Museum, Field, and Community Education Minor
Interdisciplinary Minor
The Museum, Field, and Community Education Minor is designed to prepare students from a range of disciplines to serve as educators in places other than schools. Many professionals in “informal education” fields like environmental and outdoor education, arts education, museum education, public history, and archaeology and biological archaeology speak of a need for professionals who can supplement content knowledge (from a college major) with skills in communication, educational theory and design, interpersonal dynamics, and professionalism and who have applied, hands-on experience with children / learners and a variety of internships in related fields. Classes in this minor provide students with a strong foundation in educational theory and communication and an opportunity to deepen content area expertise. Courses are supplemented with fieldwork experiences at community education sites around the Washington College campus, and with internship experiences near and far.
Experiential learning is at the heart of the Museum, Field, and Community Education Minor. We can offer both world-class and small-but-mighty observation and internship opportunities. Because of our location, Washington College students experience a wide range of informal learning environments and consider what each has to offer to their understanding of what it means to teach and learn in places other than school. We have access to large-scale museum, field, and community learning experiences at nationally regarded locations in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and other regional cities. Kent County itself is also rich with environment, history, and arts organizations that have, and will continue, to provide opportunities to see how small organizations undertake the work of educating the public.
Students completing the Minor will be prepared to work as educators in a wide variety of non-school contexts by:
Developing skills and experiences in...
- designing and evaluating learning experiences
- communicating successfully through a variety of media and technologies to a variety of audiences
- leveraging interdisciplinary methods for real-world problem solving
- engaging in public-centered scholarship and community building
- gaining hands-on experience educating outside traditional school spaces
Deepening their content knowledge to...
- understand the cultural, contextual, and individual variables that shape human learning
- understand the contexts in which informal learning occurs
- explore the specific instructional programs and strategies employed in different content areas
- build deeper content knowledge in the field in which they intend to teach