How to keep up with changes in school systems? Create, share & teach!

Changing school systems ask for new strategies in museum education. Children start their school careers more and more as digital natives. Internet is an important source for children and schools. Teaching does not only take place in classrooms. Teachers are looking for new roles and are teaching 21st century skills.

Museums like the Van Gogh Museum have to loosen control. The internet contains loads of information about Vincent van Gogh. How to stay on top, as a knowledge centre on a world famous artist? How to cater to schools worldwide, with significant differences in local, national and international school systems? How to make our knowledge and collection easy to use for teachers, who know what works best for their pupils?

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam caters to schools worldwide. In 2015 it received 57.500 pupils in the museum and had 205.000 web visits to VGM school pages from over 40 countries.

To adjust to changes in school systems the Van Gogh Museum developed a new education strategy which combines school programs in the museum, outreach to schools in the Amsterdam region, and online.

Central in this strategy is Van Gogh at school – Get to know Vincent, the online platform developed with Lesson-Up, which facilitates and inspires teachers for primary schools (age groups 4-12 years) worldwide. The platform offers content and enables teachers to create and share their on content. This gives the van Gogh Museum input to keep on developing along with the rapidly changing demands from teachers.

In this How to session the Van Gogh Museum shares lessons learned from their new strategy and online platform Van Gogh at school – Get to know Vincent.

Bibliography:
Advisory Report by Platform Onderwijs 2032 for the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, The Hague, 2016 ISBN/EAN 978-90-824928-0-4
http://onsonderwijs2032.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/160412-Eindadvies_Onderwijs2032_UK.pdf

Palfrey, J.; Gasser, U., Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Basic Books 2008)

‘Digital native’ is a term first used in an article by education expert Marc Prensky in 2001: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants in On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001)

Prensy, M., From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom, in: From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Education (Corwin 2012)

https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2015/oct/23/digital-technology-museums-audiences-collaboration

DUO research schools for Van Gogh Museum, 2013-14.
https://www.duo.nl

http://government-2020.dupress.com/category/education/