Art Museum Education 

The Ellen Noël Art Museum collaborates with a local non-profit organization, Child's Play, Inc. to help fund an annual exhibit specifically targeted to elementary students.  Five thousand students from the community have an opportunity to visit the Child's Play exhibition. Teacher training in the past has been challenging due to the number of teachers requiring training. In response, the school administration designated curriculum specialists to receive training at the Museum and in turn train teachers back at their home schools.  All the teachers receive educational packets and have access to a video of the exhibit. The administration has informed the Museum, funds for printing of educational packets will no longer be available after this year. Many of the teachers feel unprepared to lead students through the exhibit. There seems to be a high correlation between teachers who have received adequate training and positive evaluations of the Museum visit. 

Through qualitative research, I intend to investigate an accessible and efficient teacher training program to prepare educators for their visits with students to the Ellen Noël Art Museum during the Child's Play exhibit. With the Museum collaborating with teachers, administrators, curriculum specialists and the Child's Play committee to help provide a enriched experience for students, many differing viewpoints will need to be considered. Evaluative methodology utilizing theoretical framework of hermeneutics will aid in developing the overall guidelines for the program. The major construct in this research is the method and effectiveness of teacher training.

The current Museum training program will be evaluated using quantitative and qualitative analysis. Data will be  gathered on other museum education programs. One avenue to investigate will be web base learning. Some of the variables include the accessibility to the Internet and varied educational needs of the teachers.  

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