Greg Sikich, teacher at St Laurence’s College and one of our key members, has put together this excellent resource for teachers, and museum educators to prompt discussions around museum visits…
NMA Conversation Cards are a series of conversation prompts to encourage a teacher-guide to have some engaging chats with their students in the exhibition spaces. These conversation starters are crafted to appeal and cater to both primary and secondary school students.
The conversation prompts do not lead to any quizzes or motivate right or wrong answers! Instead, the conversation prompts are intended to cultivate a unique museum experience that a school classroom could not facilitate. Each prompt aims to disable ideas of the museum being an authoritarian voice while erasing this understanding from the students upon arriving in the exhibition spaces.
Teacher-guides can feel confident leading their students through the exhibitions. NMA Conversation Cards requires no prior knowledge of the NMA exhibitions to bring the conversation prompts to life. All the questions are open-ended and allow for a diversity of student responses with the purpose of building teacher-student relationships during a visit. Joint discovery is the goal. Teachers can model curiosity and observation by sharing discoveries with their students too!
Here is a link to NMA Conversation Cards
Australian Curriculum Links:
NMA Conversation Cards relate closely to the Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities. The conversation prompts combine the Critical and Creative Thinking capabilities of imagining, inquiring, generating ideas, purposeful thinking and reflecting with respect, open-mindedness and critical awareness evident in the Intercultural Understanding capability.
