Archives and archivists can play a vital role in education across grade levels—from primary school to graduate programs. But simply placing students in a reading room with primary sources or showcasing “cool stuff” to a class does not necessarily facilitate student learning. Pedagogical design does. These slides by Marilyn Morgan and Marta Crilly capture their portion of a full-day workshop co-led by four archivists and educators to help others maximize interactions with students, adapt information literacy approaches, and develop mutually beneficial, collaborative relationships between archives and educational institutions. We discussed emerging and innovative ideas and practices related to engaging students with archival materials, both in and outside of class assignments and how these archival activities should align with curriculum frameworks. We shared models of innovative projects and practical tips on building cross-discipline collaborations between archivists, educators, and humanists.

1. Archivists & Active Learning
Fostering Student Engagement and
Learning Opportunities in Archives
A workshop for New England Archivists Annual Meeting, 2016 | Portland, ME. March 31, 2016
Slides created and presented by:
Marilyn Morgan & Marta Crilly
Full workshop co-led by:
Marta Crilly, Boston City Archives, Jim Moran, American Antiquarian Society,
Marilyn Morgan, University of Massachusetts Boston, Suzy Taraba, Wesleyan University

2. “How do I engage students/patrons with primary source documents?”
² Involving students in doing
things and thinking about the
things they are doing [1]
² “Active learning is most effective
when the experience supports
students to interact with and reflect
on the subject matter in substantive
ways.” [2]
1.Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) report
(Bonwell & Eison 1991, 2).
2. Bill Cerbin, UW-La Crosse Center for Advancing Teaching &
Learning
What is Active Learning, Exactly?
² “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and
I learn.”
~Benjamin Franklin

3. Building Collaborative Partnerships &
Bridging the Divide Between Faculty and Archivists:
A Tale of Two Perspectives
Faculty
with student at archives
Archivist
with student at archives

4. So, I built it. But no one came. . . . What happened?
“What do I have to do to get faculty to incorporate archives into their
curriculum?” “How can I reach undergraduates when their professors
don’t bring them into the archives?”

5. Understand Challenges
Educator’s perspective:
• “it sounds cool, but I can’t justify
taking away from the classroom”
• Ego (“if anyone is going to teach
my students about research, it’s
me”)
• Lack of time to prepare
• Unwilling to invest time with
uncertain ROI
Archivists and faculty share a common goal: a genuine desire to enrich
education. So, why aren’t faculty lined up at the archives’ doors?
“How can I approach faculty to help them envision integrating
collections into curriculum?”
• Outdated or lack of understanding of archives—or judgment based on
colleague’s experience

6. Tue 2/3/2015 11:07 PM
“I created an account last week, and poked around. I did not see a shared notebook . . . . I am currently
in my account and s9ll can't find it?”
Wed 2/4/2015 8:02 PM
“I haven't figured out how to put this in evernote yet, but I will play around with it tomorrow.”
Sat 2/7/2015 8:43 PM
“… using 3 plaBorms with the one program/app is a bit of a challenge, but now it's a mission ... and a
very useful program, so I do want to use it.”
Faculty Perspective: Preparing students for the archive and making
archival exercises relevant to coursework presents challenges
“Why is it worth my time?”
è
è
è

7. “How can I improve my chances of developing a successful and
mutually beneficial collaboration with faculty?”
• Investigate: what classes are offered? Who
teaches them when?
• Start small and set tangible goals
• Identify how many classes you can
accommodate and make contact
• Consider timing
• Be specific in your goals and how the archives
fits with their class
• Follow up; “no” one semester doesn’t mean
“no” forever
• Document success
• Promote and publicize good collaborations
Faculty & Staff
Africana Studies American
Studies Anthropology
Applied Linguistics
Art
Asian Studies
Classics and Religious
Studies
Communication Economics
English
History
Latin American Studies
Latino Studies
Modern Languages Native
American Studies
Performing Arts
Philosophy Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Women's and Gender
Studies

8. Archivists who teach: DOs
² Incorporate multimodal styles into
lessons/group activities
² Find a way to make material relevant
to students
² Be mindful of your audience
² Collaborate! Work with faculty. Use
your expertise with collections to
co-create questions that will prompt
discussion and thought
² Allow students to spend time with
material—be comfortable with silence
² Be flexible and willing to adapt
² Be persistent and resilient
! create activities that don’t hold
meaning
! rely on a static “show & tell” of cool
items that doesn’t allow for user
interaction
! feel like you must know all answers
! get discouraged if an idea doesn’t
resonate with one group
! try to do everything at once
! forget that you have expertise with the
collections
! forget that you and faculty share a
common goal: educating
Archivists who teach:
DON’Ts

9. Successful class visits to archives
with engaged learning
• Might look and feel chaotic:
Students may use mobile
devices to work
• Might have alternating deadly
silence and noise
• Faculty integrate experience
into course so archives has
relevance
Three models:
• Create stations for group work:
opera class at archives
• Give individual students folders and
worksheet: Forester records in
history survey class
• Research “boot camp”

10. Collaborative
Partnership
• Two or more parties
share resources to achieve
a common goal or goals
Customer Service
• The service provider
works to support the
customer’s goals and
needs.
Archivist’s Perspective

11. Case Study #1: Civil Rights and Social
Justice Class
• Multiple visits to Archives reading room for research/tours/sessions
with archivist
• Used sensitive collection of essays, so we met with Law Department
and spent time redacting
• Students investigated/tracked down authors of student
desegregation essays and interviewed them
• Excellent student work and project website produced

12. Missed Opportunities
• Project website did not cite Archives
• Class imaged city records, but Archives didn’t get copies
of these images
• Class visit measured as 1 reference appointment rather
than multiple, even though multiple students did
research. No metrics produced measuring staff time
spent with class
• https://www.brandeis.edu/investigate/race-justice/
busing-desegregation-student-essays-from-1975.html

13. Case Study #2: Digital Approaches to
Boston’s Culture
• Class designing a virtual museum of the Mayor
James Curley House
• Students produced museum “exhibits” or posters
related to Curley
• Final product was a project website and poster
projects

14. Outcomes
• Project website pointing to
our collections
• Exhibits using our collections
• Empowered students and a
less exhausted archivist
• Ongoing relationship with
Wentworth

15. Teaching Goal: Create a digital archive and
interactive exhibit
Challenges (Faculty perspective):
² Resources (funding, archival collections, technological support, time)
² Combatting stereotypes of archives and attitudes about “real” history
² Communication beyond classroom
² Creating a supportive classroom community
² Setting new & different expectations
Solution: Collaborative Partnership with Boston City Archives
Meeting Challenges by
Creating Collaborations
Boston City Archives and UMass Boston

16. UMB and City Archives
Collaboration
First Year
• Class visit to talk about public records and doing
research in our collections
• Scanned documents for students
• Gave input and feedback on metadata
• Discussion of privacy issues

17. UMB and City Archives
Collaboration
Second Year
• Class is held at City Archives
• Students image documents under supervision
• Students do research during class time rather than
multiple visits
• Metadata spreadsheet

18. Planning a Collaboration
Ø Look for opportunities
Ø Remember that collaborations should be mutual
Ø Be creative in find the appropriate balance of
access and security
Ø Get comfortable with imperfection and
discomfort

19. © Morgan 2016. Adapted from the "Business Model Canvas," by Strategyzer.com. Creative Commons license.
Success Metrics
Challenges Desired Outcomes Unique Value Proposition
Key Activities
Unique assets
Key Collaborators
Target Audience/Users
Cost & Resources
Iden&fy and state
challenges clearly
and individually.
Ex., “some of our
faculty colleagues are
resist to new ways of
teaching”
“how to define my
role vs. the faculty/
teacher role during
the class visit”
“how do you get
teachers to
communicate?”
AAer you meet
these goals what
unique service do
you want to provide
to users?
Ex., We teach and
work with faculty to
create assignments
that are compelling
to students and
helps them develop
research/deep
reading/analysis
skills
Ex., Because we’re
fluent with digital
plaIorms and tools,
we can reach an
expanded audience.
Think of your
collec&ons. Which
stand out as
unique? Describe
one (or two) you’d
like to highlight
first.
See example on
next page.
List concrete ac&ons
that you can take.
List separately.
Ex., Iden&fy 4
poten&al classes and
faculty to contact
What are your goals?
Choose as many as
three.
Ex., “I’d like to teach
people how to conduct
research using primary
sources”
“Reach expanded
audiences with digital
tools”
How will you measure success? Be specific.
Ex., Increased research appointments? Web analy&cs?
Iden&fy your target
user.
Ex., pre-K-12 at Chase
Ex., Students studying
history, English,
media studies,
journalism, war
studies could engage
in numerous crea&ve
projects based on
these archival
materials. TuAs
students and faculty
cons&tute a natural
target audience; but
lessons could be
created/adapted for
local high school and
upper school students
in Cambridge and
Somerville too.
AAer considering goals,
challenges, UVP,
resources, etc., iden&fy
other people (anyone
who is not your target
user). These might
include faculty, other
archives staff,
supervisor, library
director,
communica&ons, etc.
Creating a canvas or action plan
What costs are associated with your goals?
Ex., Time, Publicity costs? Training?
What resources are associated with your goals?
Ex., Do you have ample space? Do rooms need to be
reserved?
© Morgan 2016. Adapted from the "Business Model Canvas," by Strategyzer.com. Creative Commons license.

20. ² Digital Tools & Metrics
² Assessing projects & successful collaborations
² Thinking outside the box

21. h`ps://www.flickr.com/photos/ha112/901660/in/gallery-msbea3-72157623230032345/

22. h`p://goo.gl/e3o32f
h`p://goo.gl/NiagCc
h`p://goo.gl/EO04Em
Timeline JS3: Digital Archives-Based Active Learning Platform

23. Tumblr
h`p://bartle`historyproject.tumblr.com/
h`p://gender-race-empire.tumblr.com/

24. Omeka
h`p://bosdesca.omeka.net/

25. Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

26. Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ha112/901660/in/gallery-msbea3-72157623230032345/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rwanysibaja/galleries/72157626064218621/
https://www.flickr.com/groups/2619865@N24/
https://www.flickr.com/groups/2619865@N24/
Tumblr
http://gender-race-empire.tumblr.com/
http://womenofcoloniallatinamerica.tumblr.com/
http://trkling.tumblr.com/
http://bartletthistoryproject.tumblr.com/
Timeline JS3
http://timeline.knightlab.com/ (site with tutorial)
http://www.genderfoodculture.com/food-products-and-practices-a-timeline/
Omeka
https://www.omeka.net/ (Free options. Hosted remotely by George Mason University)
https://omeka.org/
http://bosdesca.omeka.net/ (UMB’s digital archives class site)
Other resources and inspirational examples

27. Metrics

28. Metrics
Boston City Archives
Reference Appointments, January-May 2015
Umass Digital Archives
appointments
All other appoinments

29. Metrics & Learning Outcomes
UMass Boston
Students Applying Skills
Learned at Archives
& Sharing Findings Beyond
Classroom

30. Metrics & Learning Outcomes:
New Understanding
Excerpt from student:
Tue 4/28/2015 6:45 PM
I am officially frustrated. I created a
map in flickr because google maps
did not allow me to a`ach the
images. I am unsure how . . . to link
it to the Omeka exhibit. I only
a`ached interna&onal le`ers so
far.
Struggle is real.”
“I loved going into the archives, and really being challenged to find a
variety of sources (images, maps, advertisements, etc.). It was a
pleasure to get to have creative assignments like blog posts instead of
standard response papers.”
~undergraduate, 2013

31. Lessons Learned
“Just do something. Do whatever you can within
the confines of the resources you have.”
- Jason Evans Groth
User Experience Librarian for Digital Media

32. ² “We don’t learn from experience. We learn by
reflecting on experience.”
~ John Dewey
“…we can do anything, but we can't do everything...
at least not at the same time. So think of your
priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but
when you do them. Timing is everything.”
~ Dan Millman
Lessons Learned