"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…

Outreach activities have been an ongoing commitment of the American Chemical Society and other scientific organizations, yet formal assessment of outcomes has been infrequent. We have designed a simple, reliable, and robust format for assessing attitudinal and motivational characteristics of participants attending informal public events that…

As humanity grapples with the increasingly complex global issues we face, there is growing recognition that skills such as teamwork, empathy, communication and collaboration are more crucial than ever -- far beyond the scope of academic success alone. Yet opportunities to develop these competencies are frequently sidelined in formal schooling,…

This book takes a look at the affordances of engaging second/foreign language students in educational projects that bridge the gap between the classroom and the museum. Studies on language learning and teaching beyond the classroom have shown that students learn in different settings and through different types of activities and that their…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many researchers to adapt their studies from in-person to remote, using digital tools. Although established in ethnographic research, digital tools change how the researcher and participants can experience co-presence. This paper presents findings from an ethnography of an art museum's learning team during remote…

Traditional collaborations between schools and teacher preparation programs provide real-world experiences for teacher candidates and contribute to their professional learning. However, when preparing candidates to work with the whole child, one must also consider things outside the typical classroom. Preparing candidates to work with families,…

An important aspect of museum education is the pedagogical approach which is used to introduce students to diverse objects, artifacts and specimens in a particular museum or collection. This article explores Object-Based Learning as a mode of teaching which inextricably links objects, learning outcomes and literate practices.

Many museums collect data about their staff, volunteers, and/or visitors in some capacity, and questions about sex and gender are ubiquitous on their forms and surveys. However, museums can do more to consider the inclusivity of their sex and gender questions by going beyond the male/female binary. Museums should consider the needs of transgender…

This article offers a discussion of two interactive museum installations, 'Remembering the Children: Daniel's Story' at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and the main exhibit at the Humanity House Museum in the Hague, Netherlands. Both are examples of what I term "self-guided dramas," taking the…

The field of instructional design and technology (IDT) aims to understand the interactions occurring among people and learning resources during educational experiences to inform design. This article illustrates the utility of mobile eye-tracking for research with children as a tool for IDT researchers and practitioners. Mobile eye-tracking can…

'Working with you all and finding my voice as an educator has changed my life', one of the retirees said as we were discussing their experiences as museum volunteers. When I was given a two-year contract as a museum educator to contribute to the renewal of a maritime museum in Norway by designing and developing a broad ranging outreach programme,…

Mobile devices and apps have become a standard for the museum experience. Many studies have begun to explore the impact mobile apps may have on user experience and informal learning. However, there has been relatively little research on how visitor groups interact collaboratively while using these devices in computer-supported collaborative…

The 2015 passing of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to replace No Child Left Behind was celebrated within the arts community (Arts Education Partnership, 2017; National Art Education Association, 2017; Walker, 2016) for embracing a "well-rounded education" that explicitly includes the arts in its definition (ESSA, 2015, p. 298). In…

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…

The Pavia University History Museum, which houses historic items mainly connected to the physics and medicine fields, has focused in the past years on new ways to involve its public and to attract new audiences. Among different approaches, digital technologies have proven important to both external and internal communication. Lately, an Augmented…