Papers by Anthony Woodruff
Studies in Art Education, 2023
Museums have a history of being elitist institutions for educated, upper-class, White audiences. ... more Museums have a history of being elitist institutions for educated, upper-class, White audiences. However, in recent decades, many museums have worked to overcome this idea by providing visitor-centered approaches to refocus their efforts and concentrate on the needs and interests of all visitors, rather than the objects on display. One population of visitors that is often overlooked by museums is adults with developmental disabilities. This audience serves as the primary participant group for this qualitative case study, along with their parents or caregivers and museum staff members. By using disability studies as a guiding framework, the participants in this study collaborated with the researcher and museum staff members to document their museum experiences through inclusive artmaking, interviews, discussions, and observations. The purpose of this research was to explore how such collaborations might create more inclusive and visitor-centered museum experiences for adults with developmental disabilities within a small regional local art center. The findings were used to make recommendations for future programming and consisted of several themes developed during the coding process. The themes included understanding, accessibility, interactive, collaboration, communication, and evaluation.
The Florida State University ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2022
Many museums have been critically characterized as elitist institutions that offer few inclusive ... more Many museums have been critically characterized as elitist institutions that offer few inclusive services to meet the needs and interests of marginalized populations and communities (Hill, 2016; Sandell & Nightingale, 2013). Some museums, however, are turning to visitor-centered approaches that refocus their efforts to concentrate on the needs and interests of visitors instead of the objects on display (Love & Boda, 2017; Weil, 1999). One population often overlooked by museums—adult visitors with developmental disabilities—served as the primary participant group for this qualitative bricolage case study along with their parents or caregivers and museum staff members. Using disability studies as a guiding framework, participants collaborated with the researcher and museum staff members to document their museum experiences through inclusive art-making, interviews, discussions, and observations. The purpose of this research was to explore how such collaborations might create more inclusive and visitor-centered museum experiences for these visitors. Findings were used to make recommendations for future programing and consisted of several themes developed during the coding process. The themes included understanding, accessibility, interactive, collaboration, communication, and evaluation.
The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student's advisor, on behalf o... more The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student's advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student's thesis including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above.
Exploring Digital Technologies for Art-Based Special Education, 2019
Reflective Practice, 2018
Within a personal narrative reflection method and social constructivism theory, a former intern r... more Within a personal narrative reflection method and social constructivism theory, a former intern reflects on their time at The Ringling Museum in Sarasota Florida. The article focuses on the intern's experience, which consisted of several roadblocks and high points. Much of these situations presented themselves within a context at odds with the intern's former teaching experiences and learning experiences within his own graduate program. Being placed within the busy museum world proved to be effective only after the intern accepted a collaborative visitor-centered mindset, involving a focus on the visitor and their connection to the object, collaboration across the entire staff, a certain level of risk-taking, and evaluation. The intern urges museum educators and curators willing to accept the visitor-centered approach to collaborate together as they look for new ways for visitors to experience museums.
Reflective Practice, 2016
The success of graduate students relies on factors beyond mere cognitive ability, with fostering ... more The success of graduate students relies on factors beyond mere cognitive ability, with fostering peer and professional relationships as definitive influences on achievement. Research shows that positive faculty/student relationships are a significant factor in the success of graduate students and that art-making is an effective way to encourage the reflective thinking needed to nurture these relationships. In this article, we examine the relationship between arts informed pedagogy, specifically the use of a visual/verbal journal, and the formation of graduate relationships. The majority of the students in this collaborative inquiry entered their doctoral program at the same time the research class began and all engaged in an artfully imagined introduction to qualitative research course.
Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders often do not respond to common pedagogical strategies and... more Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders often do not respond to common pedagogical strategies and traditional in vivo teaching approaches. From my observations, students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders learn best when material is presented through technology. Based on the information found in the literature review and personal observations from working with students with special needs, when students with Autism Spectrum Disorders receive video based instruction by watching recorded art lessons, they may learn to develop artistic skills and retain more art content knowledge with greater success than through traditional teaching methods. The purpose of this research study is to test the hypothesis that video based teaching methods can improve the learning of students with autism in a series of art lessons.
Museum and Society, 2019
Visiting a museum can be a tremendously stressful event for families that include children with A... more Visiting a museum can be a tremendously stressful event for families that include children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The goal of this research study was to find what concerns families have when visiting a museum, if there are any intervention materials caregivers prefer, to examine behaviors of children with ASD while in the museum, and to see if an art-making activity after the museum visit could be directly tied to the museum experience. Results indicated that museums continue to be stressful for families, and parents would like materials to help reduce anxiety in their children before and during the visit. While in the museum, parents tried to focus their children’s attention on interesting things, but many children became overly excited and desired spaces within the museum to be more active. Art-making after the museum visit allowed children to reflect back on what they saw and did during their experience.
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Papers by Anthony Woodruff