This article explores the hidden gendered curriculum concealed in the texts, exhibitions and other structural devices of museums and what they teach visitors to see and think. Grounded in conceptualisations of culture, representation, and language, past feminist studies of museums and applying feminist visual discourse analysis (FVDA) we found…

This qualitative case study explored the experiences of two teachers participating in a visual literacy online professional development course sponsored by a state-funded art museum. As the world becomes more visual, there is a continued need for teachers to develop the skills needed to foster visual literacy in their students; therefore, the goal…

This article shares the findings of a visual literacy project with museum curators and film educators. The research explores the mediation of social history and politics, the interplay of personal and professional curation and the role of reflexive visual literacy in understanding mediated identities. The project connected three museums around…

The art of looking is a museum and art gallery teaching tool at the core of the Visual Thinking Strategies, a Harvard School of Education pedagogy initiated as an educational experiment for schools across the United States almost two decades ago. Today, a large number of schools implement this teaching method to increase student engagement in a…

This paper details a research study, conducted by the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) and Toledo Public Schools (TPS), outlining the impact of visual literacy interventions on pre-literacy development. Because TPS K-3 students regularly fail the state report card in literacy, the two groups co-developed a curriculum that enhanced tier two vocabulary…

The visual reality of the world is often not reflected in the classroom experiences of students, creating little opportunity for them to learn how to be critical "readers" of the visual texts that fill their lives. After participating in a provocative summer workshop on Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the…

As a dance practitioner in education, Jason Ohlberg is interested in how artistic inquiry through interdisciplinary, student-centered processes can engage dancers beyond traditional choreographic practices and offer deeper contexts for learning and growth. The research described in this article began through an inter-institutional initiative,…

Offering art education and art experiences to marginalized student populations provides a break from the academic familiar and creates space for radical possibility both in the art classroom and across academic contexts. This article shows the value of artists-in-residence within community colleges, which tend to serve low income, racial minority,…

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau This study utilized an intervention of deep looking through implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) using artwork and artifacts in area museums/galleries (Yenawine, 2014). Techniques for working with primary sources, objects, artifacts, artwork,…

The arts disciplines (visual arts, music, theatre, and dance) merit and require formal study. Policy makers should support studies in the arts as core disciplines, as specified in the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)," the federal legislation that sets policy and appropriations for public education. The arts merit and…

A walk down Main Street can be very much like a stroll through a museum gallery--visually rich, inviting unexpected choices, aesthetically rewarding. This article explores the concept of shop windows as visually ordered compositions, much like paintings and other art objects, and suggests some approaches to applying this concept in teaching a…

The author calls for incorporating into English classes what he calls museum-based pedagogy, arguing that it enables the teaching of multiple literacies: verbal, visual, technological, social, and critical. In part, this pedagogy consists of classroom instruction that enables students to understand the persuasive nature of museum displays--the…

According to van der Pluijm (2006), an ecological community occurs when interacting groups, living in the same area, are joined together by the set of connections. This definition implies a symbiotic relationship and the acknowledgment that what affects one member or part of the community also affects the others. When the interconnections are…

What kinds of programming should an art museum's education department offer to the K-12 school community? How can educators best contribute to students' current and future intellectual development? What type of programming best fits the needs of students and teachers, while also addressing the unique aspects of the museum setting? At the Isabella…

Discusses the potential for cooperation between schools and art museums and examines the use of visual materials in the classroom. Surveys show that teachers normally use nonprint visual materials only to make their classrooms attractive or to illustrate information. Museum experiences can enrich student visual imagery and appreciation of art. (AM)