1. Hands and Minds
on HISTORY
Tr a n s f e r r i n g B e s t P r a c t i c e i n
O b j e c t - b a s e d L e a r n i n g f ro m
t h e U K M u s e u m S e c t o r t o
Au s t r a l i a n s c h o o l ro o m s
John Staats
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
2. Overview
Background
Why the UK Museum Sector?
Learning Theory: Museums & history pedagogy
Role of Inquiry
A Gap to be Bridged? - Museum & Classroom History
Why use Objects?
Caters for diverse learning styles; improves outcomes
The past as a “foreign country” and getting a visa
Unlocking historical imagination
How do I use Objects Successfully?
Selection
Scaffolds
The Future? Obstacles and possibilities
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
3. My own brand of classroom
“Hands-on History”
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
4. Why the UK Sector?
Leaders in constructivist learning theory
Challenged strict Piagetian view that children can’t
do historical thinking (Schools History Project
13-16)
Embraced education as core business in museums
Research: RCMG (Leicester University)
Learning Through Culture Study (2002)
Engage Learn Achieve (2006-7)
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5. Learning Theory
Where we are
Where we want to go
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6. Role of Inquiry
Turns hands-on into “minds-on”
Core procedure in history
Herodotus and “historia”
Disciplined inquiry is hard intellectual work
Students need support; learning happens in social
contexts; teachers need to make classrooms
supportive “communities for historical inquiry”
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
7. A Gap to Be Bridged?
Neil Macgregor (Director British Museum)
“Telling history through things is what museums are for”
Discipline of History bias towards use of text
Objects “do not talk to strangers, and only speak
when they are spoken to” (Levesque)
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
8. Why Use Objects?
ENHANCES LEARNING
Inclusive of all learning styles
Multi-modal delivery improves learning
We all benefit from learning haptically; for some it is
essential to their learning
Opens the learning door more widely - lets in
students who might otherwise be excluded
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9. WHY USE OBJECTS?
FACILITATES HISTORICAL THINKING BY
UNLOCKING HISTORICAL IMAGINATION
Past as a”foreign country” (Lowenthal); historical
thinking is “unnatural” (Wineburg)
Role of context and imagination
MacGregor:
“nothing gets you so quickly into the mind of someone else
than a thing...its things that let you imagine and things that
change their meaning in a way that texts don’t”
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10. How to Use Objects
Successfully
PREPARATION
Object selection
Scaffolds for learning
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11. How to Use Objects
Successfully
CHOICE OF OBJECT IS IMPORTANT
Schema and student prior experience and knowledge
Personal relevance
Universal human experience
Curiosity
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12. How to Use Objects
Successfully
SCAFFOLDS SUPPORT LEARNING
Metalanguage
Inquiry
Graphic Organisers
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13. How to Use Objects
Successfully
METALANGUAGE
Learning involves language
Artefact literacy
Physical and functionalist investigation
Cultural-reconstructism
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14. How to Use Objects
Successfully
QUESTION
SCAFFOLDS
Interrogation of
objects and written
sources can be
similar
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15. How to Use Objects
Successfully
Six Basic Questions
QUESTION
1.What is this object?
2.What activity was it part of? SCAFFOLDS
3.Who made it/owned/maintained/used
the object? Borrowed from
4. How did people work together to material culture
make activities happen or achieve the
desired result with the object? (consider
co-operation & conflict)
5.How have people’s circumstances and
relationships with one another changed
over time?
6. Why have these changes occurred?
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16. How to Use Objects
Successfully
QUESTION
Societies SCAFFOLDS
Hierarchy of ideas
Ideas &
Behaviour
(NLP)
People &
Actions
Things
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17. How to Use Objects
Successfully
QUESTION
SCAFFOLDS
Glasgow Museums
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18. How to Use Objects
Successfully
QUESTION
SCAFFOLDS
Glasgow Museums
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19. How to Use Objects
Successfully
QUESTION
SCAFFOLDS
with
metalanguage!
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20. How to Use Objects
Successfully
GRAPHIC ORGANISERS
Makes thinking visible
A thinking frame
Mimics the way the brain, stores, links and makes meaning
of information (“schema”); activates prior knowledge
guides and supports different thinking processes (cause/
effect, compare/contrast etc)
captures information
pre-writing tool
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21. How to Use Objects
Successfully
GRAPHIC ORGANISERS
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22. How to Use Objects
Successfully
GRAPHIC
ORGANISERS
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23. Obstacles?
Possibilities?
BUILDING TEACHER CAPACITY
Teacher confidence, enthusiasm and commitment
Direct partnerships
Teacher Continuing Professional Development
Trainee Teacher practicums in museums
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25. Obstacles?
Possibilities?
BUILDING TEACHER CAPACITY
Champions Object-Learning
Champion,
Alun Morgan
Specialist education spaces “discovery learning
centres”
Chris Elmer & the
Discovery Learning
Centre SEARCH
Gosport
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26. Obstacles?
Possibilities?
ACCESS & EQUITY
Authenticity has an impact
Problems in accessing museums & their services
The mobile museum HWMTA Discovery Bus
Loan boxes
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27. Obstacles?
Possibilities?
ACCESS & EQUITY
Digital technology & the internet English Heritage Partners
with Sony PSP at Roman Wroxter
Digital “mash”
British Museum
Samsung Digital
Discovery Centre
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28. Conclusion
Need to expand our thinking about procedural history and
broaden the base of sources that we routinely use to include
artefacts to “do history” with students
Object-based learning needs to become a regular part of
learning, not a one-offs
Teachers need experience in doing hands-on history
Teachers need to model, use and teach sophisticated enquiry
skills.
Scaffolding can be developed to support teacher capacity in
object-based learning; similar scaffolds, particularly graphic
organisers, greatly assist students engage in hands-on history
and develops historical thinking.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
29. Thank you
Email:
john.staats@det.nsw.edu.au
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
