Angels at the Ashmolean: My under 5s event – Aisling Serrant

One of the best aspects of our Skills for the Future traineeship is that we gain experience working with a wide variety of different audiences. On my placement at the Ashmolean Museum, along with teaching schools sessions and various other projects, I have been working towards leading two of my own events, an under 5s event and a family event. 

Although both events ran successfully I feel the under 5s was the most challenging and the one where I learnt most. The first thing I did in preparation for it was mind map anything that came to mind when I thought of the title ‘Little Angels’ - stars, night-time, ice, snowflakes, clouds, silver and gold. The event was to run in the week before Christmas so I knew it would have a festive theme. Myself and Education Officer Rowan came up with hoards of ideas, the tricky part was narrowing them down to the best few!

The craft activities I chose where angel Christmas tree toppers and simple star shaped tree decorations. The resources for these crafts were easy to create being simple designs, and they were adaptable to a variety of levels. The difference of abilities in this audience is huge, so I designed activities where children could either do some colouring, painting and gluing and have a grown up put it together, or fully cut out and assemble it themselves. The angels were made out of a variety of materials – card, cotton wool, paper doilies, string, pipe cleaners and sequins – which made for a good opportunity to explore different textures and how to attach them to each other. There was also a designated paint table set up for the braver parents which again allowed for the use of materials not so readily available at home. 

Angel Christmas tree toppers

The crafts were enjoyed by both children and parents and there were plenty of angels spotted flying around the Ashmolean. However I wanted the event to be a multisensory experience and so I considered what other elements could help achieve this. One thing which proved to be very popular was my snow and ice foam pool. I made this by filling a paddling pool with baby wash and water mixed with an electric whisk (with a sign making clear the ingredients should any parents be worried) and also some ice cubes. This was an incredibly exciting experience for the children and it also led the way for science conversations about what ice is made from and how it forms. One parent was overheard saying she liked the idea so much she was going to recreate it at home!

Another key part of my event was a tour I planned and ran in the galleries. I based it around a story as a hook for the children’s interest and also a way of helping it make sense to them. Annie the Angel wanted to play in the angel’s Christmas concert but she had lost her silver trumpet. The children had to help her find it, meeting some of Annie’s angel friends along the way. To make the experience as interactive as possible I equipped each child with a party trumpet to toot at points in the story. This seemed like an amazing idea before the event and it wasn’t until the start of the tour that I realised what I had done! Giving 20 under 5s a trumpet and expecting them to have the restraint to only toot it when they were supposed to, was a bit of an oversight on my part. As soon as they were given out I realised it was going to be very difficult to be heard over the din and this really affected my introduction. It was very difficult to quieten down the group at the bits when I needed to talk.  I thought about ways to improve this the second time round and decided to hand the trumpets out a little later when I had already had chance to set up the story and I could more carefully model when to use them. 

Another issue I encountered during the first tour was one of the activities I created where I made a giant cardboard snowman whose hat, scarf, mittens, arms and nose were scattered around the gallery because of the wind. Mr snowman was meant to need the help of the children to put his clothes back on but to my dismay when I arrived in the gallery he had already been fully dressed by a couple of unknowing children looking round with their parents! I quickly grabbed the items and put them in a pile next to him! I avoided this the second time round by hiding the snowman’s body until I arrived and also asking the Visitor Services Assistants to keep a watchful eye on him! Getting to do the tour twice was really good as it helped me figure out how to adapt to problems that arise when running a session.

Assembled snowman

 

Other parts of the tour included a snowflake nursery rhyme, discussions about what snow and ice are made from and searching the gallery for the silver trumpet, finishing with everyone singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Repetition is of huge importance at that age so I designed parts of the story with repeated refrains where the children could join in. They had to ask each of Annie’s friends ‘Have you seen Annie’s silver trumpet?’ and when the friend replied they weren’t sure what a trumpet sounded like they had to demonstrate with their own trumpets, to the surprise (and sometimes alarm!) of nearby visitors.

Aisling practicing the snowflake nursery rhyme

 

I think tools like this repeated refrain really helped the children get involved with the story of the tour. I had the most amazing feedback after and it made me so proud that it was my event.  Perhaps the most rewarding bit of feedback I had was a young girl who came to me to show me her star decoration. She pointed to the angels on it saying they were Annie, Gabriel and Raphael, the angels from my tour. The adult with her said “It was a beautiful morning. Very well organised. We had a lovely time.” She then went on to comment that now when they came back to the museum they would be able to go back to the paintings to find Gabriel and Raphael and know what they were about. Wow!

Feedback from the event

I really felt I put my all into this event and there were times when I thought I had pushed myself too far – like stood in the atrium of the museum trying to give an introduction with 20 under 5s tooting party horns and crowds gathered on the upper floors checking out what all the commotion was.  I put myself out there; leading singing out in the middle of the galleries is something I never would have had the confidence to do not so long ago. ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ is fine because you know the adults will join in but ‘I’m a Little Snowman’ and ‘Five Snowflakes’ less so! When I told a friend about this she said she can’t believe how much I’ve changed, she said ‘Imagine yourself doing that a year ago?!’ And it is unimaginable - but that’s what working in such a supportive environment with people who really believe in you, and encourage you to believe in yourself will do!

Moving On: Reflecting of my Skills for the Future training - Mary Cook

At the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History, we are able to offer some fantastic experiences for all our visitors, but arguably our Christmas Lectures for Year 9’s have the most potential to be life changing.  Seeing experiments happen right in front of them in the lecture theatre and hearing from some of the best in their field, these students are offered a chance to look at what university education offers close up. These lectures are delivered by some of the front runners in the field of science who are well known by their peers and who more usually teach undergraduates and graduates.  What could follow that? 

However talented the speaker, it turns out the collection of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History is itself just as able to keep the attention of the hard to impress teenager.  Surrounded by twenty Year 9 students recoiling from cockroaches loudly and with pantomime gestures, I feel pretty much at home.  Is that the picture that comes to mind as the definition of success?  For me, I think it is. Two hundred students came out of the Chemistry lecture in high spirits.   I hear the lads before I see them and when I ask the group “Would anyone like to come and see some cockroaches?” They respond en masse, egging each other on while clearly reluctant as individuals to actually touch the insects.  The noise settles as I wait for their attention then introduce the insects.

Handling a cockroach

Curiosity gets the better of them. Once several others have gently touched its back and found it to feel a bit like the wooden surface of the handling table, one of them bravely offers to hold a large cockroach.  In a 2 minute encounter they have overcome a prejudice, calmed their behaviour, bonded with the group and learnt about the relevance of insects in biodiversity and asked relevant questions taking responsibility for their own learning. 

Museum education is not solely about the moment of encounter with the collection, but also the reflection and discussion of that encounter. One of the girls who had never previously come to the museum and had never handled insects before really enjoyed the experience. She insisted her friend film the cockroach in her hand as she didn’t want her mum to miss out on learning about the insects. I wonder how her mum felt about that?

I guess there is quite a parallel with my own experience. Through Skills for the Future, I too have had an unusual opportunity to experience something unique in a hands-on way, and have been able to apply theoretical knowledge about learning to real scenarios.  I also have a responsibility to ensure my own development and make the most of what is offered and then share it in new ways.  A recent job interview showed me exactly how relevant the Skills for the Future programme was, focusing as it did on  the skills of working as part of a wider team, being adaptable to the needs of an audience in the moment as well as planning ahead and creating and developing a programme and resources.  I was able to give examples of working with a wide range of audiences from Under Fives to Over 90’s and everyone in between.  I could  talk about working in a wide range of contexts from a science museum DNA workshop in the lab to shadowing Reminiscence Officer Helen Fountain at a Day Centre for the elderly, to teaching a KS1 group at  the Shrine of Taharqa in the Ashmolean Museum and of course the lantern workshops which involved 200 children in nine schools.  In addition, I could talk about creating resources for all these audiences and reflect on my own learning. 

Facilitating a DNA workshop at OUM

These experiences are not unique to me of course; Aisling, Corie, Hannah, Jenny and Rachel can equally cite their relevant experience as opportunities for work arise for them.  But while our direction of travel in terms of our career ambition is the same, we are very different people.  Each one of us brings different strengths and approaches, and we have learnt to make the most of that difference too.  Sharing and growing through peer learning is a key part of our training and gives us something that is common to all good museum educators: we share ideas and resources and lend a hand and are extremely adaptable.  Of all the experiences I have particularly enjoyed working with the other trainees on Outreach and In-reach activities such as Friday Live at the Ashmolean, The Need Make Use at the Pitt Rivers Museum  or Cowley Carnival.  Where non-traditional museum audiences and these personalities combine I am always impressed by the result which is so creative. The visitor comments show that the experience for them is effortless and fun despite the huge amount of work behind the scenes!   

Trainees preparing for Live Friday at the Ashmolean

Trainees taking the 'museums' to the Cowley Carnival

While each of us has much in the way of initiative we also know that pooling talent makes for the best events and activities and enables us to achieve much more in a short space of time than we could alone.  As importantly, we have unique opportunities in Oxford to work at different sites in different collections with different strategic priorities.  We have learnt much from assisting other Education professionals in each museum as they negotiate the daily issues that are never on the job description, such as: “You will need to manage a group of thirty people several of whom are in wheelchairs.  They are coming to an exhibition on the 3^rd floor. The Lift can only take one wheel chair at a time.  Ensure that every person in the group has an interesting and low stress visit” or “Manage the expectations of a secondary school group who despite their booking apparently thought this was a different museum with another specialism”  or “A group of thirty has just arrived unannounced and require a lesson”  “A schoolchild would like to buy one of the exhibits.”  “A volunteer wishes to work with only one activity out of three and is rejecting your proposed rota.”  “Create an app for KS2 which is user friendly, accessible to all abilities and which will be of interest to schools” “Adapt a resource created for families to use with a primary group.  Now adapt it again for under-fives.” 

Before I did the traineeship, I felt my lack of a teaching or post graduate qualification was a barrier to gaining a role in museum education.  Rejections from museum and heritage organisations suggested that my informal experience as a volunteer did not really count and my Heritage studies degree was almost an artefact in itself being from 20 years previous.  In applying for the Skills for the Future Education and Outreach Traineeship I was really looking for a way to prove to employers I could add value to their organisation and contribute as a member of their team.  The feedback from my Skills for the Future interview showed me that the imagination, innovation and hard work I had brought to volunteering were very welcome here at the Oxford University Museums and Collections  and would create foundations to build upon.  Through rigorous recruiting and incredible training it is clear that Skills for the Future Trainees are all highly committed to working in museum education and each of us will reflect on our experiences to push the bar higher next time. 

Post Script:  Mary has just accepted the role of Lifelong Learning and Outreach Officer at Steam Museum and Lydiard Park in Swindon.

Dinosaur Day at the University Museum of Natural History - Mary Cook

One of my favourite experiences at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has been teaching as part of Dinosaur Day.  The purpose of the day is to help Year 7 and Year 8 students to think scientifically and consider evidence carefully as well as to learn more about the fossils at the museum.  They take part in a range of activities from considering whether they could escape from the predator Megalosaurus by looking at the footprint casts in front of the museum and calculating its speed to reconstructing a skeleton from a bag of bones, to dating fossils in the collection and making casts of trace fossils such as skin impressions, footprints and coprolites and even looking for microfossils the size of a grain of pollen under the microscope.   

 

Rachel with fullsize Megalosaurus footprints

I was able to participate in two of these sessions, one of these being making plaster casts of trace fossils with fellow Education Officer Rachel Parle using museum grade moulds which produce exceptionally good results.  The cast lesson is great because it combines hands-on activity with a great deal of learning about fossils, how they are formed and what they can tell us. The casts are made early on in the session and meat of the teaching takes place while they are setting over a twenty minute period.  Students learn that this is not an anachronism, but a real technique still in use today since it is low cost, portable and possible for palaeontologists to use it to create casts of trace fossils in remote locations.  The students really enjoyed this session and the inclusion of examples such as the Chyrotherium which we have no evidence for except its footprints really helped to deepen their understanding of the evidence available or lacking to geologists now and in the past. As part of the session we were also able to offer the students the opportunity to see our 3D printer in action producing a replica ammonite. 

 

Chyrotherium footprints

The students all got their phones out and photographed or filmed the 3D printer and were really impressed by the technology. We were able to show them a range of examples of what it can create and discuss with them how it works and the uses it is put to in research.  We were also able to discuss its possible disadvantages and the students made some great observations, such as it needs a power source, it is expensive and not portable, but that it is much easier to share by simply sending the data over the internet to print anywhere in the world.  We discussed which the students would want most for Christmas: the 3d printer or the cast kit?  It turned out to be a great question producing really independent and thoughtful responses.  In the first group the majority chose the 3D printer, in the second group the group were more evenly divided in their decision and in the final group about a third chose the cast method and each had good reasons for their choice.  One of the main detractions for the students was that the 3D printer took 4 hours to create one replica, whereas multiple casts could be made in 20 minutes and if the plaster replica were dropped it could be recreated many times over in the same timeframe.  Others argued the plastic replica was more robust and that the 3D printer could be set going while they did other things.

3D printer

On the first of the days, I observed Chris Jarvis teaching about Microfossils and later in the day shared the teaching.  I had not long been on placement here and I missed out a learning point that first time through, but Chris picked it up.  Before I needed to go solo with this session, I had the opportunity to revise thoroughly and later could talk the session through with Sarah Lloyd, our Secondary Education Officer who had devised it.  Not only did I have the opportunity to teach the session, but also to physically prepare the samples ready for students to make their own discoveries. I really enjoyed being able to take control of all aspects of the session.  This really helped in understanding the logic of how it was presented and in practical terms, it helped that I could set up the room so that I could double check that the equipment worked and that there were samples to find under each microscope at the beginning of the session. 

When I was teaching independently, the students came in three groups of twenty to learn about Microfossils and their use in relative dating – a process by which geologists can identify the date of a large fossil by examining the microfossil content of the ground in which it is found. Microfossils are really useful in industries where they are digging down or tunneling and engineers need to know what layer of ground they are in. This technique is used by scientists in the petrochemical industry to establish where it is best to drill for oil, so it has a purpose outside of academic geology and palaeontology. Students really enjoyed making their discoveries and checking them against the Biostratigraphy sheet to assess the date of the microfossils and the mud.  They also learnt that along with microfossils there were fragments of other minerals such as pyrite and amber and more recent items like tiny fragments of seashells and sea urchin spines.  They realised that as a group they could more accurately date the mud by this method than they could independently with a single sample. 

In reflecting on the session, I realise I owe a lot to seeing it delivered previously which really helped to ensure all the content was covered and to the correct times.  There were things that went wrong – the first group could not view the 3D microfossil presentation I had for them due to a computer glitch.  Our IT Support did a great job and this was resolved by the second session, but this meant when the issue arose I had to judge the point at which it would be more detrimental to work on showing it than to bring the session to a conclusion and ensure they got to their next location on time. With no other staff member present this was entirely my call.  The teacher and students were very understanding.  In the second session a bulb blew on one of the microscopes when it was switched on, but the students affected responded well to a request to share microscopes between three instead of two. In the third session, my class arrived a little late so there was less time than I would have liked with that group.  Across the day, I recognised these were the challenges of an Education Officer – there are always things outside your control that can go wrong and you need to be calm and adaptable to deal with that with your focus being on getting the key learning points across.  Reviewing the session at the end helped to ensure the students had a wide view of why we undertook the activity as well a deepening their personal knowledge.  

Mary teaching the session

Above all, I think Dinosaur Days for secondary students help them to recognise Oxford University Museum of Natural History is not simply a static collection or repository of knowledge but a place of ongoing scientific research and that they are able to make discoveries of their own in a range of different ways. I realise that my own teaching style is developing too.

I realise I use questions to discover changes in attitude within the group and to create a conclusion which helps students become aware of the development in their thinking.  I began the session with “Who here likes a science?” This was an icebreaker question with no right or wrong answer that led into talking about the scientific technique of relative dating.  There were one or two students who said they liked science in each group.  By the end of the session I asked “Did you enjoy using this scientific technique?” which received a much greater positive response. These were in addition to the reflection inherent within the session, but for me helped me to instantly see the kind of impact the session had on the students on an emotional level. If students enjoy coming to the museum and learning here, that learning is more likely to stick.  Earlier this year I attended a careers day for girls run by  Education and Employers which highlighted that many girls would never consider a career in STEM subjects if they had no connection to anyone working in those areas.  It is fantastic that at the OUMNH there are opportunities for students to encounter women taking an active role in science while learning hands-on for themselves.