The Cutting Edge Training Your Art Museum Volunteers Need Group A – Curriculum Design Professionals  William LaFave  Maria Mancha  Frank Jaquez  Kendra Pitre-Bullock

Agenda 1. Introduction 2. Goals/Objectives 3. Instructional Strategies and Activities 4. Assessments 5. Program Evaluation 6. Conclusion

Introduction Your volunteers and art lovers need an engaging and formal training program The four key areas that you would like your volunteers to receive training on are: 1.Leading tours of exhibits 2.Staffing the museum “information station” to answer visitors’ questions 3.Maintaining an Excel database of patron information 4.Calling and ing patrons to raise funds

Goals and Objectives Text Determine the most frequently asked questions. Equip a information kiosk to provide a way to look up information on google.com for historical art information. Learning Goal 1: Given an Excel database with patron information, learners will make changes and find patrons. Learners will locate and open the Patron Excel database in under 5 minutes. Learners will locate and update 20 patron accounts with three mistakes or less. Learners will input new patron information, and save the changes with 90% accuracy. Learning Goal and Objectives 2: Create and staff a museum “information station” to answer visitors’ questions. Learning Goal and Objectives 3: Provide volunteers with the information and tools needed to assist with the Museum’s administrative functions. Volunteers will lead a tour of exhibits and answer all questions asked, with no assistance. Provided with an “information station,” volunteers will be able to staff the museum and effectively answer visitors’ questions. Volunteers will be able to maintain a database of patron information within Excel. Given an account and telephone, visitors will be able to reach out to patrons to raise funds for the museum.

Instructional Strategy #1 and Activities Simulations Purpose: The simulation will provide learners with the opportunity to practice in a simulated environment and use various systems to perform various tasks. Format: The learner will be required to lead fellow learners through a tour of the museum. A replica of an Excel database of patron information will be presented to the learners; a telephone and account will also be provided, allowing the learners to contact patrons to raise funds. Content: Learners will use the Excel database to: o Edit the customer’s name, , and address Learners will use the database, telephone and account to: o Contact the customer via phone to raise funds o Send an to the customer to raise funds Rationale: Allows learners to apply their newly acquired knowledge to real-life situations.

Instructional Strategy #2 and Activities Problem-Based Learning Purpose: The learners will be presented with various problems to assess and complete. Format: Various problems, to include frequently asked visitor questions, will be designed and delivered to assess the learners. Content: Various questions designed to assess learning and to provide real-life problems. Rationale: Placing the learner in a realistic situation converts them from learners to actual problem-solvers, helping them apply what they have learned and perhaps combine learning solutions.

Instructional Strategy #3 and Activities On-the-Job Performance Purpose: For learners to see how existing tour guides interact with customers and what type of questions customers ask (trends). Format: Shadow a seasoned tour guide Co-lead a few tours before leading one individually Content: When shadowing, learner can use a checklist before, during, and after a tour and check the items off as the seasoned tour guide does them. When co-leading a tour, learner can check items off the list before or after they are performed. The co-leader can evaluate the learner as the items are being performed. Rationale: On-the-job performance enables learners to see how it's done in the real world.

Instructional Strategy #4 and Activities Generative Learning Purpose: For learners to gather information and be able to generate their own ideas and thoughts and have the confidence to research websites like Google to find more answers for customers. Format: Have student learn the answers to the top 20 questions customers ask and give the tools (computer with Internet and a list of approved sites) to be able to find more answers. Content: Memorize the answers of the top 20 FAQs. For additional answers access and query the following ten web sites: 1) Google, 2)Bing, 3) etc. Rationale: This strategy gives the learner some responsibility for their own learning. The more they do their own research (on approved sites), the more knowledge they will gain in addition to memorizing the top 20 questions.

Assessment Text Learning Goal 1: Given an Excel database with patron information, learners will make changes and find patrons. Assessment style: simulation Example of assessment item: Using your computer, access the database named "Patrons2010" and make the following changes: A) Update William Smith’s address to 123 Mockingbird Lane, San Antonio, TX 78242, B) Update the "Remarks" field with your name and user ID, and C) SAVE the changes and proceed to the next change item. Learning Goal 2: Create and staff a museum “information station” to answer visitors’ questions. Learning Goal 3: Provide volunteers with the information and tools needed to assist with the Museum’s administrative functions. Assessment style: simulation-role play scenario Example of assessment item: Using account and telephone information for patrons, assists museum's administrative staff with needed functions Assessment style: constructive answer test Example of assessment item: How much weight does a bear lose when it hibernates?

Program Evaluation #1 The use of objective goals should be used as indicators of success. For leading tours and answering visitor’s questions, there need to be certain information as guidelines set for determining this success. It can be established so that 100% of points are to be covered on each exhibit. The order for the exhibit tours to be established, etc. This information will be gathered from the volunteers to see how much knowledge they retain. Orientation of Evaluation - We must decide if quantitative data is sufficient for meeting evaluation criteria. Determining the design of the evaluation – Information can be asked as questions to see how effective the training is. Need ways to determine if what we set out to create in the learning has been completed. Ask questions of the learners to judge how effective the learning resources were: Indicators of success are that the above questions are answered positively. Orientation of evaluation is whether or not quantities data is appropriate as evidence to answer the questions. The design of the evaluation would be pretest, instruction, posttest. 1.Are they comfortable in learning the materials? 2.Have volunteers complete a test of their skills to see if they can complete tasks covered. 3.Are the learning tasks complete so that the volunteers are using this information on the job? 4.Do the learners achieve the learning goals of the instruction? 5.Is the instruction implemented as it was designed? 6.What unexpected outcome results from the instructor?

Program Evaluation #2 Description of Evaluation Plan: For testing hands-on procedures, like how to give a tour or use a spreadsheet, we need to measure "Can the student perform the task with little to no assistance in both the simulated environment and the real world?" This evaluates learning transfer, (also known as Kirkpatrick's - Level 3 evaluations). In order to evaluate if our simulations were effective, I would compare the final simulated test scores with an on-the-job assessment as the learner is dealing with actual clients. In other words, if I gave a simulated scenario of touring 20 various stops in the museum and the learner makes zero mistakes; then, on the floor with clients I should expect a very close result. However, if the learner is making many more mistakes in front of customers as opposed to the training simulation, then I am to assume that my exercises and assessment did not simulate something closely enough and did not prepare the properly prepare the learner for successfully operating in a live environment.

Program Evaluation #3 Plan of Evaluation: I would recommend a design review for each of our instructional phases and for our project deliverables. I would suggest that the a director of the museum participate and allow for various volunteers, or subject matter experts, to participate in the review as well. The components to be reviewed would include the following: The key questions to be answered are as follows: The evaluation plan would ensure that our project was on the right track for final delivery of the training program for the museum. Learning Goals and Learning Objectives Assessments Instructional Strategies Are the learning goals and objectives clear and achievable? Does the assessment recommendation include effective instruments to assess learning? Do the instructional strategies include all the necessary content and information needed or learning delivery

Conclusion The museum directors provided the four key areas that volunteers would need to receive training on: 1.Leading tours of exhibits 2.Staffing the museum “information station” to answer visitors’ questions 3.Maintaining an Excel database of patron information 4.Calling and ing patrons to raise funds Our proposal provides you with the following instructional content: 1.Goals and Objectives 2.Instructional Strategies and Activities 3.Assessments 4.Evaluations Our curriculum design team has provided you with an effective and efficient curriculum design proposal to ensure learning delivery and success.

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