Object Based Learning

As one of the comments to my postings pointed out, all of the posts in this blog that are about learning have illustrated the belief that people learn best by doing: apprenticeship, mud pit, running.

But, lets face it, not everything can be learned by doing it. There are concepts that are simply out of reach, out of budget, or out of time. For instance, history is a subject hard to learn by doing. It happened already! Reading fictional text is genre that makes it challenging to learn by doing—how can we expect our students to deeply comprehend experiences a fictional character is having if they have never had a similar experience? Research has stated that students, especially of the younger set, develop a fixed interpretation of a text and do not budge from that the way some stronger readers might (Grossman & Schoenfeld 2007) And, if we are expecting students to construct meaning for themselves, how do we do this without experiential learning?

One answer to this challenge is object based learning. Using an object that illustrates an historical concept can help that concept come alive. In my personal experience at the Newark Museum, the Ballatine house has done just that. When driving through downtown Newark, and looking at the remnants of what used to be a prominent part of the city, there are bits of history that hint toward the prosperity of the days gone by: a particular ornamental piece still on the building, the size and length of the window frames, the peaks of the roof. And, I try to picture what it must have looked like. Step into the Ballatine House and instantly I see in front of me the way life was in the late 1800’s when that street was one of prominence and wealth.

Now, it is impossible to bring the entirety of the Ballatine House to a classroom, but it is not impossible to bring smaller objects to enrich the curriculum. After looking at the room housing the 15,000 objects that can be on loan to a school—ranging across time periods, cultures, and subject areas—our curriculum can be much richer by using them.

Our group is planning on blending history and literature by creating an exhibit based on Historical Fiction, namely picture books set during the Civil War. We are looking at using The Cemetery Keepers of Gettysburg and The Ghosts of the Civil War with objects such as a union soldier hat and a confederate flag. Our hope is that this will bring to life the history in historical fiction through object based learning.