Bringing Art To Students

Summit Addresses Distance Learning

Brian Kisida with the University of Arkansas speaks Wednesday to attendees during dinner at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. Crystal Bridges is hosting a group of educators from art museums and art organizations for a three-day summit this week on the future of museum educational outreach. Officials from Los Angeles to New York City will brainstorm and share successes and failures in creating and implementing distance learning programs.
Brian Kisida with the University of Arkansas speaks Wednesday to attendees during dinner at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. Crystal Bridges is hosting a group of educators from art museums and art organizations for a three-day summit this week on the future of museum educational outreach. Officials from Los Angeles to New York City will brainstorm and share successes and failures in creating and implementing distance learning programs.

BENTONVILLE — Educators and art museum officials from across the country have gathered here this week to discuss how cultural institutions can expand their efforts to connect with students.

The Distance Learning Summit, hosted by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, kicked off Wednesday night with a dinner and an opening presentation. Participants are scheduled to meet all day today. They will review case studies involving distance learning and art museums, then work together to propose models for distance learning programs that may be piloted at Crystal Bridges over the next year. The summit ends Friday.

At A Glance

Free Field Trips

The Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation announced in 2011 a $10 million donation establishing an endowment to pay all expenses for school field trips to the Crystal Bridges. Those expenses include everything from gasoline for the buses to lunches for the students. Student group tours take place between 9 and 11 each morning, before the museum opens to the public. The longest round-trip any school group has made to Crystal Bridges is 720 miles, said Anne Kraybill, distance learning programs manager at Crystal Bridges.

Source: Staff Report

About 50 people — half of whom represent art museums from Los Angeles to New York City — are participating. The Windgate Foundation, based in Siloam Springs, is paying for the event.

Wednesday’s kickoff featured a presentation on a recent study that provided evidence that visits to cultural institutions benefit students.

Brian Kisida, a senior research associate at the University of Arkansas, said the study involved more than 10,000 students from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. It compared those students who participated in a field trip to Crystal Bridges — labeled the “treatment” group — to a control group of students who hadn't been to the museum.

The treatment group was found to demonstrate stronger critical thinking skills, higher level of tolerance and more historical empathy than the control group, Kisida said.

“And the benefits are significantly larger for disadvantaged students,” he said.

As part of the study, all of the students were given a test asking them to answer questions about specific pieces of art. One multiple-choice question, for example, asked students the meaning of a piece depicting a winter scene in Brooklyn, N.Y. About 94 percent of the treatment group answered correctly that the painting represented a community in transition to a more industrial lifestyle. Only 45 percent of the control group answered the same question correctly.

Students also were asked to rate how much they agree with statements such as, “People who disagree with my point of view bother me.” The treatment group was more likely to say they disagreed with that statement than the control group, signifying a higher rate of tolerance among those exposed to art, Kisida said.

The treatment group also developed a taste for being cultural consumers. Kisida said every student received a coupon they could use to gain admission to a Crystal Bridges exhibit that ordinarily requires an admission fee. The coupons had been coded so researchers could identify which students had used them when they were turned in.

“The kids who had already been here were 10 percent more likely to come back,” Kisida said.

With these study results in mind, Crystal Bridges officials hope to reach more students — especially in rural schools — through distance learning initiatives.

“We want to look at how can we extend these (study) results,” said Anne Kraybill, distance learning programs manager at Crystal Bridges. “We believe distance learning is one of those solutions.”

Jill Orr, manager of school, teacher and tour programs at the Denver Art Museum, said Kisida’s presentation was encouraging.

“I was blown away by those results,” she said.

Orr said she hoped to learn from her colleagues what works in distance learning and how museums can best serve students.

“Some people call distance learning a trend,” Orr said. “But we see it as a movement, and it’s moving really fast.”

Alice Walton, founder of Crystal Bridges, also attended Wednesday’s presentation. She welcomed participants to the museum and thanked the Windgate Foundation for covering the summit’s expenses.

“Our most important goal at Crystal Bridges is education through the arts,” Walton said. “It’s my dream and hope that someday, we can have all children learn through the visual arts.”

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