Learning package learning environments

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments Gallery Education and Museum Pedagogy Design Education Learning Resources in Exhibitions Learning in the Tango Exhibition? Links References and Further Reading

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Learning package learning environments provided by Aalto University ARTS (Helsinki).

Transcript of Learning package learning environments

Page 1: Learning package learning environments

Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Gallery Education and Museum Pedagogy

Design Education

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

Learning in the Tango Exhibition?

Links

References and Further Reading

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Exhibitions

Open Learning Environments

Learning

This package gives you an overview of learning in exhibitions. Under each header, you will find a definition or a short explanatory paragraph followed by links that help you to develop a deeper understanding of the issue at hand.

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Lifelong Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

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Exhibitions

Exhibitions are public displays of works of art or other items of interest that are held in an art gallery, museum or some other context, depending on the type of exhibition. Exhibits can be constructed around a certain theme, specific artist or designer, or some other chosen factor.

TANGO is an international design exhibition concerning intergenerational dialogue and sustainable everyday, which encourages visitor participation by interactive engagement.

Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Open Learning Environments

Learning

Lifelong Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

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Learning

Lifelong Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Open Learning Environments

Exhibitions

Exhibitions have a long tradition as forums for learning. Historically, the aims accorded to exhibitions have varied from civilizing and educating audiences to, most recently, providing them with open-ended and participatory learning opportunities.

Nowadays, the guiding light in exhibition-making is the idea of lifelong learning, for which exhibitions are seen to offer ideal settings. In contrast to schools, exhibitions are open and informal learning environments, where no measurements or accreditations have to take place.

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Exhibitions

Learning

Open Learning Environments

Lifelong Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

Exhibitions as Learning Environments Here is one of many possible definitions for learning, by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA):

– Learning is a process of active engagement with experience.

– It is what people do when they want to make sense of the world.

– It may involve the development or deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, values, ideas and feelings.

– Effective learning leads to change, development and the desire to learn more.

Read more: www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/learning/

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Lifelong learning is a key concept in today’s gallery education and museum pedagogy. According to the definition given by the European Commission,

lifelong learning encompasses “all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective”.

Learning happens in various contexts in everyday life, often informally and in diverse ways, including interaction with other people. Instead of knowledge transfer, lifelong learning refers to individuals actively broadening their skills,values, and attitudes.

Lifelong learning enlarges the focus of museum pedagogy, gallery and design education from their most common targets – children and adolescent audiences – to enrich adult visitors’ exhibition experiences.

In the NEMO (the Network of European Museum Organisations) website you can read more about lifelong learning within exhibitions:

www.ne-mo.org/index.php?id=220&STIL=0&C_UID=5www.ne-mo.org/index.php?id=226&STIL=&C_PID=&C_UID=25

Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Exhibitions

Open Learning Environments

Learning

Lifelong Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Exhibitions

Open Learning Environments

Learning

Different Learning Styles

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

Lifelong Learning

Learning styles vary from person to person: some prefer to learn by looking and watching, some by listening, others by doing and experimenting with their hands. However, people often mix all three approaches in their learning processes.

The key point is that there are many types of intelligence, each as valuable as the next, and to be able to address diverse audiences, using different types of educational resources is recommended.

Here you can do a little test to find out about your preferred learning style:www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/learning/whatis.html

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Exhibitions

Open Learning Environments

Learning

Modes of Learning in Exhibitions

Different Learning Styles

Lifelong Learning

According to NEMO, the Network of European Museum Organisations,exhibitions can provide a diverse range of learning opportunities:

Formal Learning (conscious and goal-oriented learning): Resources for learning are connected to an exhibition as part of a structured course that leads to a qualification of some kind.

Non-formal Learning (non-goal-oriented learning): Settings for learning are structured but are not measured or accredited. In an exhibition this can mean attending a guided tour, a workshop, a talk, a lecture, a reading circle, or a seminar.

Informal Learning (subconscious learning): Learning occurs outside of structured contexts and not necessarily intentionally. For instance, many adult visitors explore exhibitions by themselves, without any set agenda for learning. Still they might get a lot out of the experience.

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Adult Workshop at the Design Museum, Helsinki. Image Courtesy of the Design Museum. -

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Participatory Exhibitions

Gallery Education and Museum Pedagogy

Gallery education and museum pedagogy are the most commonly used terms for activities related to learning in exhibitions. A diverse range of both informal and formal learning can take place within the settings provided by exhibitions: opportunities vary from specific subject learning to more open-ended processes.

The use of various participatory practices is one way to encourage visitor exploration. By allowing people to engage with the contents of an exhibition, creative thinking and actions can be promoted. By implementing both fresh ideas and good practices within gallery education and museum pedagogy, exhibitions can be regarded as inspiring learning sites for various kinds of audiences.

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments Participatory exhibitions open up possibilities for visitors to interactively engage with the displayed content. Instead of, or in addition to, finalized objects, the contents can consist of social processes in which people can take part. These types of exhibitions can become forums for active exchange of ideas and experiences.

Activities carried out within exhibitions can even aim to combat social exclusion, educate on active citizenship, promote intergenerational and intercultural dialogue, and contribute to participants’ wellbeing and personal development.

Through an approach that encourages participation, the TANGO exhibition can spark new ideas related to visitors’ social, cultural, and physical environment, provoke creative and critical thinking, and even inspire the audiences to take positive action within different spheres of their own living environment.

Case Examples:The Museum 2.0 blog explores participatory museum experiences and ways that social web philosophies can be applied in museum design. The blogger, Nina Simon, is the Executive Director of the Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz and author of the book Participatory Museum.

A link to the blog:http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/

An online version of the book: Simon, N. (2010). The Participatory Museum.Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0

Participatory Exhibitions

Gallery Education and Museum Pedagogy

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Children’s Workshop “Esa ja esineet”at the Design Museum, Helsinki.Image Courtesy of the Design Museum. -

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Design Education

Everyday life with its different experiences and material environments provides the starting point for design education. It guides the participants in recognizing and articulating their own experiences. The most important goal is to open up and deepen the participants’ relationship with their own living environment: to encourage them to find new meanings related to their surroundings and connect with them in new ways.(See Vira, 2004, 20.)

Although design is constantly present in our lives, its meanings reach beyond the everyday. Design education opens up new ways to observe our physical and social environment. It explores and experiments, focusing on the relationship between people and their surroundings and trying to provide tools for critical, ethical, and ecological thinking – but also for enjoying the aesthetic pleasure that our environment can provide us. It also aims to deepen our understanding of the central elements in design processes: creative thinking, problem-solving, and artistic expression.

In the TANGO exhibition design education can open up new perspectives on the possibilities for intergenerational dialogue in our everyday environment.

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Workshop “Avoin kuva” at the Design Museum, Helsinki. Image Courtesy of the Design Museum.

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Learning Resources in Exhibitions In this chapter you will find information on various learning resources that exhibitions can provide.

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Guided Tours

Side Programmes

Workshops

Spatial and Technological Solutions

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Guided Tours

Side Programmes

Workshops

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Learning Resources in ExhibitionsFor individual visitors who explore the exhibition by themselves, informative and inspiring wall texts, signs, and infograms that visualize data are especially useful.

Various printed or digital information materials (info brochures, interactive info screens, exhibition website, etc.) complete the exhibition experience.

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Publications

An exhibition can have an official catalogue that deepens and broadens its content by going into details. More informal types of publications such as magazines or very informal `zines´ are also common ways to open up new viewpoints on the exhibition, and they provide the possibility to expand its timespan by contributing to its documentation and collective remembering.

Publications do not necessarily have to be printed; they can also be in audiovisual or other type of format.

Inspiring Infography

Guided Tours

Side Programmes

Workshops

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Guided Tours

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Side Programmes

Workshops

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

Different types of guided tours are probably the most traditional way to open up exhibitions to audiences. Typically, the guide leads the visitors through the exhibition, presenting information about it to them. Today, more participatory forms of guidance tend to be favoured: for instance, the Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma offers tours where visitors can give a `thumbs up´ or down on the exhibited artworks. This is one way people’s own reactions, emotions, and experiences can be brought into the discussion.

Another option is to have an approachable person present in the exhibition space. For example, the Museum of South Carelia has offered the possibility to discuss its exhibitions with their recruited “museum grannies and grandpas”. Audio or mobile application guides and podcasts are gaining more and more popularity among museums and museum-goers. They offer an easy way to tailor different guided tours to different needs. They can go into the smallest detail and for visitors with visual impairments they can be a great way to make theexhibition come alive.

See – and hear – how MoMa’s collections and exhibitions can be enjoyed via different multi-lingual audio guides, podcasts, and other audio formats:www.moma.org/visit/plan/atthemuseum/momaaudio

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Workshops

Working with one’s hands can be a great way to understand and learn: guided tours can be combined with workshops to introduce various aspects of the exhibition to visitors through participation. The workshops are closely related to certain themes or works in the exhibition, and they are usually tailored according to participants’ needs, knowledge and previous experience.

Case Example:Design Studio – Finnish Design Museum’s workshops for different audiences:www.designmuseum.fi/en/education/design-studio/

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Guided Tours

Side Programmes

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Side Programmes

Often exhibitions have a side programme consisting of lectures, seminars, talks, reading circles, interventions (by invited artists, performers, etc.) or other events related to its themes.

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Guided Tours

Workshops

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Spatial and Technological Solutions

Exhibition architecture, design and modes of display can encourage learning. New and developing interactive exhibition technologies take visitor experiences to another level. Designing spaces for visitor interaction and recreation can be conducive to sharing experiences and learning.

There surely are opportunities for completely new solutions – Could you come up with some of your own?

Inspiring Infography

Publications

Guided Tours

Side Programmes

Workshops

Learning Resources in Exhibitions

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Children’s Workshop “Esa ja esineet”at the Design Museum, Helsinki.Image Courtesy of the Design Museum.

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Learning in the TANGO Exhibition?

Questions for you:

– What kinds of possibilities open up when exhibited content is more aboutprocesses, ideas and concepts than finalized objects?

– How can the themes and concepts of the exhibition be made tangible to the audiences?

– How could the theme, intergenerational dialogue, be taken into account in exhibition design and pedagogy?

– In what ways could the field material gathered during the courses be present in the exhibition?

– How can an exhibition environment be created that is conducive to learning?

– How can interactive engagement in the exhibition be encouraged?

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Exhibitions as Learning Environments

Links: Designing Great Learning Environments

A quick checklist for supporting learning in different institutional environments:www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/export/sites/inspiringlearning/resources/repository/Quick_checklist2.pdf

A more detailed checklist for creating accessible and inspiring learningenvironments:www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/export/sites/inspiringlearning/resources/repository/Detailed_checklist_Places2.pdf

A self-assessment tool for improving possibilities for learning in differentorganizations:www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/framework/index.html

Collect & Share is a European network that promotes good practices in learning and education within visual arts for adults. Here is a link to their list of useful publications: www.collectandshare.eu/reports/index.aspx

Collect & Share publication “Good Practices”, see e.g. p. 6 of the document:www.collectandshare.eu/common/downloads/good_practice_english.pdf

Collect & Share also hosts a database of informative case studies from across Europe: www.collectandshare.eu/studies/index.aspx

An online library of audiovisual material on gallery education casestudies: www.lemproject.eu/library/audio-video

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References and Further ReadingVira, R. (2004). In: Ikonen, P. & Vira, R.. Esineet esiin! Näkökulmiamuotoilukasvatukseen. Vantaa: Taiteen keskustoimikunta.

An improvement framework by British Museums, Libraries and Archives Council provides a tool for creating better learning environments:www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk/

Link archive by the Finnish Open Museum project (see the section in English/ “Englanniksi”): http://avaramuseo.blogspot.com/p/tietopankki.html

Intergenerationality in exhibitions:A study of grandparents and grandchildren as museum and gallery visitors:www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies/m&s/Issue%209/beaumontsterry.pdf

A report on benefits for older people from learning in museums, libraries andarchives: www.mla.gov.uk/what/policy_development/learning/%7E/media/Files/pdf/2009/Older_Learners_Report_Final_2009_2.ashx

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Family Issues exhibition opening atthe Design Museum, Helsinki. Image Courtesy of the Design Museum.

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