Course Overview

MST 5920 Independent Project is an internship that provides field experience directly related to museum studies. Requirements include progress reports, a summary of experiences, and an evaluation by your site supervisor. The internship is 135 hours of professional work experience in a museum or related cultural heritage institution.1 

Prerequisite: graduate standing and completion of 15 credit hours in the master’s program. Museum Studies majors only. Field experience directly related to museum studies.2 

Course Learning Objectives3

• To give the student an opportunity to apply the principles and theories of museum studies in a working environment.

• To enable the student to supplement knowledge in his/her area of specialization through hands-on experience in a cultural heritage institution.

• To give the student experience in evaluating a particular job situation.

Independent Project Overview: Internship as Community Teaching Intern at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art

For my Independent Project, I pursued an internship in the Community Education Department at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, as the Community Teaching Intern, under the supervision of Adam Werner, the Manager of Community Teaching Programs. I chose this option to gain more hands-on experience, especially since I have no prior experience working in a museum. Moreover, throughout my studies, I have gained a strong interest in curation, the visitor experience, and education, and I wanted my internship to give me the opportunity to apply the theory that I have been learning in a practical, community-centered setting. This project was completed in person at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, where I went to the facility twice a week for a little over four months, from January 2026 to the beginning of May 2026. Completing this project has furthered my understanding of the museum’s internal functions and operations and has helped shape my learning goals and objectives.

Analysis

At the beginning of my internship, I observed and assisted the community development team during their after-school care programs, which include After School at the Carter, Homeschool group, and Cook Children’s video recording. This gave me the chance to see how students respond to varying teaching strategies. I would also help prepare materials for each program and clean up afterwards. Eventually, I grew comfortable co-facilitating with the community development team and chose to develop a lesson plan and accompanying PowerPoint presentation based on the museum’s collection for my e-Portfolio artifact. In addition, through co-facilitation with after-school care programs and observation of the community development team, I gained direct insight and feedback on how to structure my lesson plan and activity. I decided to create this artifact because it gave me the opportunity to create an educational resource that pushed me to consider younger audiences rather than generalizing museum visitors to just adults.

Throughout this project, I had several meetings with my site supervisor, Adam, who was extremely receptive to any questions or concerns that I had. Adam helped guide me through the process of developing my after-school care project, offering feedback when I asked for it that helped me tone down the language in the lesson plan so children could follow and understand it. After searching through the museum’s collections, I initially chose to create my lesson plan on the artist John Marin because the mediums he used in two of the collection’s works were unique, combining watercolor and crayon. John Marin was best known for his expressionist watercolor work, and I felt like creating a lesson plan and activity over this artist would be a great interactive element for children to recreate, and they would also enjoy doing it.

One challenge encountered while creating the artifact was how to phrase the content so children could understand. Based on feedback from Adam and the community development team, I revised elements of the lesson plan, including the lesson objectives and guiding questions. Overall, this project also gave me the tools to create a resource that meaningfully engages the audience, which I believe is a valuable skill for a curator to understand when developing content, such as considering your audience and how you will connect with them.

Regarding PLO-1 and 4, this was accomplished through effective communication with my site supervisor and colleagues, taking the initiative to ensure that I had an artifact for my independent project, organizing meetings with my site supervisor, and engaging in weekly team meetings. PLO-2, 3, and 6 were met by using critical thinking skills to synthesize information, critically evaluate, and research works from the museum’s collection, thereby creating my artifact for an educational setting within a museum. PLO-5 was accomplished by using SharePoint to develop a lesson plan and PowerPoint presentation for the museum’s education department, based on the museum’s collection. Lastly, PLO-7 was accomplished by ensuring that the artifact met professional standards through public engagement and the development of strong community relationships through education, communication, and interactive interpretation.

Reflection 

My internship at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art was an invaluable experience that equipped me with knowledge and skills that will greatly benefit my future career. There were numerous factors that impacted my learning in the internship. Firstly, gaining hands-on experience was essential to me, as was co-facilitating programs, which greatly improved my communication and public speaking skills, as shown in my SWOT Analysis. Next, collaborating with Carter staff provided valuable insight into museum practices for program development and community engagement. Regarding the success of the independent project, the entire internship has been incredibly rewarding. Especially in terms of adaptability and learning how to modify one’s approach to different age groups and learning styles. Yet, one challenge encountered while creating the artifact was simplifying art concepts for children to understand, which, honestly, was a bit difficult at first since I am used to writing academic papers. However, I feel like this has been a great teaching moment for me on how to make information, such as labels and text, easy and accessible for a twelve-year-old to read, further contributing to my critical thinking skills about audience needs. Another challenge, not really related to the internship but more to my time management, was that I had a very tight university schedule, taking both the Capstone and Exhibit Development courses, and had internship responsibilities to manage in a timely and efficient manner. This was hard to accomplish, but I had a very strict schedule and made sure to stay on track.

In the future, I am interested in pursuing a career in curation, which I believe my time learning more about the importance of community education will only benefit me as a curator. My vision for long-term career success revolves around museum curation, exhibit development, visitor engagement, and education, where I can create inclusive, engaging exhibitions that enable all audiences to have meaningful visitor experiences. This project ultimately gave me the practical knowledge to create exhibitions that are accessible, educational, and visitor-centric, aligning with my Personal Learning Goal (PLG) 3 to develop valuable skills that incorporate hands-on experience into the operations and function of a museum, as well as the Program Learning Outcomes (PLO) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. 

Co-facilitating with Carter community team member at Cook Children’s Hospital video recording. The lesson was creating a comic based on Sandow Birk’s White Out: A Monumental Arch to American History, 2021. 

Co-facilitating at the after-school care program with Carter community team member. The lesson was creating a Chinese Dragon (for Chinese New Year), based on Martin Wong’s Chinese New Year Parade, 1992-1994.