Interdisciplinary Teaching with Museum Objects (edX)

Register for this 14-week course and join an online community of educators for an immersive exploration of teaching with museum objects and works of art. Museum educators will explore connections among their collections and model teaching strategies that participants can implement with their students, whether online or in the classroom. Participants will discover how to teach with museum resources to engage students in deeper thinking and support content learning across disciplines. They'll learn to use the Smithsonian Learning Lab to curate digital resource collections, and share lesson ideas among a new network of colleagues.

Which Smithsonian Museums Will You Learn From?

- National Museum of African American History and Culture

- National Museum of American History

- National Portrait Gallery

- Smithsonian American Art Museum

Who Should Enroll?

Teachers of all subjects and grades are welcome to register. The program content will be most readily applicable to humanities teachers.

What is Required of Participants?

The course is self-paced, designed to be taken over the course of 14 weeks, with one to two hours of content assigned per week. Participants are expected to view all recorded video sessions and respond to reflection prompts using a discussion board.

Participants will also be expected to create a digital resource collection using the Smithsonian Learning Lab.

What you'll learn

- Gain expertise from educators from multiple Smithsonian museums through recorded video sessions

- Reflect and share ideas with a community of educators via discussion forums

- Explore inquiry-based strategies for integrating museum objects and works of art into your teaching, whether in the classroom or online

- Learn to use the Smithsonian Learning Lab to curate digital resource collections and share lesson ideas.