Museum in the Classroom
HOW I T WORKS
The focus of Museum in the Classroom is facilitating fourth-grade students’ strategy
acquisition to become independent readers,
writers, listeners, and researchers. Using
balanced literacy methodology along with multi-media
sources, the students, over a period of ten weeks, explore the Eastern Woodland
Indian culture and display their results for
parents, peers, teachers, and administrators
as a ‘museum in the classroom.’ Teachers
conducting this unit will be meeting the NYC curriculum
and standards for literacy, social studies,
and art. Activities in balanced literacy include
read-alouds, guide reading, and shared and
independent reading and writing. Research will
involve Internet projects, a library visit, a
museum visit, listening to and being storytellers,
making a life-sized canoe from rolled-up news-papers,
recreating artifacts, and home assignments
on Funbrain.com.
Each day, the children work at their tables or
at the computers in heterogeneous groups of
four, except when the teacher calls together a
guided reading group of six. All new concepts
begin with a modeled mini-lesson lasting ten to
fifteen minutes. For example, paraphrasing on
index cards is taught and modeled before
children practice independently. Most students
have some experience searching for information
on the Internet, but the teachers meet with
groups to introduce Internet rules and search
engines. The teacher shows children how to get
to Yahooligans! and discusses the category
system. Using chart paper, he/she
demonstrates the idea of going from a broad to a
narrow category and eventually getting closer to
the subject of research. The teacher might also
decide to demonstrate this to the whole class,
depending on the students’ needs. Small-group
work allows children who already have technical
competence to help those who do not.
THE STUDENTS
The students who participate in this program
are approximately 30 academically and
economically diverse students identified as a gifted
class. The school is multi-cultural with over 35
different nationalities, and this class tends to be
ethnically representative of the school as a
whole. Many of the children have computers in
their homes and have had experience with the
Internet and word processing.
THE STAFF
Angela O’Dowd was born in Ireland but attended college in New York. She has an M.S.
in Education, has taught fourth grade for three
years, and is currently working as a technology
staff developer at the District 22 office. She has
worked for two years with AUSSIE (Australia,
United States, Services In Education)
consultants and participated in a national teacher
training certificate program for leadership in
Internet and video instruction.
WHAT YOU NEED
At least two Internet-ready computers in the
classroom (and access to others) are needed.
The program also requires an overhead
projector with transparencies, a digital camera,
printing paper, photocopying costs or facilities, and
selected books/magazines.
OVERALL VALUE
The best feature of Museum in the Classroom is
the way it integrates good teaching
methodology with standards and curriculum. Teachers
sometime feel that they are being pulled in too
many different directions when educators emphasize tests and various requirements.
This program is open-ended enough to
accommodate various classroom situations. |