Mayo College Museum Learning Toolkit
The Mayo College Museum Toolkit Project is a range of curriculum-linked learning activities, games and resources that use artefacts from the school's museum as stimuli in fostering an enquiry-based teaching and learning pedagogy in the school.
Role: Lead Researcher and Learning Experience Designer
Client: Mayo College, Ajmer, India
Lead Organisation: Flow India
Learners: Students of classes 4, 5, and 6
Sector: K-12 Learning, Culture & Museums
The Brief
Mayo College, Ajmer, India, is a premier boarding school for boys. Founded in 1875, it is the only school in India that has a museum on-campus that houses a diverse collection of historical, societal, geological and natural artefacts and exhibits from across India and the world.
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Despite a rich learning resource, the school found students were not interested in visiting the space (during classes or in their free time), and teachers were not able to integrate the museum galleries as part of their curriculum.
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Furthering its commitment to ‘Learning from the Campus’, the school wanted to develop a curriculum linked resource framework around the objects and displays of the Museum. The Mayo College Museum Toolkit Project was mandated to harness the potential of these artefacts as primary resource and stimuli in fostering an enquiry-based teaching and learning pedagogy in Primary School (Classes 4-6).
My Design Process
As the Education Design Lead with Flow India, I worked closely with educators to map the school’s curriculum on the objects at the museum to see how topics from the curriculum can be taught outside the classroom and at the museum. Based on these maps, I then worked with Subject Matter Experts, including climate scientists, historians, anthropologists, local University professors, and more to co-design cross-curricular projects for students and lesson plans for teachers through an iterative feedback process with students and teachers.
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My focus throughout the project was to help learners know more about the objects at the museum, think deeper about the contexts and stories they represented, and gain skills of questioning, big-picture thinking, creative problem-solving, collaboration, and critical and analytical thinking.
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Each project was designed with pre-visit activities that introduced the larger topic, a series of games and activities at the museum (focusing on specific objects and galleries that tied into the topic at hand), and a post-museum visit session comprising of reflective activities that allowed learners to research and demonstrate their learning in their own ways. I also designed a comprehensive tiered evaluation rubric that would allow the school administration, teachers, and learners to assess the effectiveness of the toolkit and document the changes they make to adapt the toolkit to their needs.
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Before the projects were implemented by teachers, I also facilitated trainings for educators to share fundamental strategies of object-based learning that underpins the development of the toolkit.
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I recorded my design process in this Project Report for Flow India.
An example of how topics from the curriculum were linked to create cross-disciplinary thematic projects.
Example of an activity in the Environment Studies toolkit
Outcome
The Mayo College Museum Toolkit Project is a range of curriculum-linked learning activities, games and resources that use artefacts from the school's museum as primary resource and stimuli in fostering an enquiry-based teaching and learning pedagogy in Junior school. Over the course of the year, I created custom-designed toolkits with lesson plans and research material for the teachers and worksheets and engaging experiential activities and games for the students.
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Each toolkit has a thematic focus ranging from History to Geology to Environmental Protection to Society and Cultures. The collaborative games and activities I designed encouraged learners to use theatre, storytelling, writing, poetry, research, scientific experiments, and more to embody and express their learning.
Impact
The Mayo College Museum Learning Toolkit has now been embedded in the school’s curriculum, and not only has it benefited the learners but has also resulted in the revival of the museum with dedicated funds and staff being allocated for its maintenance and growth.
“This toolkit gives the students a variety of skills. Their learning skills, observation skills, analytical skills, and of course their writing skills have improved a lot. It as an impactful package for the kids… Kudos to you for giving us this toolkit to work with and it has been a great experience for us too!” ~ Mr. Riktendu Das, Primary School Science Faculty.
View Mr. Das’ complete feedback on the toolkit here {Link}.
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Facilitating the teacher training on Object-based learning.
Students look closely at objects in the museum to ask questions of the objects.
Students use the Toolkit activities and worksheets to record their observations and link topics of their History and English curriculum.
Observing teachers facilitating activities from the Museum Toolkit so they can test our prototype and adapt them to their needs.