Museum Visits Play Vital Role in J-Term Courses

During J-Term more than 100 HGSE students found themselves being schooled off Appian Way.  Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt and Lecturer Shari Tishman took students in their J-Term courses off campus to museums including the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Sackler Museum, and DeCordova Museum as a way to emphasize the importance and relevance of museums as institutions in which to teach and learn.

“Museums are designed to provide us with sensory and cognitively and emotionally rich experiences,” Tishman says. “They provide such a great starting point for learning: They are informal learning environments that welcome self-direction and encourage active learning. We tend to engage in active learning when we are in an environment where we have to create structure rather than rely on a ‘Do what you are told’ structure of formal environments.”

Students enrolling in J-Term courses -- including Tishman’s “Active Learning in Museums” and Blatt’s “Informal Learning for Children” --  give up much of their winter breaks, but most consider the sacrifice to be worth it in order to be able to engage in unique learning experiences.

Dami Seung, a museum educator earning her degree in Arts in Education, has no regrets about using her winter break to take a class. “Many [regular-term] courses aren’t structured in a way that allows for multiple visits in museums,” says Seung, a student in Tishman’s course. “This course provided an opportunity to learn different ways museums can make an impact. Yeah, it’s during the winter break but is totally worth it.”

Tishman and Blatt organized field trips to local museums as a means to bring life to the different types of learning being discussed inside their own classrooms.

“Because of museums’ rich collections and evocative environments, they provide wonderful opportunities to explore learning in action,” says Tishman, noting that the majority of her classes during J-Term were conducted in museums.

Blatt’s course did not focus on museums exclusively. Rather, it explored a wide range of informal learning environments with an emphasis on the profound impact of students’ experiences outside the classroom.

“So much of young people’s learning takes place out of school,” Blatt says. “We study outstanding examples of informal learning vehicles on television, in apps, games, and other interactive media, and also in venues for face-to-face learning – from travel to shopping malls to museums.”

With some 100 students enrolled in his “Informal Learning” course, Blatt arranged a day trip to the ICA to examine its rich variety of exhibits and onsite activities for learners of all ages, as well as its ability to provide imaginative online learning experiences specifically designed to engage teens.

Students spent the day exploring the various educational offerings of the ICA and also the different aspects of learning available in the galleries. Blatt says the opportunity to spend time in the galleries and gain a better understanding of the various learning tools, from audio guides to docents to cell phones, provided a good reminder for students on how to scaffold learning as well.

“I was taken aback by the ICA,” says Technology, Innovation, and Education student Mette Bohnstedt. “I was so impressed with how they structured their exhibition and how they focused on teenagers.”

Bohnstedt didn’t have any prior museum education experience and was impressed with how the ICA had built a community space and also incorporated technology into its exhibition creating ways to bring art into lives and explore it.

As part of a class final project, Bohnstedt and a group of her classmates created their own design and proposal for a museum exhibition on advertising literacy, demonstrating how advertisers target youth, and helping young people learn how to cope with marketing strategies. The group presented their work to a panel of judges including researchers, afterschool program directors, and media producers. For Bohnstedt, this only further illustrated the unique type of engagement and learning that came from Blatt’s course.

“The topic of informal learning is an interest of mine that I wanted to explore further,” she says. “With Joe, you are guaranteed to have a good experience.… Getting out of HGSE was truly valuable because we saw what an informal learning setting looks like and the museum did a very good job explaining what they do.”

The students in Tishman’s class were equally struck by the value of exploring the museums’ offerings. The 20 students in the course traveled to three museums and also made small group museum visits outside of classroom hours. During the museum visits, Tishman’s students engaged in a range of activities, from studying exhibitions, to trying out a variety of active learning techniques, to meeting with curators about exhibit design. They even spent a morning working with preschool children at the Lincoln Nursery School, a Reggio Emilia preschool that is incorporated into the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

Seung enjoyed the museum focus of the course, and also appreciated its focus on how to adapt active learning in different settings like home and afterschool programs.  “I think it was such an invaluable learning experience that informed my understanding of what museums can provide and how you can impact the learning experience for visitors,” Seung says.

Ultimately, it was HGSE students own learning experience that proved to be the goal of each field trip. “My big hope,” says Tishman, “is that these visits helped them learn to design powerful learning experiences in both informal and formal learning settings.”