School and Teacher Programs

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by Shannon Karol Director of Education

The past year presented some interesting challenges—and opportunities—for our Education programs. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to pivot from engaging and interactive in-person programs to a virtual format that allowed us to share the Speed’s collections and exhibitions with visitors from around the world.

How do you continue to support K-12 teachers and students when they are facing their most difficult year of school? That is the question the Speed’s Education department asked itself at the start of the 2020-2021 school year. We knew from a series of surveys and conversations with teachers that they needed asynchronous, or pre-recorded, content that they could “plug and play” for their students. We expanded on the virtual “Where in the World” tour that was created in April 2020 and created virtual versions of our four remaining school tour topics. We also created prerecorded videos for each of our six Art Detectives crates. Each video features one of our Teaching Artists leading a conversation inspired by the themes and artworks of the Art Detectives crates.

Our virtual tours and Art Detectives videos were viewed by students and teachers 3,469 times during the 20202021 school year. programs has been overwhelmingly positive. As one teacher shared: “I write the virtual art lessons for my school system and I love being able to drop your videos in every few months so my students can feel a little more normalcy in their lives by being able to see the Speed from home.” If you haven’t yet experienced our virtual program offerings for yourself, you can find them on our website: speedmuseum.org/learn/virtualprograms/.

Our most ambitious—and engaging— project aimed at K-12 students and teachers was a new video series: I See I Think I Make. Produced by our School Outreach Manager, Amber Thieneman, each episode features Darrick Wood, our Gallery Teaching Manager, leading viewers on an exploration of one big idea. Through a series of fun and engaging art experiences set in the Speed’s galleries, I See I Think I Make teaches students different techniques that they can use when they visit the Museum. During the 2020-2021 school year, our six episodes of I See I Think I Make were viewed 6,780 times.

Overall, the response to our virtual K-12