Partnerships between University and Children's Museum - Making Play Not Just For Fun
Presentation Format
Individual Presentation
Intended Audience
All Audiences
Presentation Description
Children’s museums play a critical role in the community because it offers a safe, enjoyable place for families and schools to have fun and explore learning together with children. In order to make a children’s museum not just a place for fun, the director of Interactive Neighborhood for Kids (INK) makes efforts to build a partnership with the University of North Georgia. Through the collaboration, INK curriculum is expected to align with the Career Clusters, which is currently one of the focuses of the State of Georgia. It also helps the young learners to identify future career possibilities and set goals for themselves.
It is important for future educators to observe, assist, and instruct students from a variety of backgrounds and in a variety of contexts. Therefore, the education majors at the University are required to complete a 20-hour field experience project while taking some of the education courses. They have to create age appropriate learning activities, which tight to the Career Clusters, and implement the plans into different exhibit rooms at INK with children. The experience is meant to connect the theories discussed in class with field practices and to facilitate children's playing and optimize their learning.
This project provides opportunities for students to interact with diverse children and understand the critical roles of adult support in children's learning. It also helps the students reflect on their roles in the society and shortens the distance between the students and their community. This collaboration not only benefits students/children/parents/schools in the community but also makes INK become a place with high educational quality.
A Power Point presentation will be given to the participants. They will also be engaged in a short activity related to the content of the presentation. The goals of the presentation include:
- To share how a university could build partnerships with the local community.
- To share how the children’s museum (INK) connects academic instruction in the classroom with "real-world" and life experiences.
- To share the works that INK has done to integrate learning into playing.
- To share how college students benefit from this service-learning project and how this experience changes any of their thinking or provides them with new insights into education.
Location
Room - 212
Start Date
4-14-2016 3:15 PM
End Date
4-14-2016 4:30 PM
Recommended Citation
Lin, Emily, "Partnerships between University and Children's Museum - Making Play Not Just For Fun" (2016). Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning 2016. 68.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gss/2016/2016/68
Partnerships between University and Children's Museum - Making Play Not Just For Fun
Room - 212
Children’s museums play a critical role in the community because it offers a safe, enjoyable place for families and schools to have fun and explore learning together with children. In order to make a children’s museum not just a place for fun, the director of Interactive Neighborhood for Kids (INK) makes efforts to build a partnership with the University of North Georgia. Through the collaboration, INK curriculum is expected to align with the Career Clusters, which is currently one of the focuses of the State of Georgia. It also helps the young learners to identify future career possibilities and set goals for themselves.
It is important for future educators to observe, assist, and instruct students from a variety of backgrounds and in a variety of contexts. Therefore, the education majors at the University are required to complete a 20-hour field experience project while taking some of the education courses. They have to create age appropriate learning activities, which tight to the Career Clusters, and implement the plans into different exhibit rooms at INK with children. The experience is meant to connect the theories discussed in class with field practices and to facilitate children's playing and optimize their learning.
This project provides opportunities for students to interact with diverse children and understand the critical roles of adult support in children's learning. It also helps the students reflect on their roles in the society and shortens the distance between the students and their community. This collaboration not only benefits students/children/parents/schools in the community but also makes INK become a place with high educational quality.
A Power Point presentation will be given to the participants. They will also be engaged in a short activity related to the content of the presentation. The goals of the presentation include:
- To share how a university could build partnerships with the local community.
- To share how the children’s museum (INK) connects academic instruction in the classroom with "real-world" and life experiences.
- To share the works that INK has done to integrate learning into playing.
- To share how college students benefit from this service-learning project and how this experience changes any of their thinking or provides them with new insights into education.
Program Abstract
The presenter will share how the college students were engaged in the service-learning project at Interactive Neighborhood for Kids (INK), a children’s museum located in Gainesville, Georgia. In order to maximize children's learning and facilitate their playing, the college students designed age appropriate activities and implemented hands-on activities in the field. They also applied the knowledge of teaching and learning learned from the course to the field, including developmental theories, pedagogy and praxis, and student learning motivations.