Research suggests that art programs have positive therapeutic effects on children, including improved self-concept. This pretest/posttest intervention study examined changes in self-concept in children (N = 176) who participated in an art program at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Results indicated significant, positive increases in…

Cultural Historical Activity Theory served as the analytical framework for the study of a professional development event for a zoo's education department, specifically designed to build understandings of "Affective Transformation," an element pertinent to the organization's strategic plan. Three key products--an Affective…

It seems uncontroversial to claim that museums are unique places of interest with the potential to inspire learners, yet what this means and how it is managed are complex questions. Museum educators' work is currently shaped by accountability requirements typically expressed as visitor targets. Centralised teaching and learning initiatives are…

People attend museums to see artifacts and learn from them! Ideally, they want to see them, touch them, and learn the story about them. Artifacts have an uncanny ability to mute the passage of time, and unite young and old on common ground. During its sixty-plus-years in existence, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has displayed…

Learning occurs in myriad ways yet most art museums remain wedded to visual instruction. Adult visitors touring the galleries are offered audio guides or lecture style tours to complement the visual but are there other ways to enhance learning? This article reports on a case study that found that active, multi-sensory experiences in art museums…

The establishment of the Museum Education Roundtable (MER) in 1969, the formation of the Committee on Education of the American Association of Museums (AAM) in 1973, and the creation of the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in 1981 all represent milestones in the professionalization of museum education…

"Bring Your Baby to the Danforth Museum of Art" is a program for mothers. Unlike other museum programs that focus on the needs of children, Bring Your Baby caters to the intellectual interests of the adult parent. Parents learn about artworks, play with babies in a beautiful environment, and socialize with other families. The program is…

When it comes to having a traveling outreach activity for a museum, a craft can seem like the perfect solution. It can seemingly be all things at once--educational, quick and fun. But, if poorly constructed, crafts can also have serious fallbacks. Using the Chicago History Museum and the Millennium Park Family Fun Festival as a case study, this…

In 1995 the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Education Department embarked on an experiment to see how videoconferencing technology could benefit educational programming. Since then it has blossomed into a robust full-time program that has become an important asset to both the Education Department and the museum as a whole. This article describes the…

Museums have an important role to both educate the public and also to preserve museum objects for the future. These two responsibilities often conflict with one another. Museums continuously struggle in deciding what objects in their collection must be placed in permanent storage as opposed to being on display and being used to educate the public.…

As Howard Gardner persuasively argued, movement, or kinesthetics, can be a powerful educational tool and one to which some learners are particularly attuned. Museums, however, are typically places that discourage movement (don't run, don't jump, watch out for the artifacts). This makes incorporating kinesthetic learning challenging. This article…

Each of the papers in this collection offers a much-needed antidote to the forces that disconnect educators from the places in which they teach, learn, and live. Together, they provide an opportunity to reflect on the power of place in education. This issue offers an opportunity--an invitation--to embrace all that the places both in and outside…

The national conversation on early learning and its importance as a foundation of lifelong learning has reached a tipping point, with increased attention at the local, state, and federal level. The context for this conversation includes a growing corpus of respected research on early childhood development that points to a critical learning "pivot…

This case study of "Listen, Look, & Do," a multi-visit preschool program at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, provides a model for how other history museums can program for young learners in their neighborhoods. In striving to meet local community audience needs identified by annual evaluations, staff created a program that…

The story of the Center for Digital Art in Holon is a story of innovation in the face of adversity. At key points of escalation in the Middle East conflict, this small-scale arts center managed to rise above and beyond the larger and more traditional museums in Israel to create new models for arts engagement. This article will present the critical…