Museums in Action
Students learn through museum visits and lead tours for their classmates. Preparing a tour involves choosing works, researching context, and planning ways to begin a conversation. Students consider how museums present information and how visitors contribute their own interpretations.
Learning with Museum Educators
Students visit Krannert Art Museum and Spurlock Museum to learn directly from museum professionals. At KAM, students participate in art activities and discuss how to facilitate them with visitors. At Spurlock, an interactive discussion focuses on visitor experiences and how museums can support participation. Students draw on both visits when preparing their own tours and activities.
Peer-Led Museum Tours
Students prepare and lead tours at Krannert Art Museum for ART 140 students in groups of 10–15. Preparation includes researching artworks, planning a route, developing questions and activities, and organizing materials. Each student leads one session and supports another. Feedback from tour participants helps students reflect on their facilitation and the experience they offered.
Museum Education Seminars
Students lead seminars based on museum education readings. Each seminar connects ideas from the reading with a proposed activity for museum visitors. Students explain their decisions, lead discussion, and respond to classmates’ questions. Peer feedback helps presenters consider how their ideas might work in practice.
Digital Museum Experiences
Students work with the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning to develop VR and AR museum experiences. The sessions introduce ways to plan learning experiences beyond a physical museum visit. Students consider how digital formats affect what visitors can encounter and how they participate.
Exhibition Collaboration
Students take part in exhibition projects as opportunities arise. Work may include designing publicity, writing curatorial statements, developing visitor activities, and assisting with installation and deinstallation. Students also check displayed objects during the exhibition and reflect on the work involved in preparing and maintaining a public show.
Professional Preparation
Students create a CV for actual internship, summer employment, or related opportunities. The assignment helps students describe their museum experience, including tour facilitation, exhibition work, and educational activity development, in terms relevant to the positions they want to pursue.