Research suggests that school students will learn more during a visit to an exhibition if the excursion is integrated into a broader body of student learning at school.
Pre-visit classroom activities
To assess students’ prior knowledge, and prepare them for their visit to the exhibition, include some of the following activities in pre-visit lessons.
- Visit the Why Melbourne? website (City of Melbourne/Royal Historical Society of Victoria) to begin researching the questions below:
- What was the place we now call Melbourne like before 1835? Who lived there? How did they live? What happened to them after the British settlement was established?
- Why was the particular site that Batman called “a place for a village” regarded as a good choice?
- Students in small groups pool their ideas to create a timeline of significant events, places and historical figures that they might expect to encounter in Melbourne Story. Groups report back to the class and negotiate to develop a whole-class timeline of Melbourne’s history. This activity could generate a challenging class discussion about what merits inclusion in such an exhibition.
- From the timeline, students identify several significant events or periods that they agree will probably be included in the exhibition. Form student investigation teams to research those events and report back to the class.
- Students brainstorm the challenges of starting a settlement from scratch. What would be the first priorities? How might the first settlers have gone about meeting basic needs? What would have been the most significant challenges? Form student investigation teams to research aspects of the establishment of the early settlement.
Post-visit classroom activities
After a visit to the exhibition, follow-up and reflective sessions with students are essential. Post-visit lessons could include some taxonomic activities (see 4. below) and/or extensions of pre-visit activities.
- Re-form home groups and expert groups based on the jigsaw approach as outlined in Strategy 1 (see the On-site activities sheets).
- Students present their findings via group discussion or ICT presentation e.g. annotated slideshow.
- Students choose a character from the exhibition (not necessarily a famous person) and conduct research into their life and times, so that the life story of the character is fleshed out.
- Students could present their findings in role from the period, via a series of journal entries, or in an interview format.
- Students work in groups to develop ideas for a section of the exhibition dealing with Melbourne at the beginning of the 21st century. What are the most significant events? What stories should be told to indicate the scope of life in Melbourne?
- Using Anderson’s revision of Bloom’s taxonomy, the students move through a range of activities such as:
| Remembering |
- Make a list of the main events as outlined in the exhibition.
- Make a time line of events as outlined in the exhibition.
- Write a list of any pieces of information you can remember.
- Create and recite a poem based on the main theme of the exhibition.
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| Understanding |
- Illustrate what you think is the main idea of the exhibition.
- Retell a significant story from the exhibition in your own words.
- Write a summary report of the key events of a particular period.
- Prepare a flow chart to illustrate the key events of a particular period.
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| Applying |
- Make a scrapbook about the main ideas of the exhibition.
- Write some text about a significant event in the exhibition and compose some probing questions about this topic for others.
- Present your findings in a data show for others and raise questions for discussion.
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| Analysing |
- Design a questionnaire to gather information about the appeal of the exhibition to visitors of different ages.
- Write a biography of a significant figure from the exhibition based on your own research.
- Analyse and describe the exhibition in terms of its design – the chronological approach used, and the choice of stories, objects, sound, colours and light. Reflect critically on the choices made in developing the exhibition.
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| Evaluating |
- Conduct a debate about an important issue raised in the exhibition.
- Write a review of the exhibition for a local newspaper.
- Write a letter to the Minister for Education giving your opinion of the exhibition as an educational resource for schools and the community.
- Choose a significant event from the exhibition and compare how the story was told in the museum to the way the same story is told elsewhere – in a textbook, a novel, a film, or in an online resource.
- Prepare and present an argumentative essay on a topic raised by the exhibition.
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| Creating |
- Plan a marketing campaign for this exhibition.
- Write about your responses to any issue or story raised in the exhibition.
- Write a TV show, play, role play, or song about any issue or story in the exhibition.
- Create an advertising campaign for promoting a tour of Melbourne’s historical sites to visitors to the city.
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