The MAG RCSD Expanded Learning Collaboration (2017-18)
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The Memorial Art Gallery-Rochester City School District (MAG–RCSD) Expanded Learning Collaboration is a museum-based learning partnership that currently serves every student in grades 1-4 at School #23, grades 2-5 at School #29, and grades 1-2 at School #45 in Rochester, New York. As part of this museum-school repeat visit partnership, each student visits MAG once a week for ten consecutive weeks during the school year, engaging in a series of curriculum-based hands-on and in-gallery experiences.
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The MAG RCSD Expanded Learning Collaboration (2016-17) brought students from the same schools: Francis Parker School #23, Adlai E. Stevenson School #29, and Mary McLeod Bethune School #45.
Students spend a portion of their time looking at a piece of art in the collection and take part in a discussion about the art, guided by one of the museum’s docents. This talk connects to the art they will then make back in the Creative Workshop. It’s a program that seeks to teach students not only how to make art, but how to look at and talk about art and how to experience it in the context of a museum. Read more about the program in this POST Rochester article.
The program coordinators work closely with the teachers and principals at the schools to make the lessons relevant to the work being done back in their classrooms, but part of the success of the program is bringing them outside of the classroom to experience something new. In addition to enhancing their knowledge of art, it has also had a positive effect on behavior. Students learn how to interact in the museum in a polite and respectful way toward one another, and teachers notice how this impacts their attitude beyond their time at the MAG.
Moving forward, organizers hope to expand the program beyond the three schools currently involved, and for it to become a model for programs in other cities across the country.
The MAG-RCSD Expanded Learning Collaboration is sponsored by the William and Sheila Konar Foundation, with additional support from M&T Bank, the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation, the Waldron Rise Foundation, The Guido and Ellen Palma Foundation, the Wan Jou Family Foundation in memory of Shi-Ling C. Hsiang, Rosemary Christoff Dolan in memory of the artist Marie Alexandre Christoff, Wegmans, and Deborah Goldman. Funding is also provided by Alice Smith and other generous donors to An Artists’ Affair.
This program is also made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, ARPML-250503-OMLS-22, www.imls.gov.
Additional support is provided by the John C. and Elsa C. Beach and Eileen M. Sullivan Education Endowment, the Emma Jane Drury Education Fund, the Joan Feinbloom School Programming Fund, the Patricia S. Fishman Educational Endowment, the Joanna M. and Michael R. Grosodonia Fund, the Mary Sue Jack Endowed Fund, the Memorial Art Gallery Community Access Endowment, and the Josephine Tota Endowment.
The McPherson Director of Academic Programs is partially endowed by an anonymous donor. Support for the Estelle B. Goldman Museum Educators is provided by the Estate of Estelle B. Goldman.
