A model for school-based learning in informal settings.

This paper proposes a model for learning in the art museum setting that has broader relevance to school-based learning in informal environments. Developed from a completed doctoral investigation, the model applies a socio-cognitive approach that recognizes the social basis of educational experiences and the cognitive demands of learning in informal settings. The model will be articulated and interpreted in relation to school-based curriculum and syllabus directives through its application to a secondary school-based art educational experience at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Implications for the development of strategies that provide students with the skills, knowledge, capacities and distinctive sensibilities to negotiate alternative settings for learning in meaningful and developmentally appropriate ways will be outlined using the organising structure of the model.