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ABSTRACT
Chaperones play a key role in the experience that students have at museums. In most museums, these parents and caregivers are underutilized and underappreciated. This piece proposes a new approach to how chaperones might be catalysts for learning during museum visits. With the framing of a two-year grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services that resulted in a partnership with two school districts and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Museum learned that chaperones are essential to ensuring inquiry-driven education guides field trips.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
David B. Allison is a Manager in the Experiences and Partnerships division of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He works with a team of educators and coordinators to engage students, teachers, and chaperones in Museum programs and experiences. He is the author of Living History: Effective Costumed Interpretation at Museums and Historic Sites (2016) and the editor of Controversial Monuments and Memorials: A Guide for Community Leaders (2018). His forthcoming book is titled Engaging Communities in Museums (2019).
Notes
1 Field Trip Adventures is the name for DMNS’ onsite paid school programming. School groups have been able to experience the Museum for free since 2010, but if they are interested in an up-charged educator-led experience, they can opt in to Field Trip Adventures. Ranging from lab programs with dissections to an escape room-style program for middle school students called Mystery at the Museum, Field Trip Adventures offers a pre-packaged, fully planned and guided day with activities designed to align with Colorado Academic Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
2 DMNS employs two full time Teacher Professional Development staff members – Robert Payo and Tim Blesse.
3 Falk and Dierking, The Museum Experience Revisited, 135.
4 Parsons and Muhs, “Field Trips and Parent Chaperones,” 57–61.
5 Miller, “Report on Observations of Students.”
6 DeWitt and Storksdieck, “A Short Review of School Field Trips,” 181–97.
7 Ibid.
8 Falk and Dierking, The Museum Experience Revisited, 210.
9 McNamara, “Field Trip Adventures Summative Evaluation Report,” 2015.
10 Ibid.
11 Wilkening, “Parents.”
12 Sedzielarz, “Watching the Chaperones,” 20–4.
13 Miller, “Report on Observations of Students.”
14 Ibid.
15 Tunnicliffe, “The Effect of the Presence of Two Adults - Chaperones or Teachers - on the Content of the Conversations of Primary School Groups during School Visits to a Natural History Museum,” 49–65.
16 Miller, “Report on Observations of Students.”
17 Randi Korn and Associates, “Impact Study on the Effects of Facilitated Single-Visit Art Museum Programs on Students Grades 4–6,” 22.
18 Allison, “The Power of Amusement.”