Virtual Destinations and Student Learning in Middle School: A Cas ...

Frankel states that effective and sustained partnerships succeed because the partners have identified a problem to be solved or a need to be fulfilled and then worked to match what is happening in the classroom with museum resources.

One relevant study was a partnership with the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Hands-on Museum, community schools, and the local university (Paris, Yambor, & Packard, 1998). These researchers used a mixed methodology approach to assess the effects of a museum / school / university partnership. Their research demonstrated how community agencies could collaborate for mutual benefits. They noted that future research should assess the long-term consequences of these innovative partnerships, and that longitudinal research is needed to determine if these partnerships can maintain students’scientific knowledge and interest in their subsequent schooling. This partnership, however, like the handful of others that had come before, was considered a one-time research project not to be sustained.

While there are a number of museum / school partnerships between class­rooms and museums-for-profit, few partnerships are established between a university biology museum and public school classrooms. There are fewer partnerships using computer technology as the vehicle of instruction. The first Museums and the Web Conference was held in 1997. By 2003, the Museums and the Web Conference (Museums and the Web, 2003) had more than 170 speakers from all over the world, which was considerably larger than the 1997 conference with only 50 speakers in attendance. Upon examination of the conference topics, however, partnerships with schools appear not to be one of the more popular subjects.

One of the earliest formal collaborations between museums and schools began in 1988 and ended in 1992 (David & Matthews, 1995). The Teacher Internship Program for Science (TIPS) was a four-year program where first-year teachers were paired with experienced science teachers. Teachers rotated their time teaching in the museum, working on exhibits, guiding class trips through the museum, and teaching in the school classroom. According to David and Matthews (1995), the partnership arose out of a growing need to develop recruiting strategies for science teachers.