Wisdom from the Field: Developing a Collection of Museum Learning Experiences

ABSTRACTRecent changes in tourism and an increased interest in education and learning have led to the growth of museum visits in developing countries. The major objective of this study is to identify the key components of education and learning at the museum in order to enhance the audience's learning; and to investigate the tendency of audiences towards learning activities. This study was conducted at the Malek National Museum of Tehran, Iran. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this research and the data was gathered through questionnaire and interview form (a closed questionnaire for visitors of the Malek National Museum, Tehran, Iran and an interview form for professionals and experts in the field of museums). Data was analysed using a coding method and SPSS tools. The research findings illustrate that the most important factors in improving education and learning in museums can be classified into three groups: policy making, executive functions within the museum and executive functions in relation to the visitor. Audiences have a highly positive tendency to all key components which were suggested for improving education and learning in the museum.

Professional development at university is traditionally delivered through events, which might be complemented by texts or websites. However the challenge is to ensure that staff engage with the materials, and carry away something which is of value, and which can be embedded into practice when the practitioner is faced with a host of competing priorities. In the field of academic development, although not necessarily online, Boud (1999) has underlined the significance of approaches which are of obvious relevance to staff because they are situated or embedded within the working practices, and peer learning has clear benefits in this regard. In this context Knight, Tait and Yorke (2006) describe the relevance of Engestrom’s (2001) activity system, which provides a graphic illustration of the interplay between the specialist in educational development, the practitioner who might learn how to enhance their practice, and a range of influences including the people with whom they work, departmental policies, tools to cast understanding into practical shapes, and the division of labour within the department. Knight, Tait and Yorke described two studies of professional development at the Open University (UK) which were undertaken in 2004. They showed that while more formal approaches were involved where staff were expected to take on a specific role, non-formal and social learning, including “on-the-job” learning, conversations with colleagues and their own experiences as students had dominated the process of general professional formation. Such findings provide food for thought: clearly the process of embedding theory into good practice can be problematic and does not simply depend on the effective design of a professional development seminar.The focus for the papers in this symposium is on the significance of the context of practitioners when designing effective provision for professional development. This understanding allows innovations in learning and teaching practice to be situated and embedded within the practical circumstances of the individual, while providing and supporting non-formal or social learning. These ideas are illustrated with a discussion of the environment at the Open University and the distinctive ways in which staff work together within that environment, followed by three case studies of innovative professional development initiatives which showcase the deployment of experiential or peer learning to support the adoption of innovative practice. The Open University has a long and successful history in high quality distance education which has been underpinned by extensive use of online technologies over the last twenty years. With a rapidly increasingly pace of change, there is a pressing need to keep staff regularly updated with new working practices in learning and teaching. At the same time, the demands of delivering education at scale places specific demands on its staff, who work in ways which may be unfamiliar to traditional campus based institutions. This paper describes the working contexts and communities of staff at the university in order to provide an understanding of the constraints and opportunities for supporting successful professional development both in formal courses and resources and within informal networks. The Centre for Open Learning in Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology (COLMSCT) was established to reward teaching excellence and fund practitioner research to develop effective and engaging ways of using new technologies to support students at a distance. In this paper COLMSCT is presented as a case study of professional development through practitioner research in order to illustrate how the theory of experiential learning can help in understanding the processes and outcomes of that professional development. The Digilab is a creative, informal space which enables Open University staff to experiment with technologies which have the potential to enhance learning. A series of ‘Digiquests” were developed which require staff to use a variety of accessible devices and immersive environments to support reflective learning. The resulting activities form a suite of self paced and collaborative opportunities to encounter some of the key issues, constraints and possibilities for developing technology enhanced experiential learning for learners and practitioners within a safe and neutral space. Finally we describe a case study of two short online courses at the Open University which set out to provide professional development in online communities of distance tutors. They operate at scale: in 2009, 1000 staff have participated in the courses. The course design on both courses have in different ways supported experiential learning with opportunities for discussion and peer support, while at the same time offering some flexibility in participation. The paper discusses some of the lessons we have learnt from participants on the reasons for the success of these initiatives and the factors influencing effective engagement.

The main objective of this article was to explore how experiential learning theory can be adopted into teachers' professional development, as an effective approach to engaging teachers in classroom-enhanced activities. The inclusion or design of various experiential learning activities will promote pedagogical content knowledge and teaching skills that can enhance classroom practices. The theoretical framework of experiential learning enables effective classroom instructional delivery for all learning experiences in different contexts. The study purposefully selected 10 teachers, teaching Economics, from 10 high schools in Lagos, Nigeria. These teachers were observed in different classroom settings/teaching of selected topics from Economics, before and after a 3-day experiential learning-based professional development workshop. The teachers were further engaged in a focus group interview after the final observation. Findings revealed that experiential learning theory is critical to teacher professional development, as it enables teachers to learn better when engaged in experientially designed professional development, which can impact their classroom teaching thereafter. The study, therefore, encourages teacher educators or government bodies responsible for content design for teachers' professional development to integrate or structure the contents of teachers' professional development with experiential learning initiatives, to improve teachers' classroom pedagogies and teaching competencies for quality education.

The paper discusses the role of educational research and reflective practice in the design of a learning methodology in a museum education context. Educational research and reflective practice are addressed for their role in visitor-centred experiences and in the professional development of museum educators through the case of the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci. The paper first examines the research questions by looking into the work of the Education Department of the Museum in order to contextualize and justify certain choices and directions in the development of visitor learning and experience. It then analyses one of the education projects of the Museum, “Future Inventors”, as the context for the learning design and reflective practice processes in order to question traditional epistemological stances in visitor learning and to stress the importance of professional development for museum educators to enrich their knowledge in the field and the competences necessary to stand as the audience advocates within the museum institution.

Background: Museums are useful educational resources in science teaching. Teaching strategies which promote hands-on activities, student-centred learning, and rich social interaction must be designed and implemented throughout the museum visit for effective science learning.Purpose: This study aimed to design and implement innovative teaching strategies for effective science learning from visits to natural history museums and to evaluate these teaching strategies based on feedback from pre-service elementary teachers.Description of the museum visit: A natural history museum visit was designed and implemented in three stages: pre-visit preparations, teaching strategies during the visit and activities after the visit as follow-up learning. The most important characteristic of learning from museum experiences in this study was the teaching strategies implemented during the visit. First, the pre-service teachers completed the worksheets during their museum visit. Next, they performed visual arts activities and produced visual arts products while considering science concepts.Sample: 118 pre-service elementary teachers in Turkey participated in this study.Design and methods: The study examined the pre-service elementary teachers’ views on teaching strategies designed for learning from the museum visit through an open-ended questionnaire. Thematic content analysis was used for data analysis.Results: The results indicated that pre-service elementary teachers generally had positive views on their exposure to the teaching strategies. Also, they stated that the teaching strategies could make various contributions to their professional development.Conclusions: We believe that the pre-visit activities can promote meaningful learning during the museum visit. The teaching strategies which combined worksheets and visual art activities can be good teaching tools for turning museums into learning environments that promote learner-centred learning and hands-on activities. Follow-up activities can also promote transfer of learning in the museum. In addition, this study makes contributions to pre-service elementary teachers’ professional development about effective non-formal science learning in museums.

Drawing on the foundational theories of experiential learning, this article explores recent developments in theory and research on experiential learning and addresses how this work can enhance the professional development of museum docents. We introduce theories of adult learning and professional development that emphasize experiential learning as a way to foster workplace learning in museums. We illustrate the use of experiential learning interventions in the preparation of docents, and suggest how experiential learning can be applied to museum staff learning, including engaging docents more fully in experiential learning, introducing the use of portfolios to assess docent learning, and increasing the emphasis on helping docents develop skills to self-regulate their learning.

Using international case studies from art museums, this chapter examines how museum educators are integrating iPads in their programming to offer interactive learning opportunities for K-12 audiences. It argues for the importance of a digital pedagogy in museum education as well as the adoption of a new learning theory for the digital age, within a museum educator's pedagogy. The chapter demonstrates how Siemens' and Downes' theory of connectivism can be applied to analyse and develop strategies that enable museum educators to embed the iPad in museum learning and support the development of General Capability and Visual Art specific skills. The strategies and challenges associated with implementing iPad technology in museum education are discussed within the context of the motivations and trends for digital education pedagogy, the shifting role of art museum education, and the role of the museum educator in the digital age. Findings demonstrate the applicability of connectivism in museum education and recommendations for museum educators to integrate iPads in their pedagogy.

Education has been associated with museums from their earliest days, back to the famous Hellenic Mouseion of Alexandria, a resource for scholars. The modern Western public museum’s origin is usually attributed to the 18th-century Enlightenment, when public institutions began to replace religious powers, guilds, and nobility in providing public services. By the mid-18th century the term museum referred to any kind of collection that was open to the public in theory, although admission was often restricted to upper-class visitors or scholars. Education frequently remained a minor activity compared to collection, preservation, research, and exhibition. Early efforts to reach broader audiences include Charles Willson Peale’s American Museum, which opened around 1800, and the British Victoria and Albert Museum, which opened in the mid-19th century. Museum education as an organized activity carried out by dedicated, trained staff did not arise until the 20th century and has come to prominence with its own professional associations, journals, and degree-granting academic programs only since World War II. Responsibilities of museum educators have shifted dramatically, going from mainly direct instruction to school pupils or lectures for adult visitors, to providing means for all visitors to interpret and make meaning of their museum experience. More recently, museums have reached out increasingly to communities to engage underserved populations and remain relevant at a time of dramatic social upheaval. These developments, described by some as a paradigm shift, have been influenced by increased recognition of 20th-century educational theories, criticism of traditional classification of objects, and increased recognition of the significance of people from different cultures as museum visitors. The results of museum visitor research (visitor studies), a field originally begun in the United States in the 1920s and heavily influenced by behaviorist educational theory, has also expanded over the past four decades to provide a larger range of methods to understand learning in and from museums. In the first two decades of the 21st century, museum educators have increasingly emphasized community engagement and broad accessibility to welcome an ever-wider range of visitors. Museum education has also expanded to include emotional responses, health, and well-being as desired outcomes of museum experiences. Advances in technology, especially the ability to greatly extend the possibility for visitors to rapidly gain information, interact with exhibitions, and share information or experiences, are also expanding our understanding of learning in museums and providing tools for museum educators to improve visitor experiences.

By allowing people to share what they already know and utilize it with others, museums are able to use their collections and related programs as catalysts for dialogue and learning, encouraging active participation, exchange of views, social interaction and critical reflection, which are fundamental to adult education. In such a context, the learning experience that is acquired in the museum can be seen as a cultural achievement against social exclusion and social discrimination. In this sense, the museum exhibiting the lifelong learning represents different cultures/ identities and motivates us to give them our own meaning. That is, we see identities as social achievements in the context of civic understanding and social connectedness, embedded in their contexts, and not outside of them. In the present paper we aim to explain how the interaction with the Xeniseum’s exhibits can lead to the development of the visitors’ citizenship. In that framework, we examine the role of the museum regarding an individual’s education. Specific museum activities are also reported. Finally, a more specified museum application is described, aspiring to the achievement of a cross cultural dialogue.

Students can undergo changes in their personal perspectives through experiential learning (Kolb, 1984). Experiential Learning Theory allows for transformative learning, as researchers discover which factors contribute to a change in point of view. Many students gained knowledge through experiential learning in their communities during the fall of 2015 Religion/Interdisciplinary Privilege and Poverty course. This dissertation qualitatively studied a sample of students in this course to determine the degree to which social justice service-learning, as an example of Experiential and Transformative Learning Theories (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb, 2005; Mezirow 1981, 1997, 1998, 2000), represented civic learning pedagogy. Research questions focused on understanding how students' civic perspectives were influenced by their participation in social justice service-learning pedagogy. Findings revealed that prior learning generated appeal to participate in the content of social justice service-learning and consideration of students' civic perspective; involvement in effectively facilitated social justice service-learning on campus and off asked students to contemplate their civic perspectives; institutional and cultural factors positively impacted social justice service-learning. The results of this study can help future civic learning course designers to make effective choices, thereby increasing their ability to facilitate a civic perspective for their students. Critical/social justice service-learning is referred to as social justice service-learning in this dissertation, given that educators seek to achieve social justice through this form of pedagogy.

The role and place of learning in museums has been transformed in the past 20 years through a shared global community of practice. These transformations are both generic in terms of museological practice and specific to local cultures and conditions. For many, learning has moved from the margins to the core and is now central to what a museum or gallery is and does. We review the last two decades of work in learning and education to find what have been the factors for change and how these have shaped current museum practice. Our approach is bibliographical, citing the extensive literature on museums and learning from many perspectives that is itself an indication of a revolution in the theory, discourse, and delivery. We are entering a difficult period economically and politically, where there can be no presumptions as to the availability of financial support and the place cultural activities will have in the public's conscience. In order to strip back to the basics of museum and gallery learning to see what may remain, we question what will be the sustainable parts of public programs and what will disappear, and to what extent audience participation and collaboration will reduce the need for professional museum and gallery educators.

This chapter explores the evolving landscape of Global Workplace Learning and Professional Development, with a focus on the pivotal role of Experiential Learning in enhancing employee skills and organizational performance. As globalization and technological advancements continue to reshape the business environment, the need for effective professional development (PD) strategies has never been more critical. The chapter begins by defining global workplace learning and underscores its significance in maintaining a competitive edge. It introduces experiential learning as a key method for professional development, grounded in Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), which is elaborated upon in the theoretical framework. The chapter then examines the application of ELT in diverse workplace settings, illustrating how global organizations utilize experiential learning to foster employee competencies.

The role and influence of sociocultural perspectives on the relationship between museum educators, teachers and students will be investigated in this paper. A number of studies have explored student learning in museums but fewer have interrogated the relationships and hence the influences of the learning behaviours of the teachers and the museum educators. The special opportunity offered by museums is the experiential nature of learning, which includes looking, questioning, examining and comparing (Sheppard, 1993) but most importantly it involves social interactions that support, scaffold and enhance interactions between students, teachers and museum educators.

Museum learning is a vital component of the lifelong-learning process. In this new edition of The Manual of Museum Learning, leading museum education professionals offer practical advice for creating successful learning experiences in museums and related institutions (such as galleries, zoos, and botanic gardens) that can attract and intrigue diverse audiences. The original Manual of Museum Learning was published in 2007. The editors have totally rethought this new edition. This second edition focuses on the ways museum staffs (and the departments for which they work) can facilitate the experience in a way that capitalizes on their individual institutional strengths. The goal of this new edition is to provide museums with guidance in developing a strategic approach to their learning programs. There is a close connection between institution-wide strategic planning – where an institution decides what course and direction it will take for a five to seven-year period – and its approach to museum learning. One size does not fit all, and what each museum is (or aspires to be) will affect its individual approach. Thus there are many routes for museums to take, many alternative ways for them to play this role. No one museum can be all things to all prospective learners; they will be better suited to some approaches than to others. This new edition identifies these approaches and enables museums to find the paths for which they are individually best suited, to help them identify their own unique approaches to facilitating museum learning. Each one’s mission and vision, its relationships with institutional and public stakeholders, local cultural and market factors, its individual collection and programmatic strengths, its financial position – all of these things matter. This second edition aims to help each museum find the right approach to learning for its unique situation by showing them the range of museum “personalities” in terms of their being learning institutions, what constitutes each type, and what the implications are of choosing one or another approach for a particular museum. A major theme of the 2nd edition of The Manual of Museum Learning is museum as connector; the ways in which museums are facilitating self-directed learning by connecting people with resources. Not all will connect audiences with learning vehicles in the same way. If museum learning is affective learning, then it is the role of the museum to connect its visitors, program participants and others who benefit from its knowledge to the learning resources that best suit the institution’s strengths and matches them to the learning needs of the museum’s audiences. By connecting users to the resources they are most interested in, or which best suit each individual’s particular learning styles, museums are at their best when they empower individuals to design their own learning experience in ways that resonate best with each individual.

Evaluating Early Learning in Museums presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging early learners and their families in informal arts settings. Written by early childhood education researchers and a museum practitioner, the book showcases what high-quality educational programs can offer young children and their families through the case study of a program at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Providing strategies for building strong community partnerships and audience relationships, the authors also survey evaluation tools for early learning programs and offer strategies to help museums around the world to engage young children. At the center of this narrative is the seminal partnership that developed between researchers and museum educators during the evaluation of a program for toddlers. Illuminating key components of the partnership and the resulting evolution of family offerings at the museum, the book also draws parallels to current work being done at other museums in international contexts. Evaluating Early Learning in Museums illustrates how an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and practitioners can improve museum practices. As such, the book will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and early childhood, as well as to practitioners working in museums around the world.