Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums (QM), attended QM’s education workshop for independent school teachers on the 15 April 2018. The workshop, delivered by QM representatives, aimed to introduce teachers to the concept of museum education that can enrich the national curriculum and develop learning materials related to the museums’ permanent collections and exhibitions.

This is the second of two workshops that ran as part of a pilot programme, with QM exploring the idea of rolling out the programme more broadly in the months to come. The workshop aimed to expose independent school teachers to QM’s cultural and educational offerings, in addition to encouraging museum visits among the students attending independent schools.

To deliver this programme, QM partnered with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and the University College London in Qatar (UCL Qatar) as a part of its ongoing commitment to profile the importance of art, heritage and culture in the country’s educational curricula.

The workshop was a chance for teachers to develop new skills and acquire knowledge of object-based learning, thus enriching their teaching materials with content coming directly from QM’s collections and exhibitions. Teachers were also given exercises and chance to explore student books, lesson plans and online resources, and take part in group exercises related to creating museum education activities.

Commenting on the workshop, Dr Jelena Trkulja, Director of Education at QM said:

Qatar Museums is dedicated to enriching and enhancing the role of art and heritage in education. With this workshop, we joined forces with the UCL Qatar’s Museum Studies faculty to train teachers to adopt methodologies from museum education and apply them in the classroom. We thus support teachers in independent schools who are at the forefront of fostering creative teaching strategies and inspiring creative thinking among students, we will be able to inspire and educate the next generation of artistic talent.”

On an ongoing basis, QM offers a variety of educational programmes for school teachers, educators, families and university students.

For more information, visit qm.org.qa