Museums and universities have natural connections. Yet with few exceptions, collaborations between them segregate each partner to its traditional sphere of activity. This article presents a practicum course model that blurs and overlaps the distinctive roles of the museum and university in productive and mutually beneficial ways. In particular,…

Teaching general adult audiences in art museums requires the teacher to consider different goals and priorities than those of school, teacher, or family programs. In this reflective essay, one gallery educator whose primary museum teaching experiences had been with the latter audiences discusses a transition to leading public tours. He describes…

Be they paid or volunteer docents, teaching staff members play an essential role in fulfilling a museum's mission. Yet the experiences that visitors have on docent tours--despite all of the time expended on docent training--are not often as powerful or meaningful as they could be. Knowing this, how can we support and empower docents as adult…

We tested whether analogical training could help children learn a key principle of elementary engineering--namely, the use of a diagonal brace to stabilize a structure. The context for this learning was a construction activity at the Chicago Children's Museum, in which children and their families build a model skyscraper together. The results…

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum launched a project, the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, with the goal of broadening the geographic representation of the Guggenheim's holdings and to create a truly global collection. Inspired by this project, this article discusses three contemporary artists: (1) Navin Rawanchaikul, from Thailand; (2)…

The recent opening of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, considered the 'official' museum to advance Canadian heritage, nurture a collective identity, and inspire research and education, raises important pedagogical questions concerning human rights, trauma, and violence. While human rights museums call for social action, there is a cautionary…

This study aims to add to the body of knowledge on the experiences of families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) with the goal of promoting increased participation in community activities. Five factors associated with participation in activities at an art museum were explored, comparing families of children with and without ASD.…

In 2010, a network of 15 Denver-area museum and other cultural institutions came together with the purpose of increasing capacity to conduct evaluations. Like so many other communities, museum professionals in the Denver area believed in the value of evaluation; however, they lacked the resources, knowledge, and skills to develop and implement…

Since the twentieth century, museums have faced stages of reinvention as pedagogical venues. Because beliefs among groups in terms of race, sexuality, and religiosity are contentious with political interests towards power for dominance, the complex museum world, representing various cultural ideologies, has become an important implication for…

Rhetorician Kenneth Burke's theory of identification usefully demonstrates how (and where) communities are able to engage with difficult, opposing viewpoints as they develop or maintain a sense of shared identity. Identification, "establishing a shared sense of values, attitudes, and interests with [an audience]," is promoted…

Historically, pubic art galleries and museums have a well-deserved reputation for elitism, colonialism and exclusion and they are, therefore, frequently omitted from the discourse of adult education. However, the escalating social, cultural and ecological problems of this new century have placed pressure on these public institutions to change and…

In this paper we present a qualitative analysis of natural history museum visitor interaction around a multi-touch tabletop exhibit called "DeepTree" that we designed around concepts of evolution and common descent. DeepTree combines several large scientific datasets and an innovative visualization technique to display a phylogenetic…

The study takes a situated and material approach to texts and writing practices and examines writing ethnographically as it transpires and displayed in museums. The ethnography highlights the richness and sociality embodied in writing practices as well as the ideological, communal, and ritualistic functions that writing and texts serve in cultural…

In this article, researchers discuss how relational theory (Bourriaud, 2002) can be used to understand the experiences of five migrant women participating in a museum art program called "Learning ART Together." We posit that museums and art centers, like many institutions, are constantly working in tension with rigid institutional…

Informal science education institutions play an important in the public understanding of science and, because of this are well-positioned to positively impact science teacher education. Informal science institutions (ISIs) have a range of affordances that could contribute to learner-centered science teacher identity development. This article…