How can the collections of national cultural institutions be better used in education?
Abstract
- What the national cultural institutions currently offer in terms of using collections in secondary education;
- How secondary school teachers use the available collections;
- What improvements secondary school teachers thought would increase their use of the collections; and
- What improvements the national cultural institutions can offer teachers.
In the initial stages of the project the team interviewed education section representatives from cultural institutions to gain an understanding of the services and products currently available to the education sector. The team then conducted a focus group and email survey with teachers to gather information about how they currently use the collections of national cultural institutions, how they found this experience and what they would like to see in the future.
Topics and issues raised during the focus group by teachers included:
- Information overload;
- Consolidation of information from the various national cultural institutions in one place;
- Discoverability of online information;
- Information about upcoming events and exhibitions that needs to be provided early enough for a teacher’s planning of future lessons and excursions; and
- Opportunities for education sections to connect with teachers.
Communication and promotion of exhibitions, services and products aimed at the education sector was identified as one of the major barriers for teachers accessing the National Cultural Institution’s collections. The team have identified two possible recommendations to break down the barriers. Firstly, one way this could be overcome would be through the creation of an email newsletter summarising what each of the institutions would be offering in the coming six months. The newsletter would be distributed biannually and early enough to be useful for teachers planning for the upcoming semester. Secondly, cultural institutions investigate the opportunities relating to teacher personal development days. This could include guided tours of special exhibitions, venue hire, fee waivers and basic training of online information to make access easier and enable teachers to become familiar with cultural institutions web resources.
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