Performative embodiment and museum education : exploring drama-based professional learning with museum educators

How can museum educators increase the accessibility of museum education for a diverse range of learners? In this MFA thesis, the author explores the relationship between multimodal meaning-making through drama-based strategies and the accessibility of educational experiences on the museum floor. Additionally, this document looks at the effects of drama-based professional learning on the pedagogical practices of museum educators at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. The author seeks to answer the questions: How does the design and implementation of drama-based professional learning for museum educators impact their facilitation of inquiries around art pieces on the gallery floor? How can performative embodiment and drama-based pedagogy offer museum visitors multiple entry points and ways to engage in dialogue about art pieces? Through three case studies, this qualitative research study explores the structure and impact of drama-based professional learning. The case studies share the experiences of museum educators when implementing drama-based strategies on the museum floor in addition to exploring how dialogic reflection supports the educators’ understandings around facilitation and learning design within drama-based pedagogy. Following the presentation of the cases, the author engages in a cross-case analysis that looks at the similarities and differences of the case studies. The study suggests that drama-based strategies may increase the engagement of young visitors on the museum floor due to the agency and choice inherent in drama-based strategies. This study also proposes that professional learning in museum settings which uses dialogic reflection between educators engaged in aligned practices aids the educators in determining how to navigate challenges within their practice. The document ends with the limitations of the study and recommendations for future iterations of the project.Theatre and Danc

Legalizing Oral History: Proving Aboriginal Claims in Canadian Courts

Large areas of Canada are still subject to land claims by the Aboriginal peoples, who include the Indian, Inuit, and Metis. These claims arise mainly in regions where land-surrender treaties were not signed in the past, notably in British Columbia, Quebec, the Atlantic Provinces, and the North. Most of them get resolved through negotiation and agreement, but a few end up in court. When that happens, the onus is on the Aboriginal peoples to prove their claims in accordance with the requirements of the Canadian legal system. This article will examine some of the difficulties Aboriginal peoples encounter when they rely on their oral histories for this purpose

The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey: VI. Second HI Source Catalog of the Virgo Cluster Region

We present the third installment of HI sources extracted from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA extragalactic survey. This dataset continues the work of the Virgo ALFALFA catalog. The catalogs and spectra published here consist of data obtained during the 2005 and 2006 observing sessions of the survey. The catalog consists of 578 HI detections within the range 11h 36m < R.A.(J2000) < 13h 52m and +08 deg < Dec.(J2000) < +12 deg, and cz_sun < 18000 km/s. The catalog entries are identified with optical counterparts where possible through the examination of digitized optical images. The catalog detections can be classified into three categories: (a) detections of high reliability with S/N > 6.5; (b) high velocity clouds in the Milky Way or its periphery; and (c) signals of lower S/N which coincide spatially with an optical object and known redshift. 75% of the sources are newly published HI detections. Of particular note is a complex of HI clouds projected between M87 and M49 that do not coincide with any optical counterparts. Candidate objects without optical counterparts are few. The median redshift for this sample is 6500 km/s and the cz distribution exhibits the local large scale structure consisting of Virgo and the background void and the A1367-Coma supercluster regime at cz_sun ~7000 km/s. Position corrections for telescope pointing errors are applied to the dataset by comparing ALFALFA continuum centroid with those cataloged in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey. The uncorrected positional accuracy averages 27 arcsec ~(21 arcsec ~median) for all sources with S/N > 6.5 and is of order ~21 arcsec ~(16 arcsec ~median) for signals with S/N > 12. Uncertainties in distances toward the Virgo cluster can affect the calculated HI mass distribution.Comment: 25 pages, 1 Table, 8 figures, Accepted by the Astronomical Journa

The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey: VIII. HI Source Catalog of the Anti-Virgo Region at dec = +25 deg

We present a fourth catalog of HI sources from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey. We report 541 detections over 136 deg2, within the region of the sky having 22h < R.A. < 03h and 24 deg < Dec. < 26 deg . This complements a previous catalog in the region 26 deg < Dec. < 28 deg (Saintonge et al. 2008). We present here the detections falling into three classes: (a) extragalactic sources with S/N > 6.5, where the reliability of the catalog is better than 95%; (b) extragalactic sources 5.0 < S/N < 6.5 and a previously measured optical redshift that corroborates our detection; or (c) High Velocity Clouds (HVCs), or subcomponents of such clouds, in the periphery of the Milky Way. Of the 541 objects presented here, 90 are associated with High Velocity Clouds, while the remaining 451 are identified as extragalactic objects. Optical counterparts have been matched with all but one of the extragalactic objects.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie