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…

Remote learning communities are peer groups that meet regularly by connecting online and via video and telephone conferencing, to work toward shared learning objectives in a structured virtual environment. Led by skilled facilitators who act as guides and sounding boards for these groups, the ongoing discussions may help staff incorporate new…

Our main goal in our study was to enable students to take an active role in teaching social studies. With the work done in the process, it was tried to raise awareness about museums and to explain how valuable museums are for a new perspective on education and most importantly for the social studies course. In our study, a 2X2 split-plot mixed…

"Pack It Up!" was a fully interactive history exhibit for all ages, targeting primarily families with elementary-school-aged children. It invited visitors to work collaboratively through open-ended object inquiry and primary source analysis. Collaborative exhibit design between the education and collections departments led to an exhibit…

In this article, we describe some of the common misconceptions guests have expressed while visiting a Museum of Natural History and Science, along with ways in which museum educators had reacted to and/or responded to guests' misconceptions. Correcting commonly held misconceptions can be difficult, especially when guests are emotionally invested…

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…

In order better to support children's learning experiences, art museums have begun to establish interactive art exhibitions designed for family visitors. However, as more of these interactive exhibitions are established, some museum professionals are raising concerns about whether these exhibitions actually facilitate young visitors' learning or…

This study examines the impact of a mobile game app on science museum visitors' level of engagement with exhibit content, compared to a non game-based version of the same app. Ask Dr. Discovery (Dr. D) is a question-asking app containing two versions: a Game Mode employing casual game mechanics and an Ask Mode providing a baseline version. We…

Open-ended guided tours and choices on tours have become more common in art museums as educational and curatorial practices focus on visitor-centered experiences. What can museums do to help set the stage for these types of interactions between visitors, the museum, and works of art through programming and tours? In this article, the author…

The authors will discuss how all cultural institutions can benefit from a top-notch virtual learning program in terms of outreach, diversity, and promotion of collection. We'll provide ways to maintain an outstanding virtual program, and discuss data collected from museum educators from a wide range of diverse cultural centers to discuss the…

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…

As museum educators move forward to promote racial and cultural equity in the field, it will be critical to consult those who have been doing this work to learn from their experiences. In this discussion, Radiah Harper and Keonna Hendrick reflect on Ms. Harper's experience advocating for racial and cultural inclusion in museum education, while…

During the pandemic many museums and galleries pivoted from onsite, in-person delivery to develop a remote offer and to create digital learning resources and activity packs for children and young people. In this article, I draw upon my experience as practitioner researcher on the schools and teachers' programme at the Fitzwilliam Museum to…

Museum education departments hold great potential to train content specialists to be scholar-educators. This article offers as a case study a doctoral support fellowship at the Museum of the City of New York that fosters the ability of historians-in-training to communicate with a wide range of audiences and deepens the connections between…

This article assesses the impact of a two-year long project-based learning program conducted by the National Opera of Paris in a large number of middle schools located in underprivileged areas, aiming at preventing school dropout and tackling educational inequalities by providing disadvantaged students with the opportunity to discover the world of…