Abstract

Narrative

The growing number of teachers trained through induction programs has resulted in a decrease in the ability of New York City public school teachers to write and understand the mechanics of curriculum design often leaving test prep as a driving force for and a misunderstanding of the use and purposes of the Common Core. Embedded within this struggle is a de-valuing of the link between the arts and the humanities as well as the arts and sciences.

School trips have long been understood as a tool of socio-cultural exposure, universalizing the opportunities for students who use public schooling as transformative experience to gain the social and cultural capital needed to provide fluency within the social class system. Museum educators complain that teachers come ill prepared to take advantage of the knowledge, history and social context behind collections and exhibitions that make school trips and their jobs worthwhile. In addition, many museums offer professional development and learning institute opportunities and teaching enhancements that teachers either don’t know about or don’t take advantage of. New teachers, especially on the secondary education level, often struggle to link existing curriculum filled with standardized testing benchmarks to the experiential learning that their students can gain from cultural institutions.

One way to remedy this issue is an online database/archive of New York’s cultural and community institutions that contain details such as the name of each institution’s educational director, Information about collections and upcoming exhibits, and professional developments and institutes. In this way, schools with limited resources can have access to the arts as part of an integrated curriculum as opposed to seeing this access as ancillary.

Project Description

The creation of an open source database/archive space that will serve teaching residents in induction education programs who are looking to add experiential and project based education opportunities to their knowledge of curriculum design is essential to their preparation as neovice teachers. The archive will list the names, locations and websites of each institution as well as the contact information/contacts and the services offered. Each website will be linked to the archive and will take the user to the institution website. The website will also include an archive space for teachers to store lesson plans, unit plans and projects created from classroom use.  Teachers can post information photos and upload video content about their experiences of certain collections and exhibits at various museums.(one page for a moderated lesson plan space form for a contribute space, spots to tag the info with age groups fields for meta data each one should have its own page) Platforms to consider for this work are WordPress, Wix, or Weebly.

History and duration of the project

The idea that is the underlying foundation of the program began for me in 2013 in a rudimentary form. As a classroom teacher I incorporated a lot of spaced-based, project-based learning into my curriculum and noticed that I was one of the few teachers in my school who took students on trips. For the teachers that did plan trips for their classrooms, stdents complained that the trips lacked context for them and were unrelated to other content they were learning in the classrooms. Teachers that I spoke with about adding trips to cultural institutions and subsequently adding project based learning/assessment to their curriculum seemed fearful that it would take them away from testing scheule. Others did not know how to craft trips or reach out to the museum educators with their needs. This database/archive will serve as a repository for information but moving forward could also serve as a place of professional development on line.

Theoretical Framework

Some of the theoretical frameworks that I will use to explore this work is that of preparing preservice teachers explored by Ronfeldt, Schwartz and Jacob (2016)  about pre-service preparation. Love and McVey (2000) dicuss teachers and their use of the internet. Jing Lei (2009) writes on the use of technological training for digital natives. Finally, Barnhardt(1981) and Elliot (2007) write about the use of cultural institutions in curriculum.

Work plan/Timeline

Initial conversation and a meeting with Avra Spector and Luke Waltzer on March 24 th helped me to talk out and focus the work product in order to keep the project manageable. In this meeting, Luke expressed the need for this database and archive site for CUNY adjuncts as well as new teaching residents. Luke consented to be my advisor for the project. We agreed that June would be the ideal time for a an initial teacher roundtable focus group to discuss social platforms that work well for new teacher residents. The residents have agreed to meet in June to discuss the format, content and re-naming of the project. The conversation will continue on line via the use of a social paper document where residents could place their thoughts as they ocur to them. This information will be taken into consideration when planning the database. The gathering of knowledge for the project began in the begining of January 2016. The work of building the site is due to begin in the Fall of 2016 with check points set by myself and Luke Waltzer and should be done by December of 2016.

Final product and dissemination

A comprehensive database/archive where novice teachers can gain information about various museums, museum offerings and pertinent information should be completed by December 2016

Data management plan/outreach

A focus group of pre-service and induction residents should give me some ideas of how to create outreach. CUNY has the New visions program for induction which might be a place to recruit initial users. The Teaching and Learning Center has a website for adjuncts that may be in need of this information.

Proof of concept

This is the link to my website: https://museuminfo.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Below is some of the information that would appear in the database /archive.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

http://www.metmuseum.org/

Education Director: Maria Rhor

Phone: 212-570-3711, email:teachers@metmuseum.org.

Offerings:

Workshops for K–12 educators, schedule workshops by Request, Summer Educator Institutes, Educator Institute: Connecting Collections, online educator resources, online resources for children and families, programs, advisory and internships for teens,

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/

Education Director: Radiah Harper

Phone:718-638-5000 ex 232

Offerings:

Custom-designed professional development workshops for principals and teachers, including ArtXchange for K–8 art teachers, free monthly Teacher Leadership Program

Evenings for Educators, Six-dayTeacher Institutes (K-12), On line teacher resources. Gallery student program for children, Teen Resources, Teen Night, Teen night planning committee, LGTBQ Teen Night planning Committee, Gallery Studio Program, Teen resources.

www.statenislandmuseum.org

Education Director: Loretta Lonecke

Phone: 718-727-1135

Offerings:

Pre and post visit teacher resources, Lesson plans for school groups, half day or full day professional development trainings on Science Literacy, Arts Integration, Using Nature in Math, Mastering Science summer intensive.

http://www.bronxmuseum.org/

Education Director: Sergio Bessa,

Phone: 718-681-6000 ex:138, email: sbessa@bronxmuseum.org

Offerings:

Educator professional development, School partnerships, Teen council, Teen publishers, Spoken word 101.

http://www.queensmuseum.org/

Education Director: Jason Yoon

Phone: 718-592-9700 ex137 email: jyoon@queensmuseum.org

Offerings:

Professional development for teachers and administrators, school programs, Long term residencies, ART/ACCESS guided tours for self contained groups and district 75 classes, autism initiative and professional development, summer youth arts program, after school, Queens teens, program, New Yorkers program.