"Blending" Docent Learning: Using Google Forms Quizzes to Increase Efficiency in Interpreter Education at Fort Henry

ABSTRACT

The introduction of online elements to museums and cultural sites has opened up new ways for visitors to engage with the past, with nature, with culture, and all other treasures of the museum. However, docent training has lagged behind visitor-facing educational initiatives. By blending online elements into docent education programs, staff training can economize time and focus more on personal elements of interpretation. The article offers a case study of Fort Henry National Historic Site’s use of a Google Forms-based online quiz as a blended docent learning initiative, and then discusses three levels of efficiency offered by such blended docent learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Docent education
• interpretive museum training
• blended learning
• Fort Henry

Acknowledgements

The author spent the 2017 season, leading the historical interpretation elements of the Fort Henry Guard alongside Charles Ecclestone and Sara Sturgeon. He would like to thank Charles and Sara, as well as Daniel Rose and the anonymous peer reviewers from the Journal of Museum Education for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Many thanks are also due to the Fort Henry’s team of talented and committed interpreters, including the world-renowned Fort Henry Guard.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

About the author

Michael P. A. Murphy is a doctoral candidate in International Relations at the University of Ottawa. He was recently an Ensign in the Fort Henry Guard and received the FHG Club of Canada Award for Guard of the Year in 2016. He has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Political Power, the Journal of Political Science Education, and Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media Politics. He has presented at conferences on philosophy, innovative pedagogy, refugee studies, and political science.

ORCID

Michael P. A. Murphy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9523-4402

Notes

1. Garrison and Kanuka, “Blended Learning,” 99.

2. See Kraybill, “Going the Distance,” 98.

3. Chong and Smith, “Interactive Learning Units,” 174.

4. Ibid., 171.

5. For a full discussion, see Harrell and Kotecki, “The Flipped Museum,” esp. 127–129.

6. Moore, “Embracing Change,” 145.

7. Rayward and Twindale, “From Docent to Cyberdocent.”

8. Nolan, “From the Margins to the Center,” 172 and passim.

9. Grenier, “Practicing What We Preach,” 9.

10. Grenier, “The Role of Learning.”

11. McCray, “Gallery Educators as Adult Learners,” 14.

12. E.g. Grenier and Sheckley, “Out on the Floor”; Makein and Williams, “Teaching Students to Teach.”

13. Oleniczak, “Improvising your Teaching Skills.”

14. Evans-Palmer, “Raising Docent Confidence.”

15. Stark, “Cultivating Shared Leadership.”

16. E.g. Hamann, Pollock, and Wilson, “Learning from ‘Listening’”; Salter, “Crowdsourcing.”

17. Kibble, “Use of Unsupervised Online Quizzes,” 259; Dobson, “The Use of Formative Online Quizzes,” 301.

18. Turner and Leydon, “Improving Geographic Literacy,” 63.

19. Blevins and Besaw, “Reflecting on Quiz Placement,” 316, 323.

20. Hadsell, “The Effect of Quiz Timing,” 138.

21. McKeown and Maclean, “Is Activity in Online Quizzes,” 286.

22. Kibble et al., “Insights Gained from the Analysis,” 126.

23. Cann, “Increasing Student Engagement,” 111.

24. For details on interpretation at the site, see Peacock, “Interpreting a Past.”

25. Peacock, “Interpreting a Past,” 121–2.

26. Merriman and Brochu, “Twelve Trends,” 65.

27. For an overview of elements beyond content, see Grenier, “Taking the Lead.”

28. Using active learning pedagogies in small groups can help users build skills on top of knowledge acquired through more didactic means. See Murphy, “Using Active-learning Pedagogy” for a discussion of active learning in higher education tutorial groups.

29. A Google Forms-based quiz does not necessarily happen at a particular time; rather, when the link to the quiz is sent out, it remains active until deleted by the author of the document.

30. Freeman Tilden highlights the importance of personal touches in interpretation, especially in cultural sites (Tilden, “When Culture is Painful”).

31. For a discussion of the benefits of standarization of training at interpretive sites, see Carr, “Standardizing Interpretive Training,” esp. 33–35.

32. Thank you to one of the anonymous reviewers from the Journal of Museum Education for highlighting the importance of continuing this interdisciplinary dialogue.