Families Learning In The Art Museum

Download or read book Families Learning in the Art Museum written by Heather Joy D'Andrea and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My thesis explores the benefits that families with young children gain while learning from and through art in the art museum using story creation. Through the course of my research and reflection I have been able to better understand how young children make meaning out of art during a museum visit. This allows families and children to become more active in the museum learning experience and helps to develop important thinking skills. Some of the types of thinking skills developed are visual and critical thinking. The method I used to allow young children to access these skills is story creation, which is the act of a young child creating a narrative story about a work of art through verbal conversation and self created visual art work. Young children use their imaginations to think through the narratives that they see and begin thinking in new ways. I specifically look at the family learning experience, and how families can work together with museum educators to have enlightening, entertaining, and educational experiences during museum visits. To best understand my topic I used action research. I interned at two different art museums for a year and this allowed me to begin to understand the ways young children learn in museums, and how museum educators can best accommodate families with young children. One of the ways that I discuss using this type of approach to teaching in the art museum is through drop-in workshops. I aimed to discover what occurs when museum educators facilitate drop-in workshops that allow families to use story creation. Further, I look into what occurs when children interpret art on their own and make their own meaning, and the benefits that go along with this type of learning experience. I also aim to understand the best ways to facilitate this type of drop-in program in the museum. While my research specifically focuses on the drop-in workshop my research has allowed me to develop ideas about new ways to think about not only drop-ins, but classes, self guides, and other educational experiences that museums can provide families.