Continuing Studies highly encourages using the AIC as a teaching tool for all programs! You are welcome to take your students to the museum at any time that works out between your course meeting hours and the museum's open hours. 

If you teach with youth, please email our office at saic-youth@saic.edu right before leaving to let us know that you'll be out of the classroom, and where you will be headed.  If you teach in ACE, leave a sign posted on your door when you leave so students who may arrive late will know where to find you. 

Important policies about teaching in the AIC

Seating in the Museum

• Stools are only available for certain ACE classes and not for youth classes. 

• Certain classes are approved to use a couple of stools if students need them. Return them to the bin outside of Gallery 216.

• Stools should never be placed on platforms, and visitors should maintain an arm's length distance from artworks and their supports (cases, pedestals, platforms). 

• Sometimes there is a bicycle lock around the stools. The lock combo is 0000

• Email saic-ace@saic.edu or saic-youth@saic.edu if you have any questions about where to access stools. 

Special Exhibits

• No stools are allowed in special exhibitions. 

• No teaching is allowed in the special exhibitions as well. 

Prohibited Items

• Pencils and pads are allowed but will be monitored closely and removed if problematic. 

  • Monitoring closely is imperative, especially for MAC and MSP students.

• Bags and backpacks larger than 13 x 17 x 4 inches are not allowed in the galleries and must be checked. 

• The museum does not allow food, beverages, flowers, or balloons. Water Bottles are allowed.

• Please refer to the museum's Visitor Policies for additional prohibited items.

• Non-flash photography is permitted in all permanent galleries. Signs indicate the few works that are not allowed to be photographed.

Please be on the lookout for and yield to AIC staff tour leaders. You can access the Museum’s daily tour schedule here. 

Resources from Cecilia Beaven's "Using the AIC" Faculty Workshop

Spring 2024

In April of 2024, Cecilia Beaven led CS faculty in a workshop to inspire ways that the AIC can be used as a teaching tool. 

During this workshop, Cecilia presented three different exercises that she has created and implemented in her varying classrooms to engage students inside the museum. 

Cecilia has generously given her permission for folks to use the outlines she has created for the exercises. Use them as they are, or modify them and adapt them for your specific courses and program ages. If you do use them as they are, please credit Cecilia for any use featuring her content.

Inhabit a Drawing - Perspective drawing exercise based in the Thorne Miniature Room with a creative twist.

Art Crush - An exercise in interpreting and verbalizing contemporary art.

Chicagoans - An exercise in appreciating and relating to historical art.

Visit this link for more resources and information from the AIC about teaching in the museum.