New Content Approaches
Like many of the museum teams launching Distance Learning applications on the CultureConnect platform in 2020 and 2021, the initial challenge for the Fairfield Museum team was reimagining their educational content and communication styles for a virtual context.
Historically, educational programming happens in-person. This face-to-face dialogue offers museum educators the opportunity to evaluate the learning experience in real time, tailor their approach, and respond. Responding to student questions and asking follow-up questions aids in a student’s ability to learn and make personal connections to historical events.
Without in-person learning available, the Fairfield Museum’s first priority was to identify their new content and distance learning goals and identify solutions that existed in the CultureConnect platform.
Goals:
- Provide educational content and resource materials that serve educators and students, at home and in the classroom
- Meet the needs of all types of learners
- Offer a variety of activities or interactive experiences
- Make the content engaging
- Prioritize ease of use and user friendly design
- Test early and iterate
Phase 1: Testing in the Classroom and at Home
The Fairfield Museum team initially launched with two experiences: The Burning of Fairfield and Creating Community. The distance learning application supported the 3rd and 5th grade Social Studies curriculum for Fairfield Schools. It was also designed to support any other school interested in teaching the related material. The Burning of Fairfield spotlights an important local historical event and its impact on the American Revolution. Creating Community complements their current permanent exhibition and offers additional materials and content beyond what’s available during an onsite visit to the exhibition.
The Fairfield History application was distributed to teachers and students who had returned to in-person instruction at school, as well as those continuing to work remotely. In-classroom, the application was launched on large touchscreen smart boards for the educator to lead the content exploration and discussion. These in-classroom learning experiences were designed so teachers could fold the application into their units on the American Revolution, local history and/or communities.
A Teacher Guide, available in-app for both experiences, helped the educator prepare for the lesson. Downloadable PDFs include: An Introduction, Timeline & Quiz, Glossary, and deeper content. The teacher also has the opportunity to rate their experience once they’ve finished the lesson plan.
Students at home were free to browse the content on their laptops and tablets. However, without a teacher guiding their learning experience and often without a parent to directly assist, it was essential to offer assistance to students who may be struggling but also, create interactive opportunities like quizzes, voting modules, and more to help the student stay engaged.
Phase 2: Teacher Feedback and Iteration
When Fairfield first engaged CultureConnect to discuss their distance learning program, they emphasized the importance of being able to iterate upon teacher and student feedback. They wanted the program to evolve based on their audience’s feedback in order to continually enhance the virtual learning program.
Their teacher and student feedback proved to be invaluable. Upon testing with local school districts, they received clear and consistent feedback which included:
- Teachers wanted a list of activities available as PDF downloads in each content section
- Teachers requested audio components on every single content page. These audio experiences could help guide at-home learners struggling with reading or coming to the content as English Language Learners
- Expand quiz experiences and results
- Include multiple perspectives and points of view to help students connect to these local histories
- Create more connections between past and present
The Fairfield Museum team immediately took action by crafting audio recordings of every content page, creating downloadable PDFs of activities, expanding the interactive modules and quizzes, and expanding the content to include more stories from a diverse range of historical figures.
