Author: heather

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Visit to the Gordon Highlanders Museum

After the frankly horrifying drive across Aberdeen city centre to get to the museum I was definitely in need of a good sitdown. Fortunately for our museum visit the first port of call was the learning room where we got to sit and listen to the learning officer, Lewis Gibbon, and Lynne, a volunteer and ex-drama teacher. The room itself is reasonably big although I doubt they could fit a full class of primary children in at once; Lewis explained that they will take 30 pupils but in three batches of 10 to each workstation.

The first thing we did was to watch an informative and well put together overview of the regiment and the various wars that they have fought in. The video covered conflicts across the British Empire with particular reference to the Napoleonic wars, Afghanistan, and the Boer War. The video was quite dense in parts and consisted of a male narrator with a very slight Scottish accent, interspersed with “memories” from people with a much stronger Doric accent (sometimes with subtitles).

Both Lewis and Lynne were keen to stress that although the museum covers the history of the regiment and therefore includes a lot of material which is violent in nature, the main focus of the educational program in is to explore and get to know the people behind the guns through a mix of primary sources and object-based learning. There was a long table along one edge of the room that had many different objects on it which were part of the handling collection and therefore used to illustrate parts of the workbook issued to schoolchildren. There were also a selection of uniform pieces from various different areas of the regiment, all of which the children are able to put on and dress up with.

A hobnailed boot worn by an infantry soldier.

We were encouraged to do likewise and it didn’t take long for some of us to work out how to put on various packs, tools, hats, and jackets dotted around the room. Perhaps the most striking thing for me was the size of the uniform jackets, which were absolutely tiny. One of our number struggled to get the jacket to do up, even though he is very slender. We were assured that the jacket in question was not a particularly small one by the standards of the day, but malnutrition and poor healthcare obviously had an effect on the growth potential of the soldiers that were being recruited at this time. Another point that came across through object handling was how heavy the assembled kit would have been (especially for relatively small men to carry). The type of cloth used would almost certainly have become far heavier when wet and as an infantry soldier if there is one thing that can be counted on it is that at some point you will encounter bad weather. We were asked to imagine just how difficult it would be to not only carry such heavy kit, but to fight all day in it, including marching or making a push over the top of the trench.

Trying on the pack.

Looking at the workbook provided for primary school children we can see the interactive nature of each workstation having a linked activity consisting of object recognition, reading comprehension, and multisensory/imagination based empathy. There was quite a distinction in the workbook between the question-and-answer section (for example the uniform and equipment questions from workstation one) and the second workstation covering the Battle of Goch, which asked for more from the pupils in terms of relating to an individual soldier; the children were instructed to choose a soldier from the large diorama/model and “place yourself in the soldiers shoes”. The child was prompted to consider what the soldier would have seen by physically aligning themselves with the model to explore sightlines. Likewise they were encouraged to imagine the sounds and smells of battle as experienced by their chosen soldier. This activity changes a static diorama to more interactive and memorable experience for the schoolchild.

Moving onto another workstation the activity revolved around using primary sources to try and understand the kind of person who would have served in the regiment. The sources included release certificates from the army, pay books, and lists of decorations won in battle. While almost all of these documents were the originals there were measures taken to protect the paper from degradation through both environmental exposure and the deleterious effects of hundreds of sticky fingers by encasing them in clear plastic. This gave children the opportunity to look at the “real thing” without damaging the fragile paperwork.

A release certificate for a soldier being discharged honourably from the regiment.

After the talk we had a brief tour around some of the exhibits that related to the Napoleonic wars and the activities of the regiment across the British Empire. For the children the museum provide a comic starring their mascot “Bydandy” the stag and his magical time travelling bagpipes (!). I was interested to see how a comic would deal with the violence and horror of war and noted that the Second World War was handled briefly yet sensitively with an overview panel rather than any gory detail. Throughout the exhibit we walked around there were pull-out sections at child friendly heights and the glass cases included things at an appropriate eye-level for younger children. Most of the text panels were written in an informative and descriptive manner that seemed aimed at the adult visitor who may or may not have any knowledge of warfare.

How do you explain World War II to primary school children using a comic format?

I think the most interesting part for me (even though I have very little interest in childhood learning/development) was the omnipresent tension between the need to thoroughly present all aspects of the regiment’s history throughout various battles and conflicts of the 19th and 20th century, without in any way glorifying war and violence. I enjoyed this visit and would have liked to have had more time to wander round at my own pace but unfortunately I had somewhere to be immediately after we left. As a delightful denouement to the trip it turned out I had somehow managed to put the steering lock on when I parked my car; releasing said steering lock with one hand almost prompted violence of the scale covered in the various exhibits and certainly resulted in the deployment of several Anglo-Saxon words that would have been familiar to the infantry soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders.

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Dewey – Progressive Education & Democratic Learning

Article: Monk, D. F. (2013) John Dewey and Adult Learning in Museums. Adult Learning Journal, 24:2, pp.63-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159513477842

 

Dewy’s philosophy is widespread and has great influence on the study of learning at every stage of life. This article aims to explore the links between adult education Museum learning and to explore why there is not more integration between museums and adult education. Monk describes an experience he had when visiting Vietnam which involve physical interaction with the environment to refine a unique and memorable learning experience. He draws parallels to the ability of museums to provide a similar enrichment for learning by focusing on “social personal and physical interactions that combine to create learning experiences for adults.” (p.64). This experiential nature is something that museums could excel in yet many do not engage the learner in this manner.

John Dewey – experiential learning

Dewey’s philosophy of education is defined as “an explicit formulation of the problems of the formation of right mental and moral habitudes in respect to the difficulties of contemporary social life.”1

In Dewey’s view, education should provide everything an individual needs in terms of knowledge to live a good life and contribute to society. While traditional teaching followed a passive absorption model where the teacher simply poured knowledge into passive empty vessels, Dewey felt that schools should develop active participation the students so that they became better able to relate to each other and society, and took on a more active role in their own learning (p.65).

The experiential nature of learning was very important to Dewey, especially with regards to the prior knowledge and experience the individual brings to the learning table. Education is a process where the individual builds on previous experiences especially when the learner is an adult and can bring a rich variety of personal experience to the learning environment. For all learners, according to Dewey, learning only happens when the learner understands what they are learning, why they’re learning it, and how it interacts with their past experiences(p.65).

The educator should be less of a didactic knowledge dispenser and more over facilitator or guide who enables the learner to reflect on the new knowledge and skills they are gaining and how these will relate not only to the learners prior experience but to future situations also.

Dewey, Adult Education and Museums

Dewey was critical of museums where knowledge is imparted in the “empty vessel” manner as the simple conveyance of facts is unengaging for visitors and does not encourage them in meaning-making. Museums should consider the previous experience that visitors bring to the exhibits and should work with the learners in an interactive process between visitor and exhibition. Several theorists have drawn upon Dewey’s work to explore adult education and Monk describes some of these viewpoints in this article.

E.W. Taylor writes that the informal learning experience by adults in museums is of an incidental, unplanned, an unconscious manner, undertaken while visitors wander around. This style of informal learning takes place where visitors are encouraged to approach and engage with exhibits by themselves, and requires a layout which captures attention and communicates with the visitor directly. An ill-defined or badly thought out path through cases and exhibits will not encourage informal learning and will turn visitors off.2

The combination of physical interaction with objects and reflecting and thinking about said objects encourages interpretation and development of meaning in a way that Julie would certainly approve of and is one of the strengths that museums can bring to the educational experience. Museums offer unique learning environments to adults as, generally speaking, visitors have the option to come and go as they please and interact on their own terms rather than in a formal and prescribed manner. The standard method of teaching deployed in the classroom is rarely appropriate for adult learners (this andragogy approach will be covered in a future post looking at the work of Knowles) (p.66-67).

Dewey and his theory of education emphasises that visitors should have some kind of space to reflect on their experience and to consider the links between the exhibit and their own lives both past, present, and future. Also, learner participation and feedback is important.

This article by Monk details several theorists on pages 66 to 70 who have drawn upon Dewey in their own work. For the sake of brevity in this post I will not go into detail on each one but future posts will consider their input and contribution to the theories of learning.

 

  1. Dewey, J. (1966) Democracy and Education. London:  Colliier Macmillan. p.331. Cited in Monk, D. F. (2013) John Dewey and Adult Learning in Museums. Adult Learning Journal, 24:2, pp.63-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159513477842. ↵
  2. Taylor, E. W. (2010). Cultural institutions and adult education. New directions for adult and continuing education, 2010. (127) pp.5-14 Cited in Monk, D. F. (2013) John Dewey and Adult Learning in Museums. Adult Learning Journal, 24:2, pp.63-71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159513477842. ↵
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Best laid plans

Just a quick note – I have chronic relentless pain from my brachial plexus injury and between February – May I have been trialling various different hardcore drugs (prescription, I hasten to add!) but unfortunately all they did was make my pain much worse (from a 7-8/10 to 9+, all day every day). As you might expect, this has made completing uni work pretty difficult, so my carefully concocted plan for weekly updates for this blog has crashed & burned spectacularly. I have attended lectures & done as much of the readings as I can, it’s just the blog updating I’m behind on. Luckily my uni is very understanding & has given me time to catch up, but now you know why things might be a little out of chronological order and why there’s an enormous gap in entries.

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Week 4 – Seminar

In today’s session we worked in small groups to create a set of slides to bring together the learning points from the last couple of weeks, as follows:

Using the readings from Weeks 2 & 3 and reflecting on your experience of working with Neil Curtis on Monday 5th February in King’s Museum and being in the Gordon Highlanders Museum, prepare up to 5 PPt slides ( saved on a data stick) which explore theories and practices of object based learning.

I worked with Nicoletta & Stephanie and was relieved to see that we had all come up with broadly similar slides, as we were a little unsure as to the content that was expected from the instructions. I missed the session with Neil where they looked at museum objects but I was present for the Gordon Highlanders museum visit so was able to draw upon my experiences there.

Nicoletta acted as the co-ordinator for our group, using her laptop to amalgamate our slides.  Here is what we came up with: 

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Falk on free-choice environmental learning

Article: Falk, J. H. (2005) Free-choice environmental learning: framing the discussion.   Environmental Education Research, 11:3, 265-280, https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620500081129

 

John H. Falk, – Sea Grant Professor of Free-Choice Learning at Oregon State University and Director of the OSU Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning, and advisor to Time Team America

 

Free-choice learning (FCL) is something I have been conducting for some time now without having had the ‘correct’ terminology to describe it. As a mature student completing my degree for interest rather than as a compulsory part of schooling or work, I am very much a free-choice learner. I choose to spend the resources (in terms of time and money) doing this degree with no real expectation as to the end result other than self-improvement. The key points I took from this reading were as follows:

  • Free-choice learning is effectively the non-compulsory learning experiences where the learner has a deal of control over the fundamentals of said learning: the how/why/what/where and when (p.265).
  • All visitors (to a museum for example) will learn something from their visit, but that something may not be what the institution wanted or expected.
  • People undertake FCL for more than one reason: self-improvement, value creation, fulfilling personal intellectual/emotional needs (p.266).
  • Most learning, especially environmental learning, occurs outside of formal schooling (p.266).
  • The more the work/school/family/elective spheres of environmental learning overlap, the greater the learning success will be.
  • There are 3 core constructs at play: learning, free-choice learning and learning infrastructure.

Learning

Learning is difficult to define; it incorporates many parts of the brain and varied bio-chemical/electrical/mechanical stimuli. Each person learns differently even when presented with the same stimuli:

People [learn] through a constant process of relating past experiences to the present, connecting what is happening in the present to what has happened in the past… Learning is a dialogue between the individual and his or her social/cultural and physical environment; learning is a contextually driven effort to make meaning in order to survive and prosper in the world.1

Learning is:

  • highly personal
  • non-linear
  • idiosyncratic
  • contextual
  • a process
  • informed by prior knowledge
  • a product
  • time-consuming
  • cumulative
  • collaborative
  • social
  • sociocultural

Asking questions to gauge the learner’s take-home education from a learning experience often misses the point; instead of asking ‘what did they learn?’ we should be asking ‘how did their learning today contribute to their overall experience?’.

Free-choice learning

As already covered, free-choice learning occurs when the learners have significant and meaningful control over their learning. It is important to note that while the physical context is relatively important, the settings/institution are not significant factors:

there is no convincing evidence that  the fundamental processes of  learning differ solely as a function of the physical setting… there is no basis to assume that open-ended, optional, inquiry-based experiences within a school setting are somehow fundamentally different from open-ended, optional, inquiry-based experiences at a nature center. (p.271)

This implies that there is no real need for terms such as formal/informal/non-formal – learning is either free-choice or it is not and can occur in any setting or institution (p.271-2).

FCL challenges the top-down mass market curricula imposed by statutory educational institutions which will be of increasing importance as we transition to a knowledge-based socio-economic culture (p.272).

Infractructure for FCL

Mark St John: formal educational system & broader FCL as parts of the same larger educational infrastructure. 2

‘The educational institutions that help to provide citizens with current and accurate knowledge and information, whether it is about health, politics, economics or the environment, form the fundamental backbone of the knowledge economy. ‘ (p.274).

Interest on its own however does not have enough momentum to enculture an environmentally aware populace; you need both interest and an infrastructure in place because FCL is not a ‘once and for all’ thing you can pick up in early schooling and then never revisit (p.274-5).

Quality FCL opportunities not only need to be accessible to learners from all social demographics, but those learners need to be aware that said opportunities exist in the first place (p.276).

I am aware that this post has gone on for some time so I think I’ll end it here and post my thoughts on it when I’ve had chance to think about what Falk is saying.

 

  1. Falk, J. H & Dierking, L. d. (2000) Learning from museums: visitor experiences and the making of meaning. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. ↵
  2. St. John, M. & Perry, D. (1993) A framework for evaluation and research: science, infrastructure and relationships. In: S. Bicknell & G. Farmelo (eds.) Museum visitor studies in the 90s. (London: Science Museum) pp.59-66. ↵
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Week 1

So to start off as I don’t mean to go on, here I am updating week one activities as week 4 is about to start. Unfortunately I have had a terrible run of pain with my arm & as a result I have fallen behind on the update side of things. I have managed to read the articles we have on our reading lists but the taking of notes is something I struggle with a little as I am effectively writing with the wrong hand. I can do it, but the terrible handwriting and incipient RSI suggest that it might be better for me to input my notes and reflections directly onto this e-portfolio; connectivity around the uni campus is good enough that if I need to access my notes while in class I can pop online on my notebook.

I have Dragon Naturally Speaking for dictation and when it’s not struggling with my terrible elocution, it’s a better way for me to get my notes done quickly. Writing with the wrong hand is so much slower, not only due to the correction of mistakes but also because of fatigue from performing an unfamiliar function.  The only thing I dislike about dictating is that I am much more a writer than a talker (despite what people who know me might think). When I was doing my undergraduate degree in archaeology at UCL I found it surprisingly difficult to ‘write’ essays straight into Dragon, because I couldn’t frame my ideas verbally. I was much happier writing them down and then dictating them into Word. Somewhat predictably however, my sole working hand/wrist is now experiencing the warning signs of carpal tunnel, which isn’t surprising given that for 4 years I’ve used one hand to do everything computer related.

Still, life goes on, and I will transfer all my notes across now, so mass update time.

 

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Good learning, bad learning

Our first session of ED553E encouraged us to think about what learning meant to us, our experiences of learning and how we would categorise good versus bad learning. This is something that I had been thinking about on and off for some time; I’ve been lucky enough to have had driven, committed and enthusiastic teachers at various points throughout my learning journey, but equally, I have had unengaged and tedious tutors at times. I will give examples below, but first, the outcome of the first session.

We were asked to draw what we considered learning to consist of, with a bullet point marker, and then to list a few examples of good and bad learning. I will admit to a bit of a sinking feeling when Liz said we were going to be drawing; I only have one arm, courtesy of a motorbike accident, and it was my dominant arm which was lost. While I have taught myself to write with the ‘wrong’ hand, my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, which is tedious as I was pretty good at art before my accident (but see below for one of the reasons why I wasn’t really good at art).

Here’s what I came up with:

Step aside, Van Gogh.

On the left you have my idea of learning. Of course, it’s completely obvious what each of those scrawls is supposed to be, so explaining them is probably superfluous, but permit me to go through each of them anyway. At the bottom is a learner with an open book, which for me is where most of my learning starts. Then you can see a computer linked to the left, which is supposed to represent internet-based research. Above that is a conversation taking place between the learner and a supposedly interested party (as you can no doubt tell from his highly expressive face). Below and to the right of this conversation is the learner looking at some artwork, which is meant to represent taking the book/internet knowledge out into the real world.

As it happens, my drawings weren’t the worst despite being a hand down on everyone else, but as I discovered through pairs and small group work, we all seemed to have more or less the same ideas. I worked with Meghann as a pair and she had some points I didn’t cover but did generally agree with; her key point was that she didn’t like to be rushed, and that she needed a decent amount of time to do learn effectively. I would definitely agree with this in principle. although I must admit to being a bit of a last-minute-wonder; I am that person who procrastinates until the week before an assignment is due, and then lurches into action in a whirlwind of productivity and self-flagellation. ‘Never again,’ I say, after each manic typing session, ‘next time I will start my reading earlier and have it done a week before the due date to leave plenty of time to proofread and edit.’ Then, a hollow chuckle, as I know I’ll do exactly the same next time.

We amalgamated our ideas on good and bad learning, as you can see here:

Possibly the most teachery handwriting ever.

Most of these points are self-explanatory but I would like to pick up on the power aspect of the student-teacher relationship. Certainly, at a school age, the power dynamic is very heavily weighted towards the teacher. I can’t think of a single example throughout my schooling where a teacher’s dominion over knowledge was challenged. The only challenge to the teacher I remember was the occasional defiant pupil, but on the whole, we were a relatively passive group of empty vessels, awaiting the pouring in of knowledge.

As I have continued learning in my middle age, I am aware now of a different dynamic. I feel that now, I could challenge a lecturer on aspects of learning, were it necessary. This is almost certainly down to a few factors:

  • being older, I have more personal learning experiences to draw upon, some of which may be at a different level or of a different type from the tutor
  • as this degree is essentially for interest rather than compulsory learning, I feel that as a consumer paying for the education I owe it to myself to get the most value from the resources (i.e. the lecturer’s knowledge) possible
  • not being a teenager with crippling self-esteem and confidence problems anymore means I don’t mind challenging something in class, if I don’t agree or don’t understand – I don’t worry about looking ‘stupid’ in front of other people

Now for a couple of examples of where I’ve had a bad learning experience. These aren’t exactly earth-shattering educational episodes but have affected me enough that I can still readily call them back to mind.

The first example I’d like to share is from when I was in junior school, aged around 7 or 8. The lesson was maths (ugh) and we had to draw out some boxes on our graph paper that then formed the backbone of an exercise (so basically we were just drawing rectangles to put figures into). I used to be a very artistic individual, drawing above notwithstanding, and I decided that after drawing these rectangles that I would draw in some background, and I think I’d worked out that I could fit a dragon in (I was obsessed with dragons having just read the Hobbit). Our lesson was being taken by the headteacher for some reason I can’t quite recall, and she was less than impressed by my artistic endeavours. She didn’t even let me explain what I was doing, she just tore a strip off me in front of the whole class, which was embarrassing, to say the least. I’ve hated maths for as long as I can recall and I’m sure this didn’t make me any more charitably disposed towards the subject.

The second example I want to give is from around the same age, when we were learning about the human body. We had these little cardboard wallets for our work, that were kept in binder holders on a unit in the classroom. My form tutor, who I adored, called me up in front of the class and held my bulging wallet out in front of her and then one by one pulled out half finished pieces of work and recited sarcastically the titles of each bit of paper (some only had the title written on) and then drooped them on the floor. She was disgusted at how much paper I’d wasted with my false starts, and discarded almost everything in the folder onto the floor while I stood in front of the class, in tears (sensitive child, cue ‘Our Song’ music). What I couldn’t explain (then) to her was that I am an immense perfectionist who finds blank pages incredibly daunting because I don’t want to get ‘it’ wrong, whatever ‘it’ happens to be at the time. I wanted my work to be perfect and whenever that wasn’t the case, whether from messy handwriting or having to cross something out when making a mistake, I had to start over. What I had then was a huge fear of failure; after the public disembowelment in this example, I added a fear of getting caught failing.

The last example I want to give is more of a general learning experience gained across two or three years when I was 15 or 16 years old. I loved art and would draw all the time at home, mostly animals but also cartoons and especially drawing from my imagination. But this love of creativity was slowly ground out of me by a couple of art teachers who were unenthusiastic and told me flat out that drawing something from memory or imagination was doing art ‘wrongly’, and that cartoons were the lowest form of artistic skill imaginable. I was never that into art in terms of learning who different painters were (I still can’t tell the difference between a Manet and a Monet) but felt it was a bit rich telling me that while expecting me to appreciate Picasso’s nightmarish figures. The boring still life pictures we were expected to churn out and a complete collapse in motivation during my GCSE Art & Design led to me getting a C grade, which was a terrible waste of talent, in retrospect. I got a C for Maths, which I loathed with every fibre of my being, so getting the same for Art was a real shame.

I think teaching school-age children is a massive undertaking, and I tip my hat to those that can do it. I think I would be paralysed (no pun intended) by a fear of imparting the same kind of bad experiences I had to my pupils. I’m sure that any of the teachers I highlighted here would be surprised to learn just how big an impact they had on my education, whether good or bad. I still hate Maths and I still have an urge to hide or destroy substandard work. But, every day’s a school day, as the saying goes.

The next section of this e-portfolio (having done enough budget therapy) will start to consider the introductory readings we have been assigned. There is a lot to get through.

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In the beginning

In a former life (read: when I was a fresh-faced GCSE student) I briefly entertained the possibility of training to be a teacher when I left school. I don’t remember the exact thought process behind this swerve from the previously intended career I’d held to since the age of 5 or 6.  I wanted to be a police dog handler – the perfect career choice for a bossy child who desperately wanted a dog – but at the age of 18 discovered my eyesight was too bad to join up, in the days before cheap laser surgery. The prospect of teacher training was a backup choice, but an odd one, as I absolutely loathed school and barely went. It wasn’t that I didn’t like learning, far from it; when I bunked off school I didn’t go out downtown or round to a friend’s house – I’d sit in my room at home reading. I just hated the environment that the formal learning occurred in and preferred self-directed learning at home on my own.

Eventually, I abandoned my vague plans of teaching because I didn’t think I’d be able to overcome my rampant antipathy towards children and assumed there wasn’t much chance of specialising in adult education. I ended up working for a bank and from there I went on to a career in finance and throughout my financial career, I taught as a private tutor to colleagues who were taking their CeMAP (Certificate in Mortgage Advice & Practice) which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was something so satisfying about the dawning comprehension of a teammate who suddenly ‘got’ how to work out the loan to value percentage of a mortgage or the different types of freehold. Of course, I was teaching people who genuinely wanted to learn, because without the qualifications my team was studying towards, they could not advance to the next pay band and reap the rewards of being a fully qualified mortgage advisor in the heady days of the sub-prime mortgage boom before the financial crash of 2008.

Fast-forward to 2018 and although life has been somewhat turbulent, the enjoyment of learning is still very much evident. I completed my undergraduate degree in archaeology at UCL in my early thirties (I like to call this my ‘mid-life crisis degree’) and now I’m studying for an MLitt in Museum Studies. My partner likes to call me the ‘Eternal Student’ because I’m enjoying being a learner again and could see myself going on to do a Ph.D. The module that prompted this e-portfolio is one I hope to get a lot of value from, as I have encountered learning from both sides, as student and teacher at varying times, but have never studied learning in and of itself.

This e-portfolio will take the form of blog posts in the main and is intended to be a self-reflective piece of work in that it will cover not only the readings assigned each week but also my responses to what I’ve read or encountered. As I am no expert on the subject there may well be errors in interpretation but this is part of the learning process; any misrepresentations are of course my own.  I’m really looking forward to exploring the topic and welcome any contributions or comments you might have. Please feel free to interact!