood 2002


Constructivist and object-based learning theories have infused exhibition design

Object based epistemology (late 19th-early 20th c.) Arrangement is the interpretation Assumes interpretation is universal and obvious Arrangement reveals natural order Focus is description and classification Focus is on the object

Object based discourse (20th c. to present) Focus is interpretation and explanation Focus is on the relationship between object and visitor Mediating conflicting voices (curator, designer, educator, visitor)

--Evans, Mull, Poling, 2002


Professional development at The Field Museum


Not all field trips are meaningful learning experiences

• Research shows that the average length of time spent by a student at any one exhibit case is just over a minute

• The vast majority of teachers enter museums with an inadequate or no learning plan for the experience

• Teachers often feel ill-equipped to teach their students while in museums, preferring instead to rely on museum “experts”

• The reality is that limited museum budgets preclude assigning a staff person or volunteer to most school groups

• In 2004, 10% of Field Museum field trip groups received direct education-related services with a museum educator, up from 6.8% in 2002. Still, this is a minority of groups.


The solution is to train teachers to create focused field trips that link to classroom instruction

• Museum-based professional development is essential to achieving this goal.

• Workshops, in-services, educator guides, Harris Loan materials are the resources we use to train teachers.

• The focused field trip framework is the foundation of The Field Museum’s professional development instruction.


The Field Museum provides a range of professional development options for teachers Harris Educational Loan Center

Teacher Workshops

Customized In-Services

Free Educator Guides to our exhibitions

Strategic Partnerships

IIT Math and Science Masters Education Program

Museums and Public Schools

Field Ambassadors and Core Partners Program

Museum Science Partners

Cultural Connections


The Harris Loan Center provides free materials for use at schools Items are primary sources

Free in-services on how to register and use the program

Over 1000 items for loan including experience boxes, exhibit cases, audiovisual materials, and children’s books

In 2004, 178,670 teachers and students were served and 3500 items were borrowed


Harris Loan examples: Dinos and Their Times


Harris Loan examples: Cover Your Head


Harris Loan examples: Southwest Archaeology


Teacher workshop and in-service examplesUsing Primary Sources in the Classroom

Creation Stories from Around the World

Biodiversity in the Classroom

Destination: Reading

Math In-service: How to use the botany hall to teach the Fibonacci sequence

Art In-service: How to use the Northwest Coast Hall to teach primary colors, shapes, symmetry, etc.


Examples of educator guides and on-line resourcesIsland Biodiversity: An Educator Guide to Traveling the Pacific

Educator Guide to Machu Picchu

Educator Guide to What is an Animal?

Educator Guide to Underground Adventure

Expeditions@thefield

On-line exhibitions

Sue the T.rex website

mailto:Expeditions@thefield


Exploring the focused field trip framework

© The Field Museum, GN90551_16D

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The focused field trip framework facilitates inquiry-based learning using primary sources

Prescriptive model, (not simply a list of activity ideas,) for structuring a field trip unit that includes a pre-, during, and post-field trip component

Provides in-depth guidance for structuring different modes of interaction with “objects behind glass” as well as interactive museum exhibitions

Allows for multiple learning styles (Gardner 1983) and group sizes

Allows for increasing levels of complexity in learning-analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Bloom 1956)

Transferable to any museum setting or informal learning environment


The focused field trip includes a pre-, during, and post-visit experience

Pre-visit

Post-visit


Pre-, during, post-field trip activities create a complete learning experience

© The Field Museum, GN90551_16D


Pre-, during, post-field trip activities create a complete learning experience

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The focused field trip framework outlines nine modes of interaction with primary sources

Sample activityMode of interaction

Descriptive verbs

Recommended group size

Scavenger hunt

Search and find

Identify, locate Individual, pair

Scrapbook, photo, picture

Recreate the object

Sketch, draw, sculpt, photograph

Individual

Pair, groupEssay, poem, word drawing, class debate

Describe Write, discuss


The focused field trip framework cont’d.

Venn diagram, chart, graph

Compare and contrast

Individual, pair

Concept map, experience chart, create a collection

Categorize Match, label, differentiate, group

Individual, pair, group

Individual, pairProblem-based worksheet; hands-on experiment

Hypothesize Test, collect evidence, predict, generalize


Descriptive verbs


Compare, contrast


The focused field trip framework cont’d.


Descriptive verbs


Individual, pairFill-in-the-blank worksheet, note cards

Observe and record

Fact-find, take notes, research

Role play, drama, creative writing, create your own exhibit

Create a narrative

Tell a story Individual, pair, group

Individual, pair, group

Flow charts, sequence charts, logic games

Construct an argument

Reason, collect

evidence, sequence


A Case Study: Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples Hall Hall contains hundreds of artifacts from Northwest Coast and Inupiat communities, collected at the turn of the century.

Unique cross-cultural teaching resource because the same curatorial framework is applied to two culture areas which are displayed side by side

Setting for a number of professional development workshops on nature/culture interactions and a regular workshop offered each year called Using Primary Sources


A Case Study: Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples Hall

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Themes typically addressed with teachers while using this exhibition:

How primary sources are not just documents, but objects

How to “read” objects for insights into nature, culture

NAGPRA

Roles and responsibilities of museums in cultural representation, conservation and collection

Interrelatedness of culture/nature

How to teach cross-cultural themes and create a sensitive framework for cultural comparison


Focusing a field trip in the Northwest Coast/Arctic Peoples Hall Teachers are given an overview of basic cultural information about the two groups represented.

Teachers are taught how to use objects to spark inquiry

They are introduced to the focused field trip framework.

They are provided with examples of how to use the framework and are given an opportunity to practice in small groups and report back.


Sample field trip activities for the NW Coast Hall, mapped to the framework

Search and Find

The raven exists on many artifacts in the Northwest Coast Hall and is an important icon in Native American art. See how many ravens you can find in drawings and carvings on everyday objects and tools, as well as portrayed on costumes and masks.

Recreate the Object

Sketch your own Raven, Wolf, or Bear mask, using those you see in the exhibition as inspiration.


Sample field trip activities for the NW Coast Hall, mapped to the framework

Hypothesize

Based on your examination of the materials used to make the objects in the exhibition, and the plants and animals represented in them, write a description and/or draw a picture of what the ecosystem in that area must be like. Then look for evidence supporting or refuting your hypothesis in some of the films and photographs in the exhibition.

Create a narrative

Now that you have studied some creation myths and looked at material objects depicting different Northwest Coast legends, see if you can write your own creation myth for the Northwest Coast people that uses some of the same symbolism and key characters.


Object-based learning at the Museum can be extended with the Harris Loan program


Harris Educational Loan Program, cont’d.


Observations


Teachers are not necessarily familiar with the concept of primary sources and how to use them

While it may be common sense to librarians and anthropologists that objects are imbued with meaning and “tell stories,” this is a new idea to some teachers.

While it may be common sense to exhibit designers that exhibits tell stories with objects, this is also a new idea to some teachers.

Real artifacts and specimens represent an essential teaching resource that can be effectively combined, but not replaced, by digital media.


An “anthropological approach” to teacher education has been helpful in…

Identifying teacher and student needs

Modeling human behavior to create the focused field trip framework

Incorporating anthropological concepts into new education materials and teacher training

Educating teachers about ethical responsibilities re. representation of “the other”

Explaining the cultural diversity with the theme of “Common Concerns, Different Reponses”

Documents

2005 ALA Conference June 25, 20051 Natural History as Narrative: Using Museum Exhibitions and Artifacts to Teach History Elizabeth C. Babcock, Ph.D. Director