**4. Student teachers' professional development: using the museum as a site of learning**

As part of my teaching in a two-year master's program at INN University in Norway, my team and I collaborated with a local museum to use it as a site of learning for student teachers. More specifically, we let our student teachers engage with the exhibit Latjo Drom—The Romani/Travelers' Culture and History, which displays the life and history of the Romani people in Norway. The exhibit is located at the Glomdal Museum in Elverum, which has been a pioneering institution in including ethnic minority cultures in their exhibits [25]. In bringing student teachers to the museum, we have been interested in how the exhibit can create a space for student teachers to develop a nuanced and in-depth understanding of the traditions and current situation for one of Norway's national minorities [26].

In the exhibit, the student teachers become familiar with the diversity of the Romani people's history and culture in Norway. The exhibit is comprised of a wide range of Romani artifacts, such as tools, clothing, decorative knives, and other handicrafts, all presenting the Romani's traveling way of life and the advanced skills and knowledge their communities have developed for centuries. In addition, the exhibit includes larger items, such as a life-size horse model, a car, a caravan, and a fully equipped 40 ft. boat, to portray how the culture of traveling has evolved and been adapted through generations.

The student teachers also encounter a multimodality of pictures, films, texts, and examples of Romani music, both older folk music and presentations from newer artists that actively incorporate their Romani background when composing and performing. In a separate part of the exhibit, the student teachers learn about the racism and social exclusion the Romani people have suffered in Norway, including cases of lobotomy, forced relocation into labor colonies, and forced sterilization. These dramatic experiences of discrimination, stigma, and violence are documented through the use of pictures, films, and personal narratives telling the story of how Norwegian authorities in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s worked systematically to erase the Romani culture and to assimilate the Romani communities into the dominant culture. The exhibit, titled Latjo Drom, meaning to wish someone a safe and pleasant journey in the Romani language, thus gains a deeper meaning. Not only does the title emphasize the distinctive Romani way of life, it also bears a message of hope and reconciliation, reminding the visitors about the past and the power of transformative change.

The cooperation and interaction between schools and museums has a long history and has been mutually beneficial in many ways and on many levels [27, 28]. Frequently, the museum is seen as an extension of the classroom, facilitating inquirybased and experiential learning in ways that engage the students and support the curriculum goals. However, as noted by van der Kooij [27], schools' collaboration with museums can also very often take a form in which the museum acts largely as a provider of services and the school as a consumer. The teachers adopt a passive and observatory role, leaving the instruction to the curators. In this way, the teachers give the impression to the students that a field trip to a museum is more equivalent to leisure time than to school-based learning. Hence, in such a case, the collaboration with the museum has little significance beyond the isolated visits.

#### *Perspective Chapter: Enhancing Student Teachers' Professional Development through Active Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112399*

In visiting the Latjo Drom exhibit with student teachers, the concept of studentcentered learning is introduced to them as part of the master's courses at the university, which includes reflections on the teacher's role when providing collaborative, interactive, and participatory approaches to teaching and learning. At the venue, the student teachers are first given a guided tour through the different sections by one of the curators, before they explore the exhibit by themselves or in groups. In this way, they are offered the opportunity to engage with the emotions that the exhibit evokes through the artifacts, imagery, texts, and sounds. Later, we allow the student teachers to discuss in groups, posing questions such as: "What did you learn from the exhibit?"; "How did you respond to the exhibit?"; and "How does your encounter with the exhibit relate to those of your peers?" As part of the group work, the student teachers are also asked to revisit one part of the exhibit by free choice and prepare a presentation for the others on the opportunities and challenges they could face if they were to allow their students to engage with this content as future teachers. The group work ends with a plenary discussion led by my colleagues and me in which we ask questions to emphasize reflection upon concepts from the course, such as diversity, discrimination, and minoritization and how they correspond and intersect with the exhibit. One example of these questions is: "To what extent may the Latjo Drom exhibit elaborate or even challenge the concepts presented in the course?" Moreover, we ask the student teachers to reflect upon how an exhibit like Latjo Drom can be utilized with students in school and what role the teacher should have in this regard. An important part of this discussion is how the teacher may help the students see the direct, indirect, and even subtle forms of historical and contemporary discrimination against the Romani communities. Drawing on Freire's [4, 5] transformative approach to education, such knowledge also includes becoming aware of the structures that have allowed systematic discrimination to occur.

In this way, the integration of the Latjo Drom exhibit in the master's courses offers opportunities for engaging emotionally with the exhibit. Following Dewey's [7] idea that experiences are not only a phenomenon of the intellect, but also have to do with bodily involvement, the student teachers encounter a form of learning that involves the senses and emotions. Moreover, as emphasized within the framework of studentcentered learning, the student teachers involve themselves in group work activities and self-directed learning [17, 20]. Instead of regarding the teacher educator as the primary source of knowledge, the student teachers take an active role in their own learning [18].

Meanwhile, through the group discussions, the teacher's role in education is highlighted, emphasizing the empowering and transformative function teachers can have as implementers of education [4, 5]. Thus, learning is seen "as an intentional and active event that requires critical examination between all actors, teachers, and students" [29]. Hence, based on theory and my own experiences with the integration of the museum into teaching and learning, I believe that an experiential engagement with the Latjo Drom exhibit creates opportunities for enhancing the student teachers' role as professional teachers.
