Out Door Learning at an Open Air Museum
What did you learn in ”The Old Town” today?
Questions
• How do students’ experience one day of school activities at ”The Old Town Open Air Museum?
• How are their experiences to be qualified into History Learning on location or in the
classroom?
• How to asses the teachers’ competences in this process?
• From an out-door perspective, what is specific about teaching in ”The Old Town Open Air
Museum”?
Background
•Via University College – Centre for Didactics – Program of Out Door Learning – Out Door Learning at ”The Old
Town”.
•Out Door School Project, Ministry of Education, consultancy and research
•Out Door Learning in History at the Teacher Education and as an interdisciplinary course
•The Old Town and The Teacher Education
•”Learning Museum” a national project 2011 -2013
•Many years of practice
•The school reform in Denmark 2014: ”The open school”and eventually requirements of educational training of the teachers and the teacher education?
”Old Town Open Air Museum” in Aarhus
•The National Open Air Museum of Urban History and Culture, 1864, 1927, 1974 http://www.dengamleby.dk/the-old-town/
•Living Museum: Inhabitans, players – not actors
•The apps
•The Education Department
•”A day as children in 1864”, a 5 hour’s work- shop
• The ideal of Aesthetic Learning and drama as a way to insight
Drama as a way to insight
Mødet med historie:
Skabt og tilsigtet æstetisk oplevelse Følelser og sanser
Refleksio viden n
Method of this little study
• (Participant) Observation of school classes 4. -8. grade
• Semi-structured interviews with museum teachers/players
• Exercises from 3 classes (4th grade)
The observations of the school classes
•The preparation at home: Why are they in ”The Old Town”? The preparation by the player: preparation for the play or for the society and people in 1864?
•The transformation to children 1864: The clothes, the behavior, the status as a child, girl and boy
•The work at the Merchant’s Estate: What is at stake for the students? Part of the play in 1864, part of the class, part of the museum, part of the visitors and the other visiting school classes.
Hard work, no breaks, boys come first ect. ”Seen not heard”
•The school lesson: Disciplin, doing hymns by heart, punishment, injustice, to be late ect.
•The reflection hour: What is different, what is alike, what was good and bad in 1864 and today? Comparison.
•The teachers’ role: In the back ground or in the front?
Why Out Door Learning optics at a museum as ” The Old Town”?
• Concepts developed by Dr. Arne Nikolaisen Jordet, The Danish researches ie. Erik Mygind, Niels Eibye Ernst, Karin Barfod and others.
• ”The Learning Loop”, Home – out - home
•Authenticity and historical consciousness, ”learning by doing”, loosening up the groups in the class, learning in teamwork, performance and confidence
•Connecting knowledge to action as a variation of the text based learning connecting knowledge to reading and
talking.
•Out Door Learning in History: To do History in action in the local environments
•Detextualisation as a disciplin in History?
Concepts of museum didactics
•Prof. Olga Dysthe: the Dialogue based learning at Museums of Arts
•Dr. Helene Illeris and Dr. Lise Sattrup:
Situational competence and situational production.
•Is it possible to achieve an aesthetic experience and to learn history/ stimulate the historical
consciousness at the same time?
•Prof. Cornelius Holtorph: The time travellers at
”The Land of Legends” in Lejre at ”Asterix Time”
Home/classroom
Preparation, Knowledge Teacher introduction
Symbolic learning Every day historical consciousness
At Old Town Open Air Museum
Out
Experience No Teacher interference The students are studying/having experiences
Aesthetic production Situational
Competences?
Learning by doing Authentic learning Authentic experience?
Stimulating historical consciousness?
Home/classroom Reflection
Teacher guides the reflections in
cooperation with the pupils
After processing Situational Competences?
Symbolic learning Qualitifying historical consciousness?
What did you learn in The Old Town today?
Different perspectives
• The teachers: Backing up or obstructing the students’ learning? An integrated part of the daily teaching?
• The players/teachers at the museum: The timetravelling and history learning, the preparation of the classes. Priorities.
• The Open Air Museum as the authentic reality or trivialised backdrop for learning/”Tivoli”?
• The students: Openminded and curious! Ready for the experiment and action.
The students’ experiences
•Hard work – but fun, working like slaves
•The players were scolding/yelling and making contradictive orders
•Unfair punishment, we could not do anything right – everything was wrong.
•The clothes: heavy, funny, beautiful.
•Hard not to talk and not to be heard
•Have learnt that it was hard to be a child in 1864
•More disciplin in 1864
•The worst: To clean up in the yard at the Merchant’s Estate
•The best: working together
The players/museum teachers
•The school classes are not always prepared for the work-shop or ”The Old Town” at all, but many are prepared. The students are generally very open for the activities and very interested.
•The students who are physically strong have their great moments in the activities. A variation of very different skills are visible and in action for many students.
•The teachers are not always prepared or have not used the educational material for preparing.
•The teachers some times simply obstruct the pupils’
experience by interfering the work-shop.
The teachers
•The teachers did not say or write so much.
•Some teachers have been in ”The Old Town”
before as part of the annual camp or as an integrated part of the curriculum
•Teachers in the background
•Teachers in the front
•Teachers as obstruction
•Teachers as support
•Consideration: Teachers as ambassadeurs for
collaboration with the local museums and the local environments in an out-door school perspective.
Qualifying Historical Conscousness?
•The concept of Historical consciousness from Bernard Eric Jensen with inspirations from Erik Lund and Andreas Körber.
•Comparison between the past and the present? Yes.
•1864, ”Asterix Time” or just ”The old Days”? What does it matter?
•Is it relevant for the pupils? Yes, they find it very relevant for their everyday life
•The use of the expert knowledge of the players about life in 1864?
•Historical consciouesness as competence in questioning? Yes
•Methodical competence? Connecting knowledge to action.
•Competence in Orientating? Reflections of life conditions in the past and present.
•Qualifying process on location or in the classroom? Both places, with the players in reflection hour, with the teacher in the classroom. Qualifying processes on location must be trained as well as the processes in the classroom.
•Motivation for more History learning/History experience
The Teacher Education
• Research and integration of museum didactics and out door learning
• Collaboration with the cultural
institutions and the local environment about didactical research and education of new teachers. Collaboration with ”The Old Town”
• Research and teaching in interdisciplinary
learning! and good ”oldfashion” studying
by working in projects!
What did you learn? Considerations
•The drama concept of Old Town
•The out-door concepts: Teamwork, the social and practical competences.
•Home – Out –Home. All 3 phases!
•Aesthetic experience and –learning, situational competences and –production
•The time travelling. The transformation. Authenticity?
•Stimulating historical consciousness? Qualifying concepts of 1864?
•The teacher competences in the 3 phases: recognizing different skills,
recognizing different routes to historical knowledge and detextualising a part of the teaching
•History teaching including out-door learning and integrating school activities in an Open Air Museum as ”The Old Town” means focused historical
knowledge, goals for the History education and the ability to change roles as a teacher.
•Don’t bring the classroom out of it?
•Let the students have their experiences on location, but qualify them in the class
