Week two at the museum has been fun and full on.
The beginning of this week I started writing a Trailhead tour for the Museums learning department around simple machines. The idea of a ‘Trailhead’ tour is that it is a lightly facilitated tour that allows for students to explore the museum and make connections, rather than being a formal lesson. The specific tour I am writing is strongly linked to the grade 5 curriculum, as it is based around simple machines. But there are links to most intermediate grades (I am designing the tour with intermediate specifically in mind, there are other trailhead tours that are geared towards primary) and there will also be a cross-curricular art connection. I’m still working on finishing up the tour (hopefully by the end of the week) and will give more complete details about it when I have completed it.
This week has been a bit quieter in terms of school visits. Last week we had quite a few but this week we only seem to have one. However, yesterday we had a skype gallery tour with a school from Cranbrook! It was very fun, we took the class all around the new mammoth exhibit and I think they really enjoyed it. It was well organized because each student had a chance to individually ask questions about mammoths. Perhaps the most valuable part of the whole process was to allow a class to see the exhibit that normally wouldn’t. I think this is incredible because often in more rural locations, or locations away from the lower mainland there are less opportunies for schools and classes to visit galleries and museums. We are hoping to repeat the process next week with a class from Prince George so I will be sure to inform you of how it goes.
I did not know that it was possible to do Skype visits, what an incredible opportunity. It must have been a different experience than taking students around the exhibit in person. What are the benefits for the students with a ‘Trailhead tour’ versus a more formal traditional tour of the exhibits? How are you drawing on your experiences with lesson planning and backward design while writing the Trailhead Tour? Are you finding it a much different experience?
It feels very different than writing lesson plans, in that I am creating this for someone else to use, and I will in fact probably never teach this exact activity at the museum (unless I someday take a class of my own here). The benefits of the Trailhead tours is that they are more open ended. They allow students and classes to do a lot of their own exploration and follow their own interests. In these the person giving the trailhead tour is more of a facilitator than a traditional educator.