Museums and the Future of Learning

The Ideaof the Museum

See througha frame

A thumbnail history of frames

The power of multiple frames: Complex knowledge

This too is a frame…

The Ideaof the Museum

See foryourself

See througha frame

Study Center Learning:An Investigation of the Educational Power and Potentialof the Harvard Art Museum’s Study CentersA collaborative project between the Harvard Art Museumand Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Shari TishmanAlytheaMcKinneyCelkaStraughnSeptember 2007

Research interlude: museum study centers

• Study centers are optimal environments for seeing for oneself and for developing complex knowledge.

A study center can be anywhere…

The study center mindset:

Expectation of… - extended time- deep looking, - open-ended inquiry

- own impressions as a source of information

Creating a study center mindset

4 pathways&

What we know about teaching them

1. Look long What do we know?

• Look wide

• Look deep, look for details

• Look again

• Describe through multiple modalities, e.g., use words, sketch, use the body

• Distinguish between observations and interpretations

2. Ask questions, seek puzzles What do we know?

• Ask lots of questions

• Ask different kinds of questions

• Look for puzzles, tensions, surprises

What do we know?

• reach for connections

• Create juxtapositions

• Explore comparisons, metaphors, analogies

3. Connect, juxtapose, compare

What do we know?

Look for layers, hidden factors, multiple dimensions Look for different kinds of complexity; e.g., causal, interpretive,perspectival, design.

4. Look for complexity

The study center mindset:

Expectation of

- extended time

- deep looking

- open-ended inquiry

- own impressions as a source of information

4 pathways

• Look long

• Ask questions, seek puzzles

• Connect, juxtapose, compare

• Look for complexity

Museum

The Ideaof the Museum

From…. To….

See what we say – see for yourself

See through a frame – multiple frames

Look long (for experts only) – Look long (for everyone)

Visitor as outsider – visitor as insider

Visitor as observer – visitor as engaged participant

Community – communities

The museum mindset and the future of learning. What do you think?