Overview
Description
Explore the central role of learning in the mission of museums and analyze designs for informal learning in various museum contexts with particular emphasis on humanistic institutions: heritage sites, sites of conscience, history and art museums, and museums with anthropological focus. Participate in a collaborative museum learning project with a regional museum to apply research and museum learning theory and meet partner institution expectations for the design and delivery of the project.
Units
Lecture3
Catalog Details
Offering
Offered: Every Fall - Odd Years
Terms
fall
Attributes
Standard
Learning Outcomes
- articulate critical elements of a theory of museum-based informal learning and explain important considerations related to physical and cognitive accessibility.
- contextualize the contemporary museological focus on informal and participatory learning and shared authority within the larger cultural history of museums and the design of their exhibits.
- critically analyze and contextualize key texts related to the historical development of and current practice of museum-based informal learning design, especially in the Humanities, and apply their conclusions to the design of a collaborative project.
- work in a professional manner with colleagues, mentors, and community partners through an iterative design process to guide to completion a semester-long, collaborative, humanities-focused service-learning project at a museum or similar institution.
- apply knowledge, research, pedagogical (eg. dialogic), and writing skills developed in previous history and / or related courses to a collaborative, humanities-focused service-learning project at a museum or similar institution.
- apply and integrate core design principles for museum learning, including universal design, in a collaborative, humanities-focused service-learning project at a museum or similar institution.
- critically reflect on the collaborative project integrating their knowledge, theoretical perspectives gained through participation in the class, and feedback from professional partners into a final concluding essay.
- analyze the career or long-term contributions to museum and exhibit designs for learning of a significant practitioner or design firm from historical and museological perspectives.
- integrate historiographical, museological, and informal learning theory perspectives in a critical essay analyzing the semester collaborative project.