Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze ways to expand the educational role of art museums in terms of their relationship with schools. Recently, art museums in South Korea began to emphasize their educational role and provide school programs. However, so far, these programs have only targeted to visual art education and art teachers, instead of all classroom teachers. After a yearlong internship at the Wexner Center for the Arts, located in Columbus, Ohio, I conducted a study of Pages, a yearlong collaborative art museum-school program between a contemporary art museum and school teachers who do not teach visual art. During my participation in Pages, I discovered several aspects with the potential to benefit collaborative art museum-school programs both in Korea and the U.S. Thus, overarching research question of the study was formulated as follows: What are the unique and essential components and practices of Pages that can inform collaborative art museum-school programs in Korea and the U.S.? To delve into the Pages program, I grounded this qualitative case study in constructivism. Specifically, I utilized the communities of practice framework, a contemporary version of social constructivism. This framework helped me explain the collaborative learning process of adult educators. In addition, constructivist learning theories helped me place art museums as legitimate learning institutions and to describe the practices of the educators which target meaningful student learning through connecting art museum education and school education. Finally, constructivism was used as an interpretive framework for the study: I co-created knowledge with the research participants and aimed to show their diverse perspectives. I utilized qualitative case study research as a methodology. Like Pages, several ongoing education programs at U.S. art museums require involvement of core classroom teachers. However, I chose Pages because it has several unique characteris (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Joni Acuff (Advisor); Karen Hutzel (Committee Member); Jennifer Richardson (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Museum Studies; Museums

MA, Kent State University, 2017, College of the Arts / School of Art

Teacher quality is a decisive factor in a student's educational experience. In turn, a teacher's continued professional development is crucial to his/her capacity for high quality instructional practice. Recent research indicates that school districts' heightened focus on standardized tests as a measure of student and teacher achievement has resulted in art teachers having fewer subject-relevant opportunities for high quality professional development within their schools and districts when compared with peers teaching “tested” subjects. Counter movements seeking to challenge the rise of “testing culture” in K-12 schools centralize the processes of student creativity, critical thinking, and other 21st century skills—along with the disciplines, subjects, and professional development experiences that are intrinsically predisposed to model and support them. A compelling example of such efforts is found in the work of the Columbus Museum of Art's education department staff, who successfully effected change first within the museum's institutional vision and framework, and next in issues of art education and schooling within their community. This case study of the museum's 2015 Teaching for Creativity Institute indicates that museums are uniquely situated to provide high quality professional development opportunities and create communities of support for art teachers and their non-art teaching colleagues. These professional development experiences also have the potential to serve as powerful advocacy tools for arts education and art museums.

Committee: Linda Hoeptner Poling Ph.D. (Advisor); Koon-Hwee Kan Ph.D. (Committee Member); Juliann B. Dorff (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education; Education Philosophy; Educational Leadership; Elementary Education; Museum Studies; Museums; Secondary Education; Teacher Education

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

PACE, CHRISTINE, M.A., AUGUST, 2016 ART EDUCATION ART MUSEUM EDUCATION AND WELL-BEING (161PP.) Director of Thesis: Robin Vande Zande This research looks at how well-being manifests within art museum educational programming with non-traditional participants. The specific programming studied took place onsite at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in Quebec, Canada, where this type of programming has been in practice for almost two decades. Museum educators, administrators, and program personnel were interviewed in order to explore the ways in which well-being is perceived, defined, and implemented within curriculum and teaching at the MMFA. Program observations, content analyses, and literature reviews were all conducted, coded, and analyzed as part of this qualitative, collective case study. The goal of this research is to allow those within, as well as those outside of, the field of art education to more fully understand art museum education programming for well-being, justify a need for this type of programming, and to apply information learned as a model for future programming.

Committee: Robin Vande Zande Ph.D. (Advisor); Linda Hoeptner-Poling Ph.D. (Committee Member); Richard Adams Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Cultural Anthropology; Education; Museum Studies; Museums; Social Research; Sociology; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, Curriculum and Instruction Cultural Studies (Education)

This study examines the teacher museum institute experience at the Harn Museum in Gainesville, Florida. The proposal this study is built on is that museum education in general and museum teacher programs could function as effective tools that the school system can utilize to help promoting the educational reform movement. The ultimate argument this study attempted to make is that developing educational programs and activities will help to make museums more open towards their communities and will help to attract more audiences.The study focused on the first five teacher institutes that have taken place at the Harn Museum in the years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. The idea of choosing this number of institutes is to acquire enough data that will make it possible to make comparative study between these institutes in terms of the organizational and administrative aspects as well as in their professional outcome. Also choosing this many number of museums made it possible to examine different teachers' experiences based on their year of participation. The decision of using a combination of qualitative methods including questionnaire and documents analysis in this study was tied to the interest in reaching an interpretive and descriptive analysis of the museum teacher institutes' experience. The qualitative methods employed in this study have proven to be flexible and allowed developing a level of contact with the institutes' participants that eventually made it possible to learn about their perspectives and expectations. They also made it possible to produce rich and detailed data that provided a solid ground for analysis evaluation of the final results. The study showed that a well-planned and carefully executed museum teacher program will result in positive results relating to the advancement of teachers' professional development and the creation of better teaching and learning environments. The findings of this study highlighted the fact that museum and schools sha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William S. Howard PhD (Committee Chair); Rosalie Romano PhD (Committee Member); Francis Godwyll PhD (Committee Member); Andrea Frohne PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education; Museums