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Museum Education Practicum

The Museum Education Practicum provides an in-depth look at museum education from the guidance of the Studio Museum’s knowledgeable educators. This course is designed to provide emerging museum and arts educators with an intensive training program.

Program Description

The Studio Museum in Harlem's education programs provide a vital link between the permanent collection and exhibitions and offer a unique blend of perspectives, designed to foster inquiry and dialogue.


The Museum Education Practicum provides an in-depth look at museum education from the guidance of the Studio Museum’s knowledgeable educators. This course is designed to provide emerging museum and arts educators with an intensive training program. The curriculum includes Seminar and In-Gallery Lab sessions, professional talks and presentations, as well as opportunities to observe an array of education programs. Participants also gain firsthand experience facilitating tours and workshops.

Curriculum

The seminar involves reading and discussing critical texts across art and pedagogical theory. Participants develop the tactics and strategies needed to discuss and dissect artworks in such a way that it can be appropriately accessed by adult, school, youth and family audiences.

Through the understanding of critical texts and artworks of artists of African descent, participants of the Museum Education Practicum will learn how to thoughtfully engage with audiences of all ages, understand the Museum’s role as a site of learning, develop skills for curriculum building, and ultimately possess the tools to design, facilitate and teach a successful education program.


The semester will also include professional talks from Studio Museum educators, curators, public program coordinators and more.

Critical Texts


Productive Information: Contextual Knowledge in Art Museum Education, Olga M. Hubard


If You Don’t Stop You Don’t See Anything, Rika Burnham• The Art of Teaching in the Museum, Rika Burnham & Elliott Kai-Kee


Art as a Conversation: An Interview with Thelma Golden, Khephra Burns


Introduction from Freestyle (catalog), Thelma Golden


Draw it with your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment, Paper Monument (ed.)


The Multiplicities of Multiplicities, Nana Adusei-Poku


Museum Politics: Power Plays at the Exhibition, Timothy W. Luke

In-Gallery Lab


The In-Gallery Lab/workshop creates a space for experimentation. Participants are introduced to a number of in-gallery strategies and activities, and are also expected to workshop and develop their own. Participants engage in a number of mock tour exercises and try out art-making workshops on the rest of their cohort.

Program Benefits

To earn academic credit and be a part of the next generation of scholars and educators

Build art-based curriculums

Using an inquiry-driven museum education model

Including leading curators, scholars, and academics