This week, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College hosted the concluding presentation for the two-year Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded research project conducted by Amber Geary. Research focused on answering the following question: Why do teachers use or not use museums in their curricula?
Starting in Sept. 2015 and culminating in Aug. 2017, Geary’s research used a variety of techniques to understand why teachers from K-12 public schools in the area were not bringing their students on field trips to the Wellin Museum.
Since the museum does not charge for school tours, Geary believed that that this would be an attractive option for local schools. Despite this incentive, teachers were not visiting the museum. To figure out why, Geary sat down with local administrators and teachers to understand why teachers were not attending the museums. Many indicated that the introduction of the Common Core played an important role in evaluating whether or not a field trip was a viable option.
The Common Core focuses on four main principles: higher-order thinking skills, critical thinking, homogenized learning and college and career readiness.
Teachers and district administrators were sampled from 3 surrounding counties: Oneida County with 15 school districts and 72 schools, Herkimer with 11 districts, and 25 schools and Madison with 10 districts. Research consisted of focus groups or “teacher think tanks,” questionnaires, conversations, events, pilot programs and surveys after tours of Wellin. Of these, there were 3 focus groups, 13 personal interviews and 123 questionnaires. At the beginning, Geary faced difficulty in getting teachers to respond to the questionnaires and interviews. Using incentives such as gift cards to Amazon and Wellin Museum tote bags proved effective.
With 141 original responses, Geary determined that there were three main barriers to teachers integrating museum tours into their curriculum. The three most reported barriers being time, money and defendability.
K-12 teachers must accommodate their own test schedules, as well as other teachers’ schedules. This was especially true for art teachers, who instead of teaching 20 students from one grade, teach 400 students from every grade. Organizing a field trip becomes a time consuming and difficult process. Additionally, leaving the classroom and potentially missing tests reflects poorly on the teachers themselves, who are evaluated based on student test performance.
Geary’s findings also revealed that money played an important role in getting the local community involved. Although admission and tours to Wellin for student tours were free, bussing costs were not. Paying for a bus, lunches for the children, and substitute teachers to cover for visiting teachers proved to be a significant barrier for schools, especially because the region has a high poverty rate.
Used as a proxy measure for poverty, the percentage of students getting free and reduced lunches was reviewed for the three counties. Oneida County came in at 54.2 percent, Herkimer at 58.2 percent, and Madison at 43.7 percent.
The third and final indicator was defendability, or whether or not teachers could argue that a field trip to a museum fit into the curriculum. With the introduction of the Common Core, it becomes more difficult for teachers to align field trips with curriculum.
Based on this research, Geary has expanded the menu of offerings for local districts, providing professional development opportunities to get the field trip to qualify under administrative standards, in school lessons and large group accommodations.
