The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will amplify its partnership with Hart Magnet School, a Title 1 elementary school in urban Stamford, Connecticut, by increasing exposure and access to the arts for first-fifth graders, their families, and educators. A new program model, leveraging the museum's artist exhibitions, will focus on technology and an inquiry-based approach to science. Students, educators, and families will be encouraged to see and think in new ways through on-site STEAM tours at the museum, artist-led workshops at Hart, teacher professional development, and afterschool family activities. Outside evaluators will work with the project team to develop goals and associated metrics to measure how the model of museum-school partnership can enhance student achievement, engage families more deeply in their child's school experience and community, and contribute to teacher professional development. The evaluator will also train museum staff on best practices for program assessment.
The Children's Museum of the Upstate will expand its STEAM outreach programming to benefit both teachers and students in the Greenville County Schools. The museum will serve 2,000 students through STEAM programs held on-site at their elementary schools, with a focus on curriculum areas where standardized test scores indicate that students are struggling. A new program for preschoolers will be piloted in the school district's six child development centers. The pre-school classes will visit the museum for a field trip that includes free exploration time and a tailored storytime lesson. The museum will also present four teacher workshops reaching 400 educators to assist them in teaching STEAM topics. An independent evaluator will conduct an evaluation of the outreach programming and develop assessment tools to help determine how the curriculum can support student achievement and result in improved standardized test scores.
The Paine Art Center and Gardens will address challenges facing arts education in the region, in particular the low retention rate of new visual and performing arts teachers in the first five years of entering the field. Previous community-based planning sessions determined that arts integration is a compelling and relevant strategy to address the needs of new teachers and arts education. The project will support the development and implementation of the ArtsCore Laboratory, a new dedicated classroom at the Paine, which facilitates teacher collaboration, experimentation, and art activities for students. The laboratory will be designed and equipped to foster interdisciplinary activities and learning styles, with an emphasis on connecting STEM education with arts education. A new educator-in-residence program, the ArtsCore Experience, will offer a professional development program for teachers. The initiatives are a collaboration between the museum and the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, the Oshkosh Area School District, and more than seven additional school districts.
Funded jointly by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the MacArthur Foundation, in partnership with the and Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and Urban Libraries Council (ULC), Learning Labs in Libraries and Museums supports the planning and design of 24 learning labs in libraries and museums nationwide. The inaugural cohort of 12 sites ran from January 2012 to June 2013, and a second cohort of 12 additional sites began in January 2013 and will extend through June 2014. In addition to the primary awardees, most grants included additional institutional partners, resulting in a rich community including over 100 professionals from approximately 50 participating organizations (libraries, museums, universities, and community-based organizations). The labs are intended to engage middle- and high-school youth in mentor-led, interest-based, youth-centered, collaborative learning using digital and traditional media. Inspired by YOUmedia, an innovative digital space for teens at the Chicago Public Library, as well as innovations in science and technology centers, projects participating in Learning Labs are expected to provide prototypes for the field based on current research about digital media and youth learning, and build a "community of practice" among the grantee institutions and practitioners interested in developing similar spaces.
This is a descriptive summative evaluation study of visitors’ experiences with the permanent collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts, after the extensive museum-wide visitor-centric renovation and reinstallation that began in 1998 and culminated with a grand opening in 2007. Using a naturalistic methodology, three researchers from Selinda Research Associates made two three-day site visits (in January and March of 2013) and spent over 32 hours observing and interviewing 45 groups (181 individuals). Visitors’ experiences with works of art included stories and storytelling, visiting an old
Children feed alphabet letters to a talking baby dragon, drive a New York City fire truck, paint on a six-foot art wall, and crawl through a challenge course in PlayWorks™ at the Children's Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) in New York. Manhattan’s largest public play and learning center for early childhood marries the skills that children need to succeed in kindergarten with fun stuff that kids love. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the project through a 2006 Museums for America grant to support the museum as a center of community engagement and lifelong learning. “PlayWorks™ is a joyful place for learning science, math, reading and other things. We incorporate fun and learning into the whole design to create a scaffold of learning. Families come to the museum to supplement preschool experiences,” said Andy S. Ackerman, CMOM’s executive director. The museum also offers parents, sitters, and other care-providers guidance on engaging their children with the exhibit. Based on the concept that children’s learning and personal growth is rooted in play, the 4,000-square-foot space is divided into five learning areas: Language, Math and Physics, Arts and Science, Imagination and Dramatic Play, and Practice Play (for infants and crawlers).
This report describes the findings of an evaluation of the Gallery Guide program at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington. It aimed to determine if and how 6 identified public tour goals are being met and examined how visitors are generally engaging during public tours at the museum. List of Key Findings: Overall all Gallery Guide goals were met to varying degrees. The majority of surveyed visitors reported they would feel comfortable leading a friend through the Frye after their tour experience. Gallery Guides provided a high number of informative statements (47%). Visitors appear more
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Peder NelsonMark RosenRose Paquet KinsleyThe Frye Art Museum
This front-end evaluation is part of an initiative for the Henry Art Gallery to develop an understanding of the demographic range of visitors, their inspirations for visiting the museum, and what visitor expectations are. Key findings are summarized below. Overall, these findings have three major implications. Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays have the highest rate of visitation. Most visitors are not aware of The Reed Collection Center and the Digital Interactive Galleries (DIG) that are resources provided by the Henry for members, visitors, students, researchers and University of Washington
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Mobile Guide program will offer visitors a new way to interact with the Museum's collections by creating audio and visual content that will be delivered through a mobile-optimized Web site (www.naguide.org). The program, available through a user's own mobile device or via iPod Touch players made available, reflects the Museum's commitment to digital interpretation and its larger goal of broadening public accessibility to its collections. This evaluation is part of the larger Mobile Guide project funded through an Engaging Communities grant awarded from the
The Language of Conservation was a collaborative project between libraries, zoos, and poets nationwide to replicate a project originally undertaken by the Central Park Zoo. The project model built zoo, library, and poet-in-residence partnerships in five host cities: Brookfield, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana. One aspect of the evaluation was to assess the collaborative process within each of the five partner sites, across the project as a whole, and with project leadership to determine the strengths and challenges of
The Language of Conservation was a collaborative project between libraries, zoos, and poets nationwide to replicate a project originally undertaken by the Central Park Zoo. The project model built zoo, library, and poet-in-residence partnerships in five host cities: Brookfield, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana. It was anticipated that the zoo exhibits would result in positive outcomes for zoo visitors who encountered the poetry, including increasing the conservation thinking and language used after a visit and creating a
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to study its young adults. The study, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), provides a profile of the young adult audience, including their demographics, behaviors, perceptions, and values. The DAM intends to use the results of the study to inform future programming and communication with DAM's young adult visitors. RK&A employed two data collection strategies: standardized questionnaires administered online at Surveymonkey.com to program participants and telephone interviews with core program
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Denver Art Museum