Learning through Doing, Learning through Sharing: Linking Museum Theory and Practice through Professional Work Placements

The largest taught postgraduate degree programme in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow, Museum Studies equips students with knowledge, understanding and skills required of today’s museum professionals. Essential to this process is collections-based and practical, hands-on learning, with the provision of credit-bearing work placements typifying this approach. This lightning talk provides a brief overview of innovations in the design, delivery and assessment of a 20-credit work placement course offered in second semester. This optional module allows students to develop core knowledge, experience and skills of museum work through completing a specified project at a cultural heritage organisation, and provides them with opportunities to apply theoretical concepts learnt in the classroom to real-life scenarios. While individual projects and tasks are largely determined by host institutions, the Convenor creates the course’s overall scaffolding and supports students throughout the 15-week work placement period. Recent changes to the course reflect a commitment to more effectively fostering active learning. The creation of online discussion groups, thematic panel-style presentations, a co-authored bibliography, and revised assessment briefs are some of the new approaches currently being put into practice. The aim of these is to increase self-reflection among students and enable them to share knowledge gained from their individual work placements. Moreover, the hope is that these teaching strategies will combat the feeling that students are unconnected agents, all off in different locations working on different projects, but rather contributors to a shared learning experience taking place across varied physical and digital spaces