Learning in museums
Theory, research & practice
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What do we mean by learning
in museums?
Think about a learning experience
you’ve had in a museum
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Many different theories
• How people learn
• Different learning styles & preferences
• What people learn
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Museum learning
It ain’t school
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Museums as learning resources
• What are the differences between learning
in museums and learning in schools?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of
each?
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Learning in museums
Strengths
• Motivation
– No assessment
• Variety of experience
• Concrete vs. abstract
• Social experience
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Weaknesses
• Huge variety of prior
knowledge, skills,
motivations
• Largely unmediated
by educators
• Time – very brief
compared to school
Falk & Dierking’s contextual model of
museum learning
Physical context
The Museum Experience
Social context
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Personal context
Learning in museums is all
about “the real thing”
Real objects
Real phenomena
Real people
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The real thing
• Leinhardt & Crowley – the power of
objects
– Value: uniqueness / cost
– Density of information
– Scale
– Authenticity
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The power of museums
• Michael Spock’s “Pivotal Learning
Experiences”
• Vivid, relevant, lasting, life-changing
memories
– Match of experience to personal interest
– Learner has control over content & pace
– Some independence from adults
– Variety of activity & content
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Theories of how people learn
The personal context
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Influential thinkers
Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner & Dewey
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Piaget
Four factors underlying intellectual development
• Maturation (physical and neurological
development)
• Physical (direct apprehension of the physical
world) & logico-mathematical (intellectual
reflection & reconstruction) experiences
• Social transmission (schooling, learning from
others)
• Equilibration (integration of these influences to
achieve an adaptive balance with the
environment)
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Piaget
• Learner is actively involved in the process
of learning
• Assimilation of new concepts into existing
mental models
• Accommodation of mental models to fit
new concepts
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Vygotsky
• All higher mental functions start in social
plane
• Learning use of cultural tools through social
interaction
–
–
–
–
Language
Numbers
Thinking skills
Planning skills
• Internalisation of conversation
• The Zone of Proximal Development
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Zone of proximal development
level of potential development
(what the child can do with help)
zone of proximal development
(what the child can do with help &
will soon be able to do unaided)
level of actual development
(what the child can do unaided)
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John Dewey
• All learning is based in experience
• But not all experience is educational
• An educational experience is
– Immediately agreeable
– Provides a challenge
– Links to past experiences
– Generates questions and desire for more
learning
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John Dewey
• What is learnt is not only the subject of
study
• Need for structure to …
– Turn impulse & desire into purpose
– Through reflection & suspension of judgement
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Piaget, Vygotsky & Dewey
Come together in Constructivism
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Constructivism
• All new knowledge constructed on basis of
current knowledge
• Better understanding when leaner is actively
involved
• Learning involves modifying mental models
• Discussion & social interaction is key to
learning
• Importance of meta-cognition – learning how
you learn
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“Learning occurs when people reconstruct
meaning and understanding; a different
way of thinking, perhaps, or a different
way of responding to an idea or event.
Learning that occurs today depends on
yesterday’s learning and is the foundation
for tomorrow’s learning.”
National association of research in science
teaching Ad Hoc Committee 2003
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Learning is a process of active engagement with
experience. It is what people do when they want to make
sense of the world. It may involve increases in skills,
knowledge, understanding, feelings and capacity to reflect.
It may involve challenging values, attitudes and beliefs.
Effective learning leads to change, development and the
desire to learn more.
(Modified version of the Campaign for Learning’s definition of learning)
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“Learning is a whole, not a part; a whole that can only
be understood by trying to situate any given learning
experience within a larger framework of a person’s total life”
John Falk (2004)
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Learning is other people
Museum learning as a social
process
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Zone of proximal development
level of potential development
(what the child can do with help)
zone of proximal development
(what the child can do with help &
will soon be able to do unaided)
level of actual development
(what the child can do unaided)
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Scaffolding learning in the ZPD
Modeling – behaviour or ideas for imitation
Feedback – compares to a standard
Instructing – requesting specific action; selecting the
correct response, providing clarity & information
Questioning – request for a verbal response
Cognitive structuring; explanations – organise new
learning
Task structuring – chunking, segregating, sequencing,
defining goals & sub-goals or otherwise structuring a
task
Organising & directing attention
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Social interaction & museum learning
Studies of family talk – Sue Allen
• Types of talk - perceptual, conceptual,
connecting, strategic, affective
• Learning talk – 97% of talk at exhibits;
occurred at 83% of exhibits
• High frequency of conceptual talk
– Hypothesis, ref. to previous knowledge,
generalisations
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Social interaction & museum learning
Text echo – Paulette McManus
– Shared use of label text / even reading labels is a
social experience
Parental “explanatoids” – Kevin Crowley
– Just in time explanations
– Focus & direct children’s attention
Negotiated meaning-making – Doris Ash
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–
–
–
Distributed expertise – adults & children
Parents model reasoning & thinking
Importance of complexity & balance of power
A collective family ZPD
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Social interaction & museum learning
• Kevin Crowley - Islands of Expertise
• Children develop ‘islands of expertise’
• Family activities built around these ‘islands’ to
sustain them
• ‘Islands’ become platforms for practicing
learning habits
• Museums are good at developing ‘Islands of
expertise’
– Episodic memories
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Learning through other people
Guided participation - Rogoff
• School seen as only one, relatively new
approach to learning
– “Children learn as they participate in & are guided by
the values & practices of their cultural communities”
• Learning through observing & mimicking adult
activities
• Often without explicit educational intention
• Learners both participate in & help to shape
community practices
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Learning through other people
Legitimate peripheral participation - Lave &
Wenger
– E.g. apprenticeships
• Drawn from periphery into centre of a
“community of practice”
• Through observation & increasing participation
• Changing identity; gaining membership - new
timer to old timer
– “Learning is a way of being in the social world, not a
way of coming to know about it”
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The role of play?
• Which of these statements do you agree
with?
– Play not learning?
– Play is learning?
– Learning is play?
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Corinne Hutt’s model of play
Epistemic
What does this do?
Game play
games with rules
Problem solving
Collaboration
Exploration
Competitive
Production
Skill-based
Chance
Skills
Material
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Ludic
What can I do
with this?
Symbolic
Fantasy
Repetitive
Innovative
Perserverance
Object
Person
Immaterial
Different people learn in
different ways
Influence of Gardner & Kolb
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Kolb-McCarthy - learning styles
SENSE-FEEL
dynamic
imaginative
DO
WATCH
problem-solver
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THINK
analytical
A dynamic learner likes …
•
•
•
•
hands-on’ learning
learning by trial & error
self-discovery
talking with other people
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An imaginative learner likes ...
• seeking personal meaning
• looking at things from different points of
view
• watching, listening & sharing ideas
• learning about people & culture
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A problem solver likes …
• solving problems, resents being given
answers
• knowing how things work
• ‘hands-on’ learning
• testing theories
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An analytical learner likes …
•
•
•
•
thinking thru’ ideas
seeking facts
knowing what experts think
listening & thinking
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Gardner’s - multiple gateways
• Different people prefer different
approaches to learning
– Narrative: story-bases
– Quantitative: numbers, logic
– Aesthetic
– Foundational; philosophical
– Experiential
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Theories of what people learn
The personal context (again)
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What do we mean by learning
in museums?
More than just remembering facts
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A model of learning
•
•
•
•
•
Cognitive
Affective
Skill-based
Social
Personal
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Museum learning also includes
• Reinforcing prior knowledge through …
– repetition
– direct, concrete experience
– setting prior knowledge into context
– Applying knowledge in the real world
(Newtonian to billiards)
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Museum learning also includes
Affective learning
• challenging beliefs & values
• making people more aware of other
people’s point of view
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Museum learning also includes
Practicing or gaining skills
• thinking skills - exploration, observation,
measurement, classification …
• story-telling
• artistic appreciation
• IT skills
• craft skills
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Museum learning also includes
Social learning
• team work
• communication
• co-operation
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Museum learning also includes
Personal learning
• inspiring interest
• increasing self confidence
• increased awareness of what you can do
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Now what do you think we mean
by learning in museums?
Think about experience you’ve
had in a museum
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Is every experience in a
museum educational?
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Dewey’s theory of learning
•
All genuine education comes from
experience
But …
• Not all experience are genuinely or
equally educative
• Depends on quality of experience
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Dewey’s theory of learning
• An educative experience …
– Is agreeable
– Influences later experiences
– Presents new problems that grow from
experience & are in ability range of
students
– Arouse active quest for information,
produce new ideas
– Promotes reflection before action
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Dewey’s theory of learning
• But not all experience is educational
• Mis-educative experiences
– Poor quality experience
– Disconnected from other experiences
– Fails to promote reflection & suspension of
judgement
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Learning is a process of active engagement with
experience. It is what people do when they want to make
sense of the world. It may involve increases in skills,
knowledge, understanding, feelings and capacity to reflect.
It may involve challenging values, attitudes and beliefs.
Effective learning leads to change, development and the
desire to learn more.
(Modified version of the Campaign for Learning’s definition of learning)
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Barriers to learning
• Not everything that happens is learning
• Barriers to learning
– Physical
– Intellectual
– Motivational
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All that glistens …
When social interaction goes bad
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They don’t mean to but they do
• Parental expectations – Schauble et al.
– Learning or play?
– Knowing what children don’t know
• Social interaction leading to disruption –
Allen & Gutwill
• Gender bias in parents - Crowley
• Design that thwarts social interaction Crowley
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“What ultimately counts is the extent
to which instruction requires students
to think, not just report someone
else’s thinking”
From ‘Opening Dialogue’ M. Nystrand
et al. (1997)
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