Gallery Based Ed
Jody Stokes-Casey
I enjoy guiding museum guests to make connections with works of art and material culture. Artwork and objects help us to share stories, interact with history, and better understand the human experience. Here are two projects designed for two different audiences to encourage learning through the museum's collections and in the galleries.
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PROJECT ONE
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Family Guide, Co-author
Title: Interim Associate Director of Education, Family and School Programs
Published April 2016
Overview:
At the Brooks, I worked with the Special Projects Coordinator to co-author the Family Guide.
The Family Guide was a part of a larger project called Inside Art the museum's first permanent interactive exhibition dedicated to visual literacy and helping families become confident art explorers. I worked with the Director of Education and the Special Projects Coordinator to finalize designs for Inside Art, then began working with the Special Projects Coordinator to draft the Family Guide.
The guide dedicates a two-page spread per Inside Art visual literacy skill. Each of the nine skills is associated with an icon. The Family Guide describes the skill in family friendly language then provides a gallery activity to practice the skill. In a dialogue bubble, an explanation of the importance of the skill in the child's development is provided for the adults. Each skill is partnered with one or more artworks from the collection and an additional activity.
See the full Family Guide here.
After Inside Art and the Family Guide were complete, the museum entered into a partnership with Rhodes College and their Research in Education and Learning (REAL) Lab. Rhodes students conducted observational studies with focus groups and the public in Inside Art with the exhibition and in the museum's main galleries with the Family Guide. I coordinated with the professor and students to help with the research process, presented during their class time, and attended their final presentations on behalf of the museum at the college. The Brooks Museum Director of Education and I co-submitted a proposal to present the findings and project at the 2017 National Art Education Association conference, but were not selected.
PROJECT TWO
Overview:
Under the direction of the Director of Education, Interpretation, and Collections and in collaboration with the museum's registrar, I designed and implemented the museum's first teacher institute.
The institute highlighted the new curriculum based on the enduring idea of courage that I developed for the renovated museum.
See the Courage in the Civil Rights Movement curriculum here.
Teachers spent a full day at the museum. I created an agenda, formulated activities, created an evaluation form, ordered lunches, worked with tour guides to arrange a tour, and partnered with the registrar to select objects from the collections storage for teachers to interact closely with. We co-taught ways to use material cultural as in-roads to history through a process not unlike Visual Thinking Strategies.
Marketing this event: I designed and distributed materials including the flyer pictured and worked with the Shelby County School District's lead social studies instructional coach to communicate with teachers district-wide. I also researched and invited private, charter, and the Catholic Diocese school teachers. Our marketing department arranged for a reporter from Chalkbeat TN to cover our Teacher Institute.
See the Chalkbeat TN article here.
We held two more teacher institutes that school year and later collaborated with Middle Tennessee State University to provide teacher workshops on working with primary sources in the classroom.
National Civil Rights Museum
Teacher Institute
Title: Education Coordinator
July - December 2014
