Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Art--Study and teaching (Elementary)--United States; Art--Study and teaching (Elementary)--Standards--United States; Museums--Environmental aspects--United States; Art--Study and teaching (Elementary); Museums--Environmental aspects; United States; Academic theses;

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to provide a guide for educators in cultural institutions to develop interdisciplinary programs that meet the national education standards, using meaningful objects from their collections and hands-on art experiences for grades K-5. A survey by the Iowa Museum Association (heretofore to be referred to as IMA) provides justification for this research. The survey was presented at the IMA/NMA (Nebraska Museum Association) Annual Conference in Omaha, Nebraska, in October 2002. The survey gives a synopsis of the educational programming and staffing in over 140 cultural institutions of Iowa. The results reveal a number of areas that inhibit the ability of cultural institutions to develop programs based on national education standards. Statistics show the majority of respondents are smaller cultural institutions, which do not have a professional education staff: some being dependent on volunteers. A large percentage provide only "on the job training" for their education staff. Not one institution cites school education standards as the basis for developing new programs. Finally, cuts in school budgets influence school administration decisions to send students on field trips, thus negatively effecting visitation and income to smaller cultural institutions. By designing programs that integrate national education standards into interdisciplinary learning experiences, schools may consider fieldtrips an academic priority. Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education (Kendall & Marzano, 1997) will be the basis for identifying applicable national education standards. These standards are matched with selected objects that are prevalent in the collections of cultural institutions and interdisciplinary program plans are designed. Hands-on, creative art experiences will always be an aspect of each program to promote conceptual understanding and retention. The result of this research is a guide for educators in cultural institutions including sample program plans as a reference to design their own programs, using national education standards, interdisciplinary experiences, interpretation techniques and art activities. These programs will meet the curricular goals of districts and teachers, give students enriched learning experiences in the informal setting of a cultural institution, and use objects made relevant to the student through interdisciplinary programming. The intention is that such 'value added' programming will be beneficial to cultural institutions, schools and students.

Year of Submission

2004

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Art

First Advisor

Jeanne Petsch

Second Advisor

Charles Adelman

Third Advisor

David Webster

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

2004

Object Description

1 PDF file (98 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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