Art & Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom

Overview

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The most effective classrooms are not spaces for delivering answers, but laboratories for asking questions that facilitate collective meaning making. This course provides a framework for inquiry-based teaching—a student-centered methodology that uses art to spark deep critical thinking and collaborative dialogue. By using the strategies developed by leaders in the field of museum education, you will learn to facilitate a process of close looking and evidence-based reasoning that empowers your students to lead their own learning journeys. Whether you are a new teacher building your first lesson plan or a seasoned professional looking to reinvigorate your practice, this course equips you with the tools to turn modern and contemporary art into an accessible springboard for inquiry.

Syllabus

Module 1: Introduction to Inquiry | Why Engage in Inquiry Around Art?

Welcome to Art and Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom. This course will introduce ways to integrate works of art into your classroom by using inquiry-based teaching methods commonly used in museum settings. This course is designed to give you the tools to create meaningful object-based learning activities that can be integrated into a wide variety of curricula. The strategies this course covers emphasize literacy and critical thinking skills across disciplines.

Module 2: Close Looking and Open-Ended Inquiry

In this module you will explore different ways to facilitate close looking with your students by engaging in open-ended, inquiry-based conversation around works of art.

Module 3: Art, Inquiry, and Social Emotional Learning

In this module, we will explore how art and Social Emotional Learning can deepen students’ attention, self-awareness, as well as their awareness of others.

Module 4: Activities as Inquiry

This module focuses on activities as a mode of inquiry. In this module you’ll explore how to use three kinds of activities in your classroom to effectively promote an exchange of ideas with students.

Module 5: Putting it all Together | Making Connections Across Curriculum

In this module you will consider ways to incorporate inquiry about a work of art into your classroom and make connections to different subject areas including Social Studies, English Language Arts, and Science.