Like all teaching strategies and their implementation, object-based activities should be frequently reveiwed and evaluated. Here is a checklist that can be adapted for self-evaluation, peer evaluation, or formal evaluation when using object-based activities for teaching. Which type of object-based activity was employed? What was the overall theme of the …
As students leave the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden Of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, a docent gives each of them a set of four trading cards. The trading cards, not unlike baseball cards, are printed on two sides. On one side, the cards feature a favorite image …
Objects such as turtles, squirrels, and woodpeckers are among the best part of our nature trail tours at Camp Tyler, an outdoor learning center that is located in the East Texas piney woods. Unfortunately, we just don’t know from one time to the next which objects will be available. Most …
A drawer full of late 19th century objects, collected for an antiquated tour called “Grandma’s Attic,” stood unused for many years in the Montana Homeland exhibit at the Montana Historical Society. In the 21″‘ century, many of the students who visit have grandparents who were born in the 1940’s and …
One of the most difficult jobs for those involved with student programs in cultural organizations is the process of change. Reassessing and critically evaluating a long-standing children’s tour, convincing some of the need tor change, and ultimately deciding to revise the format can be a daunting task. Although docents may …
Every semester with the students in my social studies methods course, I draw a blank time line on the board of the last 10,000 years of human history and ask the students how well they could fill in the major events. A nervous silence immediately permeates the room. My students …
“Ahoy,” Bay Area Visitors and Residents Surrounded by water on three sides, San Francisco has been a major seaport since its inception. While steamships gave way to container ships and yachts, the city retains an important waterfront, and the San Francisco Maritime Museum honors this history. Crafted in the shape …
As a poet teaching in a museum environment, I often turn to writing-based activities to assist visitors in appreciating and understanding works of art. For the novice art viewer with a limited art background and art vocabulary, a writing exercise functions as a strategy to slow down the mind in …
Object-based activities are teaching strategies designed to shift visitors from the passive repose of listening into the active postures of seeking, finding, and/or responding. Object-based activities are employed to encourage learners (visitors) to make discoveries on their own. Because these activities must enfranchise all learners present, regardless of their diverse …