The coronavirus (COVID-19) has prompted teachers to think about how they can help shift student learning from surface to deep when they can no longer rely on being in the same physical space at the same time with students.
Teaching has become more nuanced. When working remotely – our role is not dissimilar to that of a museum professional charged with developing a display or an installation to communicate a message to an audience who will walk through the exhibition space without them. Museum professionals work on the assumption that visitors will often engage with their message when they are not there to explain it. For this reason I have long been interested in strategies for museum exhibit development.
Museum planning includes the whole visitor experience – so it involves planning a space for arrival and welcome, a space for introductions and space to circulate before arriving in the thematic galleries. All of this planning happens within a spiral of continuous feedback. All of this matters when we plan an online learning experiences for our students.
I like thinking about how a museum space was planned to effectively communicate a message to a diverse audience – an audience who is free to walk through using any route that appeals? Museum professionals must ask: What knowledge and information do we wish to communicate? Where do we place the display cases on the floor? What order will visitors approach each display station? How does that change the content we provide? How will visitors engage with the displays? What text modalities should we use? What images and text should we provide? What annotations and infographics should we include? What seductive content will distract and be excluded? How will we align themes with topics and sub-topics? What is a logical structure for the presentation? How do we present the underlying reasoning for the content we present? How do we make the core message and the conclusion accessible to a diverse audience? What opportunities for interactivity will we provide?
Joy Williams (a teacher from Waitākiri School, Christchurch) has been working with me on a generic SOLO planning template on Google Slides that she can use to plan online learning adventures for her students. It supports the logical alignment of content. She has named it the HookED SOLO Inquiry Byte. It is both simple and powerful. It will support museum professionals planning content for their thematic displays and exhibitions and educators supporting effective online learning opportunities for their students.
You are welcome to make a copy of Joy’s work and use it to suit your own outcomes.
Remember to wrap it in a space for arrival and welcome, a space for introductions, and a space to circulate. And a space for “ice cream” when leaving.
UPDATE: As promised an example SOLO Inquiry Byte: MEMORIES created by Joy Williams
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The museum analogy is such a useful one. Thanks, Pam for sharing your wisdom, yet again!
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