NATIONAL Museum Jamaica (NMJ), a division of the Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), held its annual Primary Exit Profile (PEP) lecture on Tuesday, to assist primary-level students to prepare for the upcoming curriculum-based test on April 24 and 25.

The lecture, held at the IOJ lecture hall on East Street in downtown Kingston, was delivered by teacher at the Harbour View Primary School with more than 20 years’ experience, Saskia Lee.

The focus was mathematics, with the topic ‘Fractions, Decimals and Techniques on How to Answer Multiple Choice Questions’.

NMJ Director Dr Jonathan Greenland told JIS News that the aim of the lecture was to make learning more engaging for students who may respond better to different methods of teaching.

“Every child learns in a different way, so a lot of school learning is just one way, and so it benefits some children and doesn’t benefit others. We provide a kind of informal learning in the sense that there are a lot of students who find themselves not in the classroom. They find themselves outside. When I was a boy and in school, it was a school trip that made a huge difference… improved my understanding of things, whereas sitting in the classroom was tedious sometimes,” he said.

The director added that while history is a priority area for the NMJ, mathematics was selected to be the area of focus this year as it had never been covered for a lecture before and was outside of areas usually targeted by the museum.

“Let’s touch all of it, not just history; let’s get geography in and English and all of these things and really cover the wide area, rather than just always being about history,” Dr Greenland said.

Meanwhile, outreach officer of education at the NMJ Alexis McDavid said that topics for lectures are not limited, adding that topics are often decided on based on the needs of schools and teachers.

She said that while the NMJ reaches out to schools to be a part of the lectures, teachers and heads of institutions are encouraged to reach out for assistance.

“Every year we try to do a different topic, whether it’s social studies or maths or language arts. Based on the conversations with the teachers, we try to facilitate that,” McDavid said.

The NMJ also hosts school trips, including ‘touch tours’, where students get a chance to learn their history by interacting with objects and artefacts in the museum rather than just looking at them.