In this article, I explore how relationships can change the teaching practices of museum educators and strategies of entire organizations by empirically studying conversations museum educators have every day in meetings, in the hallways, and all the places where they talk about their work. I present the possibilities of reciprocal telling…

Purpose: In this paper, the author reflects on her researcher experiences of attempting to construct co-productive epistemic relations in her ethnographic doctoral research about a gallery youth collective. The paper engages with debates about the nature of co-productive relations, advocating for a more affective approach which attends to…

The first three children's museums in the world opened in Brooklyn, New York (1899), Boston, Massachusetts (1913), and Detroit, Michigan (1917). This paper examines the contributions of children's museum professionals to museum education through presentations at the American Association of Museums given by the curators of the first three…

Partnerships between K-12 educators and people doing climate work in their communities provides opportunities for teachers and students to engage in consequential climate learning that is both culturally situated and locally relevant. This article features several vignettes that highlight examples from various sites across Washington State where…

The Federal Arts Project (WPA-FAP) (1935-1943) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a federally funded program designed through Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to keep visual artists at work during the Great Depression. Many of these arts programs took place through museums and exhibitions, bringing the visual arts to everyday Americans…

In the early 1950s television was the hot new broadcast media. The post-war economic boom meant that more and more American households were purchasing televisions, and television programming was growing to meet demand. The moment was rife with the potential to reach more and more people through the dazzling allure of television. Many American…

This report reflects on progress from over eight years of research projects in the cyberlearning community. The community involved computer scientists and learning scientists who received NSF awards to investigate the design of more equitable learning experiences with emerging technology--focusing on developing the learning theories and…

The NASA Goddard STEAM Innovation Laboratory is a Makerspace approach to bringing NASA's universe of knowledge into educational spaces around the country and to increase scientific literacy and interest in STEAM careers. Through a series of stations specializing in virtual reality, electronics, mobile sensors and 3-D fabrication, we have succeeded…

This article explores an education project in which artist Fred Wilson, poets from Lincoln Center's Poet-Linc program, and the Met Museum Education Department collaborated to produce a teen-led spoken-word poetry performance in the Met's galleries. Wilson drew from his own knowledge of the collection to facilitate a group dialogue about objects…

Recent years have witnessed a surge in field-wide discussion about how to talk openly about race and culture within museum education. This article provides an analysis, using case studies from three culturally specific museums to explore how these identity-driven institutions navigate challenging, and often controversial, approaches to discussing…

The nature and scope of the experiences offered to museum visitors are varied and changing, given that museums make it possible to explore new methodologies for unleashing and transmitting meaning during visits. In this regard, at the University of Navarra Museum, we researched the possibilities for mindfulness as a contemplative technique to…

The authors survey the economic education programs and resources produced and supported by the Federal Reserve System: from K-16 professional development opportunities for teachers and professors, to free lesson plans, videos, online learning modules, and readings ready for the classroom. They provide the history, goals, context, and reach of the…

Though it is well known that museums should embrace digital learning, many museum websites have not fully utilized digital learning resources, especially in interactive ways. In fact, in a survey of 225 websites of selected U.S. cultural institutions that have informal science education at the heart of their operations, we found that just 5% of…

In this article, we position museums as 'pedagogic contact zones,' sites fraught with both problems and potential. Using five stories drawn from our work and engagement with public museums over the past five years in Canada, England and Scotland, we illustrate how contemporary practices of critical cultural pedagogy work to construct, deconstruct,…

Although museums for peace claim peace education to be a primary mission, their definitions of "peace" and their aims and practices for peace education vary widely. In this article, we draw from the field of critical museology and the knowledge construction perspective to understand the role of museums for peace in the service of peace…