Place-Based and Experiential Learning at the Palmer Museum of Art

 This week for 412 Lab, my cohort members and I traveled over to the Palmer Museum of Art and experienced what it would be like to take students on a place-based field trip. We began the class by coming up with objectives for our lab and then started our museum tour experience. Baylor and I came up with the objective of understanding and building knowledge of the behind the scenes and best practices of taking students on field trips. 

The first piece of art that we visited was Still Life with Grapes by Severin Roesen. We were all very impressed that one of our guides, Rachel, was able to use a lecture-based, informational teaching approach that tied in the agriculture discipline. One fun fact that she tied into the piece was that there are 14,000 acres devoted to vineyards in Pennsylvania, leading us to rank fifth nationally in wine production. 

Next we got to see a more discussion based teaching style for the next piece of art, titled Harlem Rose. As we walked up, our guide, Brandy, asked us to make observations and talk about the pieces within the art itself. As you can see below, the piece was made of old womens' work shoes and was able to highlight women's empowerment, which our group was able to discuss. 

Finally, we concluded our tour with an activity that was a very visitor-centered teaching style. Our guide gave us prompts and we had to find a piece that fit the prompt. We then got back together as a group to review each of the pieces we chose. My prompt was to find a piece that I would show to a friend who wa struggling with depression. The piece I chose was Sunlit Road, an oil painting on a canvas of a bright road ahead. 

After reflecting about this experience, I not only learned some information about what the Palmer Museum of Art is, but also how this kind of trip can be customized to almost any class. Specifically, I learned about the planning horizon of a field trip, and that I should be planning ahead as far in advance as possible. Communication with the contact for the field trip is key, and sending them some form of message the day before the trip is very important to make sure everyone is on the same page. 

As I prepare to be a teacher myself, I could use these new skills when taking my students on a place-based field trip. I plan on incorporating the goal setting before we begin any activity with my students. I felt that this kept us on track to meet our common goal by the end of lab. 

At the end of lab, I thought we had definitely met the objective of learning about the behind the scenes of field trip planning. 

Here's to Part of the Whole Tree, 

Ms. Holtry