Museum Studies Commons^™

Making Space For Makerspace: How Adding A Makerspace Can Benefit Art Museum Education Programming, Kaeleigh Thorp

Master's Projects and Capstones

In this capstone project, I advocate for adding makerspaces to art museum education programming. I review the foundational educational concepts of a makerspace which help explain why it is a modern strategy to increasing visitor learning. This includes John Dewey’s theories of experience and education, Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory, George Hein’s studies of museum visitor behavior, and the physiological science of learning. I then propose four key terms essential for visitor learning, and explain how makerspaces successfully incorporate them. The four key terms are: 1. multiple intelligences, 2. direct experience, 3. inquiry based and open ended learning, and 4. …

Organizational Improvement Plan: Establishing A Plan For A Rural Museum To Actively Engage Its Community Youth, Jason Pankratz

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Rural museums play active roles within their communities. They provide opportunities for community members to volunteer and engage as patrons. The museum within this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is the hub of culture and tourism for a small town in Ontario. It has a solid volunteer base made up of town citizens. These individuals participate because they have an innate interest in the culture and heritage of the town. A weakness to the volunteer base is that there is no active policy or practice to involve youth as volunteers or in leadership roles. This OIP suggests that the museum partner …

Play And Exhibitions: Expanding Definitions Within Museums, Helena Sizemore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of the utilization of play, as a method for visitor engagement, within the context of the museum. Play, as a method for learning and engagement, is often a contested topic between scholars and practitioners within the museum field. This is in part due to the ambiguous nature of defining play, the ever-present dichotomy between work and play, and the struggles museums find in balancing education and entertainment. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, Colorado names play as part of one of its core values. Using anthropological theoretical and methodological approaches, I examine …

Formal Learning In An Informal Setting: The Cognitive And Affective Impacts Of Visiting A Science Center During A School Field Trip, Charlie Belin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the pressures of budget cuts, many schools--particularly schools serving low-income students--are eliminating school field trips to museums, zoos, and other cultural institutions despite their widely reported utility. First, through a systematic review of the literature, I examine the findings from 17 international studies on the benefits of visiting an informal science education institution during a K-12 school field trip. Almost all pre-post studies reported a positive change in both cognitive and affective outcomes after visiting an ISEI. However, studies that also included a control group to compare students who visited the ISEI with students who had yet to visit …

Ethical Issues: Good, Bad, And Ugly, Roann Barris

Academic Chairpersons Conference Proceedings

Censorship: it is unlikely that any academic, especially in the arts, would come out in favor of censorship. But what is the right course of action when a student's work in a graduation show offends the public? And if steps are taken to remove the presumably offensive work, are we betraying our beliefs about the value of student's work or promoting good relationships with the public? This has been an active year for ethical questions about art -- but who expect them to be our own issues? Details about this case and all the roles played will be provided as …

The Maple Leaf Route, Dan Rager

Dan Rager

Reasserting Arts Education In K-12 Curriculum: A Qualitative Case Study And Pilot Programs, Amber Geary

Books

From September 2015 through September 2017, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College conducted a cross-sectional study that asked, “What makes K-12 public school educators choose to use a museum as part of their curriculum?” At the time of this research, no qualitative studies—either regional or national—could be found on this subject. Studies addressing the “how” and the “what” involved in museum-school collaborations had been published, but none looked at the “why” that motivated such partnerships.

This mixed-method, regional study reflects perspectives of teachers and administrators on the museum-school collaboration dynamic after the introduction of the …

Taking Cues From Online Learning Offline In The Visual Classroom, Kimberly Datchuk

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Theories of online learning can inform how academic museums provide a student-centered approach to teaching. Technology has four main advantages for teaching in the museum: it is open-ended, self-paced, collaborative, and empowering. In order to activate the art works and encourage students to contribute their ideas, I have drawn on the best practices of online teaching tools when designing university class visits. The chance to discuss works among themselves enables students to make personal connections to the works and each other. The informal environment of the class visit helps to produce a student-led experience. Encouraging students to ask questions, following …

Critical Peace Pedagogies At The American Center For Civil And Human Rights And The Canadian Museum For Human Rights: A Comparative Case Study, Ion Vlad

Doctoral Dissertations

The struggle for racial equity in the United States and Canada is ongoing. Troubled historical legacies in both countries have present-day implications. African Americans and Indigenous Canadians are still two of the most marginalized populations from the standpoint of socioeconomics and political representation (Giroux, 2013; Vickers, 2012). In order to redress these problems, human rights and peace education have to pose structural questions and expose systemic unbalances. In the recent past, neoliberalism has had a major influence on the organization and content of American and Canadian formal education, obscuring some of these structural questions (Ravitch, 2013). In this context, human …