Yesterday, I sat in on another fantastic Google Hangout with the National Art Education Association’s Museum Division. The Peer2Peer Initiative, launched in 2011, connects museum colleagues across the country (and the world? I’m looking at you, Uni of Leicester…) to share ideas and reflect together.
Yesterday’s session was about Early Childhood Education in Museums, hosted by museum educators and teachers. A lot of the folks on the panel work with or have worked for the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center. (How badly do you want to be a preschooler there?!)
The big framing questions for the hangout were: How do young children learn? What are the benefits of teaching with and through visual arts? So here are some my takeaways from the conversation:
- Kids learn by making connections between prior knowledge and new experiences. Therefore, museum educators should actively support personal meaning-making by connecting what is happening in the museum to kids’ relationships, prior experiences, etc.
(Side note: This definition of learning has been hammered into my head so many times. Thanks, MLA! “Learning is a process of active engagement with experience. It is what people do when they want to make sense of the world.”)
- Technology should be used in a way that is developmentally appropriate. Technology should not replace real objects, but rather should compliment and support sensory engagement. Be open to caregivers using their smartphones. A lack of comfort with museum content is a barrier to access, and phones provide access to information.
(OK, but can we — should we — steer caregivers away from information and toward experiences? Or at least provide models for ways to use information productively?)
- Speaking of barriers to access: it is a difficult task for caregivers to select which works are appropriate for kids. Museums should do the work to identify objects and spaces that are appropriate for young learners, and should provide strategies and models for engaging with those objects.
- Teaching with visual art objects can serve broad needs and learning styles. Kids are accomplished visual learners before they can read or speak. With picture books, kids tell stories and “read” through line, shape, and color. As with picture books, sharing art images can improve recognition, perception, and observation skills.
- Speaking of modeling strategies (and this was my favorite takeaway): Think of museum objects like wordless picture books. Use basic storytelling strategies like inference and predicting.
(I think this framing device for thinking about museum objects is so powerful, and I can’t wait to try it.)
- Early childhood education encompasses the full family, along with schools, community centers, and all those who are caring for, supporting, and interacting with young children. When thinking about early childhood programs, museums must extend learning opportunities to all audiences (including students, teachers, and young adults). We can therefore think about professional development under the umbrella of early childhood education.
(This totally jives with the great work that Daryl Fisher of the Crocker Museum et al did with their IMLS-funded project: “Best Practices in Cultivating Family Audiences.” This is my favorite. resource. ever. I went to a panel about this project at NAEA last year, and I have returned again and again to those notes.)
- It is possible to have have content-rich experiences with small amounts of contact time.
-
Frontline staff are the critical element to positive family experiences. Make sure everyone on staff knows that this audience is welcome, and empower staff to help young learners engage with the museum in a way that is safe for the collections and for other visitors. Include the whole staff in professional development related to childhood development. Teach everyone how kids learn, and give them tools to understand what they can expect from children and what kinds of support caregivers are looking for from an institution.
I was really impressed with Melissa Covington from the Art Institute of Chicago. I love it when museum ed folk back up their practice with research, and Melissa knows the field like whoa. It’s even better when smart practitioners conduct and disseminate their own research. The Art Institute convened an Early Childhood Learning Community, which met regularly at the museum to discuss the needs and goals of caregivers. Melissa and her team collected data to identify common themes between the learning community and the museum, including:
- Thinking of the museum as a resource: for teachers as learners themselves, for early learners, and for school visits
- Identifying best practices in early childhood education
- Providing museum resources to support formal learning
- Addressing standards and pedagogies associated with arts learning
I am very curious to understand how parenting styles impact early childhood experiences in museums. I think a lot about learning styles and different points of entry and levels of engagement and sensory experiences…for learners. I haven’t really thought a lot about the impact that different approaches to parenting might have on those learners’ experiences. I wonder if Gen X/Y parents are changing the landscape of early childhood programs in any way, as parents can be expected to be more technologically savvy (maybe), or are bringing their own smartphones (maybe), or grew up with Sesame Street, or whatever characterizes Gen X/Y parents. (Apparently, the Sesame Workshop has fabulous resources for early childhood education.)
Thanks, NAEA Museum Division for giving me a lot of stuff to think about!
A list of resources mentioned in the hangout available here, including:
- Expanding Early Learning Yahoo Group (lots of people on the call recommended it)
- Carle Museum’s Whole Book Approach
mindful museums 