More Professional Development and this time it’s FREE!

Since we’re on the topic of professional development....
The Archaeology Program of the National Park Service in conjunction with the University of Maryland offers a series of distance learning courses designed to aid archaeologists, cultural resource managers, and museum staff members in the creation of interpretative programs and the care of archaeological collections. All of the self-paced courses are free and available to everyone. The courses may be found at National Park Service Archaeology Program Distance Learning.

Here are some of the courses available:
Managing Archeological Collections
Archeology for Interpreters
Interpretation for Archeologists
Study Tour of Archeological Interpretation
Assessment of Archeology Interpretation
Caring for Your Historic Building -- Online Education

Inexpensive Professional Development

When I became a museum educator, I had very little knowledge of what it took to be an “educator”. Let’s face it, most of us museum educators are skilled in history or art but few of us have extensive training in education. Some of us even ended up with this job by default because no one else in the museum wanted the extra headache of creating programs based on rigid state or national academic standards. Because I want to be a better educator, I am constantly seeking ways to educate myself. Therefore, I was excited when I recently learned of an online professional development program provided by PBS called TeacherLine. The site hosts a variety of 6-week courses geared to K-12 schoolteachers; however, there are a number of “Instructional Strategies” and “Technology” courses that may benefit museum educators as well. Courses generally cost about $199 and you may receive graduate-level course credit from accredited universities for an additional fee.

Some of the courses to check out are:
*Connecting Family, Community, and Schools
*Developing Understanding with Dynamic Media and Digital Storytelling
*Differentiated Instruction
*Using Assessment and Evaluation
*Mastering the Skills of Online Teaching
*Publishing on the Web

A Short Attention Span Is.....What Was I Saying?

How many times have you been on a tour and the guide rambles on and on and on and…..? You find yourself zoning out, no longer hearing a word the guide says, and you wonder to yourself, “Will anyone notice if I move on to something else?” All of us have been there and, for guests with very short attention spans, a guided tour can be sheer torture.

So how do you keep your guests from getting bored? One technique is to incorporate artifacts into your tour. Rather than pointing to artifacts in exhibits along the way, try sporadically passing around a couple of small objects from your education collection. For example, let guests handle a boll of cotton or tufts of wool while talking about spinning wheels and clothing production. Not only will these unexpected hands-on encounters delight and entertain your guests, but they will enhance the learning experience as well. When visitors are allowed to interact with and connect physically to artifacts, it is often easier for them to make connections between people, events, and places of the past. Holding the artifact somehow makes “history” seem more tangible and authentic.