Evaluating Modern Teachers Online and MoMA’s New Teaching and Learning Pilot Site

bethrharris — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 22:43:55 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

teachers

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

learning resources

Abstract:

In 2006, Modern Teachers Online was built as a repository for MoMA’s printed teacher guides. Since then, video has become a powerful educational tool for both students and informal learners. In addition, Web 2.0 and RSS have led to the disaggregation of materials - things that were once bundled together are now offered piecemeal (think: songs on iTunes instead of whole albums). Also, since everyone can now publish to the web, teachers are confronted with a wealth of resources for learning materials and lesson plans (Lesson Planet, TeachersPayTeachers.com, etc.).

In light of these developments, in 2010, the education department began a process of rethinking the content and structure of our teacher resources. We imagined re-purposing the teacher materials to make them useful for informal learners, disaggregating them, and combining them with other, existing resources on MoMA.org. Lastly, we imagined a site that was not segregated within the education section of the website. We began by surveying the existing research and did two days of action research with both teachers and informal learners to try out our ideas.

In the Fall of 2010, we created a pilot site (http://education.moma.org/moma/learningresources/) in response to our findings. We used Haiku, the Learning Management System we use for delivering our online courses. The site, on Abstract Expressionism, re-purposed materials from an existing teacher guide, from the Abstract Expressionist New York exhibition sub-site (moma.org/abex), and from the in-gallery experience of the exhibition (audio-tours). However, it also incorporated new materials designed specifically for teachers, including slideshows, Powerpoints, worksheets, teaching tips, and discussion questions as well as existing content from Modern Teacher Online.

Our demonstration at Museums and the Web will include both the results of our research and the pilot site that we built in response to our findings.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstrations III

Site:

http://education.moma.org/moma/learningresources

Authors:

Beth Harris

Lisa Mazzola

Colleen Brogan

museumsandtheweb.com - teachers

Evaluating Modern Teachers Online and MoMA’s New Teaching and Learning Pilot Site