Musical collections for primary education: a study with VIVES University College

Teachers in Flanders can turn to The Archive for Education for high-quality audiovisual content to use in the classroom. We are continuously searching for suitable materials from our partners in the cultural, media and government sectors, and providing educational support. Since 2020, we have been focusing on artistic education in primary schools, and have collaborated with researchers from the bachelor in education programme at VIVES University College in the project Kunstig Kijken (‘Artistic Viewing’).

Challenge

We have welcomed many teachers to our educational image database, The Archive for Education, since its launch.. Internal research has shown, however, that primary school teachers and trainees could make much more use of this platform in the classroom. If we want to prepare children for the digital, social reality, then primary education needs to use appropriate digital audiovisual media for teaching activities and classes.

We have previously set up successful practical scientific research projects in the fields of ‘people and society’ and ‘science and technology’ with Artevelde University of Applied Sciences. This boosted the use of the image database so much in primary education that we were also very happy to collaborate with VIVES University College in the field of ‘artistic education’ – an area of study that includes visual arts, drama, dance and music.

We also noticed that teachers are often left wanting in their search for audiovisual content to enhance artistic appreciation in the classroom. We therefore decided to bring together the expertise of our content partners’ collection managers in the museum and performing arts sector with that of educational experts from teacher training programmes – to provide a unique and high-quality offering to teachers in primary education.

Together with VIVES, we identified the needs and challenges faced by primary school teachers when using audiovisual materials in their lessons, and looked for ways to provide them with additional support. Our aim, together with our content partners, was to offer unique audiovisual content, tailored to primary school teachers, in order to enhance artistic education.

This project initially ran from 2020 to 2021 but was then continued as a Scientific Research Project until June 2023. The target audience was also expanded: we not only worked on collections for younger children in the third year of kindergarten and primary school year one, but also for older children in primary school years two and three.

Our role

In this project, meemoo coordinated the collaboration with our content partners from the museum and performing arts sectors. Together, we located relevant materials, acted as the point of contact for participating partners, monitored the image research, and ensured a clear and efficient flow for publishing the audiovisual content, which had to be transferred from our archive system to The Archive for Education. Metadata was crucial in this process, as education requires different descriptions from an archive. The materials were therefore enriched with learning object metadata, indicating, for example, the domain and educational level for which an item is suitable. You can read more about this here.

At The Archive for Education, the content was further contextualised into collections by tutors from VIVES University College, so teachers can quickly and easily incorporate these materials into their lessons. In the autumn of 2023, alongside a tutor from VIVES, our seconded teacher provided targeted training sessions to show primary school teachers how to access the teaching materials, together with concrete lesson tips and practical exercises.

Approach

Several employees from VIVES – including researchers and teachers from the bachelor in primary education programme – took part in this project. Each of them specialises in one domain of artistic education: visual arts, drama, music and dance.

They worked with primary school teachers to identify the needs and barriers to effectively incorporating quality art appreciation in the classroom. What should a collection of audiovisual content include to be effective, efficient and engaging for students?

We also worked on making educational and subject-specific content available in The Archive for Education. Together with our content partners and our art and heritage image database, artinflanders.be, we assessed which audiovisual and visual source materials are suitable for artistic education in schools.

The researchers from VIVES have developed pedagogical and didactic support for primary school teachers to use audiovisual materials digitally in the classroom. We are aiming to offer teaching tips for deploying audiovisual collections in a high-quality and targeted way, to make a fundamental contribution to developing digital and visual literacy for teachers and pupils alike.

The framework we’re developing, which will provide insights into teachers’ needs and recommendations for teachers in training, will be made available afterwards. The digitally developed collections and insights are also being included in the rich educational offering provided by the Archief voor Onderwijs. Make sure you keep an eye on our channels.

Results

This research project concluded in June 2023. And, as part of the project, we are now offering a total of 24 new collections with unique materials from the museum and performing arts sectors on our educational platform. These collections have been tailored for children in the final year of kindergarten and year one of primary school on one hand, and children in years two and three of primary school on the other. The collections are accompanied with teaching tips and creative prompts developed by educational experts to actively engage with the content in the classroom. 

>> Access the teaching materials (in Dutch only)

(Trainee) teachers can find many more artistic video and audio clips on The Archive for Education that are not included in the collections. But how do you effectively appreciate a work of art or artistic audiovisual clip together with children? VIVES University College has developed a step-by-step guide (in Dutch) to assist teachers in this process. 

For any questions about this project, please email leen.debruyn@meemoo.be

Do you have a question?
Contact Leen De Bruyn
Project Leader & Account Manager Education
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