A teacher planned to take a class to the art museum for the first time. Before the trip, the teacher shared prints illustrating how the artwork at the museum is grouped into historical periods. When the actual visit took place, students saw many works of art (for the first time) and were amazed at how readily they were learning to recognize them. The orientation process students experienced is referred to as .

An advanced organizer

Explanation:

 An advanced organizer is one of the type of method  that is used for introducing and outline the important lessons and different types of topic that helps in illustrating the relation between the information and the student.

The main objective of an advance organizer is that it given small overview about the topics in an organization that helps in the subsequent learning process.  

According to the given question, the student orientation process is basically referred as an advanced organizer where the students are given a brief introduction about the specific historical period.

 Therefore, An advanced organizer is the correct answer.