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Grounded in the strengths of its first edition, this book has been restructured to include new papers and recent articles, and presents front-running theory and practice as it addresses the relationships of museums and galleries to their audiences.
At the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance. The need to theorise learning and culture for a cultural theory of learning is very pressing. If culture acts as a process of signification, a means of producing meaning that shapes worldviews, learning in museums and other cultural organisations is potentially dynamic and profound, producing self-identities. How is this complexity to be ‘measured’? What can this ‘measurement’ reveal about the character of museum-based learning? The calibration of culture is an international phenomenon, and the measurement of the outcomes and impact of learning in museums in England has provided a detailed case study. Three national evaluation studies were carried out between 2003 and 2006 based on the conceptual framework of Generic Learning Outcomes. Using this revealing data Museums and Education reveals the power of museum pedagogy and as it does, questions are raised about traditional museum culture and the potential and challenge for museum futures is suggested.
Learning in the Museum examines major issues and shows how research in visitor studies and the philosophy of education can be applied to facilitate a meaningful educational experience in museums. Hein combines a brief history of education in public museums, with a rigorous examination of how the educational theories of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and subsequent theorists relate to learning in the museum. Surveying a wide range of research methods employed in visitor studies is illustrated with examples taken from museums around the world, Hein explores how visitors can best learn from exhibitions which are physically, socially, and intellectually accessible to every single visitor. He shows how museums can adapt to create this kind of environment, to provide what he calls the 'constructivist museum'. Providing essential theoretical analysis for students, this volume also serves as a practical guide for all museum professionals on how to adapt their museums to maximize the educational experience of every visitor.
The educational role of museums has become a key professional concern. This book addresses the educational role museums play from an international perspective. The contributed essays provide timely reviews of the key themes and case studies provide practical examples of the research. Ideally suited for all museum staff and students of museum studies.
George E. Hein explores the impact on current museum theory and practice of early 20th-century educational reformer John Dewey’s philosophy, covering philosophies that shaped today’s best practices.
Aimed at museum educators, Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today seeks to marry museum and multicultural education theories. It reveals how the union of these theories yields more equitable educational practices and guides museum educators to address misrepresentation, exclusivity, accessibility, and educational inequality. This contemporary text is directive; it encourages museum educators to consider the critical multicultural education theoretical framework in their day-to-day functions in order to illuminate and combat shortcomings at the crux of museum education: Museum Educators as Change Agents Inclusion versus Exclusion Collaboration with Diverse Audiences Responsive Pedagogy This book adopts a broad definition of multiculturalism, which names not only race and ethnicity as concerns, but also gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, age, and class. While focusing on these various facets of identity, the authors demonstrate how museums are social systems that should offer comprehensive, diverse educational experiences not only through exhibitions but through other educational activities. The authors pull from their own research and practical experiences which exemplify how museums have been and can be attentive to these areas of identity. Multiculturalism in Art Museums Today is hopeful and inspiring, as it identifies and commends the positive and effective practices that some museum educators have enacted in an effort to be inclusive. Museum educators are at the front-line interacting with the public on a daily basis. Thus, these educators can be the real vanguard of change, modeling critical multicultural behavior and practices.
Started by Dr. Seuss, finished by Jack Prelutsky, and illustrated by Lane Smith, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! is a joyous ode to individuality starring unsinkable teacher Miss Bonkers and the quirky Diffendoofer School (which must prove it has taught its students how to think--or have them sent to dreary Flobbertown). Included is an introduction by Dr. Seuss's longtime editor explaining how the book came to be and reproductions of Dr. Seuss's original pencil sketches and hand-printed notes for the book—a true find for all Seuss collectors! Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith pay homage to the Good Doctor in their own distinctive ways, the result of which is the union of three one-of-a-kind voices in a brand-new, completely original book that is greater than the sum of its parts. For all of us who will never forget our school days and that special teacher, here is a book to give and to get.
Teaching History with Museums provides an introduction and overview of the rich pedagogical power of museums. In this comprehensive textbook, the authors show how museums offer a sophisticated understanding of the past and develop habits of mind in ways that are not easily duplicated in the classroom. Using engaging cases to illustrate accomplished history teaching through museum visits, this text provides pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and museum educators with ideas for successful visits to artifact and display-based museums, historic forts, living history museums, memorials, monuments, and other heritage sites. Each case is constructed to be adapted and tailored in ways that will be applicable to any classroom and encourage students to think deeply about museums as historical accounts and interpretations to be examined, questioned, and discussed.
Answering key questions in the study of how museums communicate, Louise Ravelli provides a set of frameworks to investigate the complexities of communication in museums: * What is an appropriate level of complexity for a written label? * Why do some choice in language make a more direct relation to visitors? * Is there a correct way of presenting a particular view of content? * How do design practices contribute to the overall meanings being made? The frameworks enhance the way we critically analyze and understand museums text, both in the sense of conventional – written texts in museums – and in an expanded sense of the museum as a whole operating as a communicative text. Using a wide range of examples Ravelli argues that communication contributes fundamentally to what a museum is, who it relates to and what it stands for. Not only museum studies and communications studies students, but also professionals in the field will find Museum Texts an indispensable guide on communication frameworks.
The goal of this book is to cull from the last NSF conference, the "best ideas about how children interact with objects & through that interaction acquire new understandings, attitudes, and feelings."
