Learning is more than just the absorption of knowledge, although that has something to do with it. It begins with motivation; I'm not a believer that one can learn without being motivated to do so. It's followed by opportunity and attention. That could be in the form of participating in a classroom experience, reading poetry on the subway, observing the tides at the beach, and so on, and so on. Observation and practice are crucial in learning. Practice is tricky because it has to take place in several forms: not just in rote formulas, but in a variety of applications. If a learner lacks the opportunity, knowledge and ability to practice learning in a variety of ways, the transfer of knowledge has failed.
Dan Gilbert Thanks for sharing, I especially like your emphasis on opportunity. I hope that as we talk about designing spaces we think of them as tools that can support opportunities for learning.
It's hard to choose just one museum experience that I would consider the best. I remember a nearly perfect Spring Break during my second year of college, spending every day in a different wing of the National Galleries while staying with my best friend in a youth hostel down the street. I remember being 8 years old on vacation in NYC with my father; he promised me that if I would let him stay at the Cloisters as long as he wanted he would buy me a toy at FAO Schwartz, and I still think back to how dreadfully boring I thought the Cloisters was but how I still went home with Scottish Barbie. The most perfect experience was probably at the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, Texas. They have an original soda fountain on the first floor where they will make you a Dr. Pepper from the original formula they used in the early 1900s. I have never tasted anything as wonderful as that before or since.
But truthfully when I reflect back on museum experiences, I tend to remember the worst ones first. Two experiences come to mind immediately. The first is at the Natural History Museum in Mexico City, which is surely considered one of the world's great museums. Nonetheless, at that museum, like virtually every museum I've visited in Mexico, the descriptions next to the displays are either totally unhelpful or completely nonexistent. When you're accustomed to American museums, which usually include lengthy descriptions (as much or more than you would ever want to know), if is really strange to see exhibit after exhibit with absolutely no description at all. It's not that the explanations are only in Spanish; it's that the explanations are generally less than one paragraph for an entire room of exhibits, and the paragraph describes only the age and place of origin for the exhibits -- nothing about their significance, their relationships to other items in the room or anything else you might want to know. It's a huge loss of learning opportunity and, in my opinion, a loss of shared cultural capital.
The second experience was at the Kimball Museum in Ft. Worth when I was only 4 or 5 years old. My family went to see an exhibit of ancient Arabic illustrations. I can still picture the exhibit, enormous glass cases with beautiful books inside, opened to pages painted with men in colorful robes carrying spears and riding horses. I remember being completely enthralled, so enthralled that I reached out to touch the glass with my hands in order to get closer to what was inside even though I knew I wasn't supposed to. The guard told me to stop and told my parents to make me. My father picked me up, but I touched the glass again, two more times, and I was kicked out of the exhibit and got in trouble. Looking back, I wonder why my parents kept me in a situation that was clearly a set up for failure. More than that, I think what a shame it was that the museum didn't provide any accomodations for children -- no touching exhibit, no cases lowered to the ground, no opportunity to reproduce the illustrations with crayons or paints -- I've remembered those Arabian knights for 30 years, but I still don't like going to the Kimball.
My experience at the Cantor Arts Museum was quick and superficial, but the main impression I was left with, beyond just being impressed with the beauty of the architecture, was how much art they have stuffed into relatively small spaces. I've been to many museums with similar set-ups, that is, square box rooms with art on all four walls and people gathering in the middle to look, but I don't know if I've ever been to one that seemed as compressed as Cantor. I thought the museum would really benefit from removing some of the art and letting what is left behind breathe a little bit. I was also completely captivated by a bronze sculpture of a man called "The Doomed". I'll be looking up the artist later to learn more about the piece and other works by the same person (something, unfortunately, not offered in the museum itself).
Deb Kim Those are two great reflections on museums. They are the beginnings of great personas, and scenarios - design practices that we'll introduce in a few weeks. And it also brings up the tension for the target audience and how to design an optimum experience and yet reach the masses. To capture attention for the short/ephemeral visit for most of the visitors of the space. Tensions of organizational goals and funding and resources, and lack of learning space designers. Also, I think I want to try an original Dr. Pepper. Sounds wonderful!
Response to Deb Several people during the class discussion had stories like mine. We started wondering if museums could designate 'adult' time or 'discussion' time or 'silent' time into the schedule of the day to accomodate different needs and desires. We also wondered why more museums don't offer differentiated tours and literature for visitors -- for those who would want to know much more about the history of a movement or artist or particular painting, or for those who want to know more about the artistic process involved in creating art, for example. Would it really cost that much to provide literature or signage for children as well as adults? Or literature and signage in more than one language?
Designs for Learning by S. Allen
Several points really got my attention during this reading. First, I appreciated that the author discussed the museum's finding that interactivity is not essential to learning. This reminds me that, like curriculum, design must be grounded in a well-thought out rationale and purpose. In the case of the museum, they have learned that it is not enough just to include interactivity for the sake of entertainment, but that the interactivity must contribute to learning. I also like the emphasis on creating "minds-on" exhibits. Again, entertainment for the sake of entertainment is devalued in favor of meaningful interaction between the visitor and the exhibits. Hopefully this kind of preplanning will help to eliminate what Sun Sun described as overstimulation without enough learning for her 6-year-old son at the Exploratorium. Overall, I was stunned at the amount of research that goes into exhibit design, as well as the research that goes on well after the design has been implemented.
There were several points made about exhibit design that resonated with my curriculum design experience. First was the inquiry vs. content debate; I was surprised to find this in a museum setting. Another was the research on multiple learners and multiple learning styles, and trying to appeal to different personas within a confined space and experience. I was also struck by the museum's attempt to find a role for narrative in the context of a science museum. I must admit I don't understand why they feel the narrative has to be limited to a person's experience of the exhibit. Wouldn't it be more interesting to include narrative on personal and historical science discoveries that relate to the content of the exhibit? Finally, I saw the emphasis of the apprehendability of the museum experience as evidence of Noddings' ethic of care theory. While the "caring" approach is one that is often deemphasized in academic circles, it's obvious that without first caring for your audience, much of the subsequent learning could be lost.
Dan Gilbert I like your idea that the visitor narrative in museums can be connected with the narrative of the explorer or discoverer. Connecting these ideas is something that Jenni Martin and her team are thinking about for their Lupe Mammoth exhibit. Thanks for sharing Elizabeth
I was a little amazed at how many libraries there were to choose from on campus, and felt badly that I haven't taken more time to explore all of the possibilities for learning that exist here...not that I could ever explore ALL the possibilities, but I could make a more concerted effort to seek out interesting places to study. From the list, I chose the Braun Music Library because it was the closest library to where I had parked my car, and my feet were hurting from my new sandals so I didn't want to walk very far. I wish I could claim some deeper motivation than that, but it wouldn't be true.
I was relieved to see that the music building, like the education building, looks like a forgotten bump of architecture on the Stanford campus, that is, it's no Wallenberg. It has very ordinary windows, stairwells, carpeting, and bulletin boards leaving me to guess that music alumns don't donate any more to the school than education alumns. The library itself is very small; I was actually shocked when I first walked in at how little square footage there was. The library is on two floors. You enter on the first floor and walk down a narrow stairwell to the basement level which is where the majority of the circulating stacks are kept. The lighting is flourescent and haphazard; there are several very dark spaces in the stacks. The basement includes a "video viewing" space in a glassed-off room at one end, and "listening stations" along the wall which are little cubicles with keyboards, record/cassette/cd players, and headphones. They were a little intimidating to a novice like me. I couldn't imagine just taking some music off the shelf and attempting to listen to it without someone else showing me how to work all of the machinery first. At the back of the library is a room with around a dozen antique victrolas lined up side by side. I couldn't figure out whether they were supposed to be used or just looked at. Finally, along one more wall was a row of individually assigned cubicles -- just exactly what I wanted to see at the Cubberley library. There were a couple of people actually sitting and working inside those cubicles. I observed only two people sitting in "unassigned" cubicles, one of whom was sleeping. Interestingly, everyone in the library was male except for me.
The music library is not necessarily a place where I would be proud to bring my parents. It doesn't have the stately atmosphere of several of the other libraries on campus, including Cubberley. It seems to be a functional space for the most traditional uses of libraries: there are cubicles for individual work and learning, a reserves desk with one staff member, a variety of forms of information such as music, video and books, and, to my knowledge, one computer workstation. I didn't see anything that struck me as envelope-pushing in the library atmosphere, either for uses of a library space or for design of a library space. While there are a few tables upstairs where more than one person can sit at one time, the table space struck me as very public and not conducive to meeting or speaking. I would imagine this library is a place where students either come to check out resources and leave immediately or to listen to music that they would not be able to access somewhere else.
Incidentally, I was struck by how noisy the library was. There was a lot of ambient noise from the ventilation system, by workers moving around large crates (maybe musical instruments?), people walking up and down the stairs, and the xerox machine on the first floor which could easily be heard in basement. First and foremost, however, I was struck by the gender thing. Guy after guy walked into that library, but never a woman! It was pretty strange.
This library, like so many others, could benefit from an overhaul. Primarily, it would be interesting to see music-making spaces in the library, and the technology that would enable people to collaborate without being disruptive. I would also appreciate signage that would instruct visitors on how to use the listening stations, where the antique victrolas came from and what they are used for, etc. There is little opportunity for deep reflection in this library, which I consider an essential part of learning. There is no artwork on the walls in the basement to draw in the imagination, nor is there seating and lighting which would encourage a lingering visit. I thought there might be some attention paid to the "language of music" in the music library (by posting students' music compositions or displaying differing sorts of written music) but nothing like that existed. As a result, I learned less in my 1 hour observation and writing experience than I had anticipated.
Dan Gilbert: Thanks Elizabeth, I have never been to this library and now I want to go just to experience some of the things that you did. Fascinating about the gender issue you describe since I can't think of any reason why in music department there would be more men than women overall. Not like we are talking about electrical engineering or math where there are historical/cultural forces at work. I think implicit in your visit was how intimidating the space was for an outsider/novice. I can see this issue being a delicate one and can imagine a certain group of people wanting to keep the status quo as a way of defending their turf. Just speculation. Thanks for sharing, this was very interesting.
What can space really do in the ways of learning? My experience with after school programs is somewhat mixed. In public school environments that I have been in, the after school program typically takes place in the cafeteria or in a classroom that is used throughout the day. Because of this, the limitations of space can be extremely frustrating. In the cafeteria, you have to contend with noise, uncomfortable chairs and tables not intended for work, people passing through on their way somewhere else, inadequate lighting, and kids who are completely distracted by the vastness of the space. On the other hand, when we had our after school program in a classroom, the teacher complained that her supplies were constantly disappearing, and the kids were damaging the resources in the room, so the program was removed from the classroom into the cafeteria...
Elizabeth, your experiences with the afterschool program definitely highlight a lot of the constraints and challenges that a learning space (or a context for learning) can endure. I have definitely had some similar experiences! I think that the context in which this afterschool program exists is illustrated well in Table 1 of the Community Programs to promote Youth Development article (p.4). I wonder what kind of learning still took place in the afterschool program between partcipants, in their interactions as well as within the larger environment or context, despite of (or because of) these limitations... Perhaps these challenges actually encouraged more closeness, inclusiveness, and mutual support between participants due to their shared experience... Just a thought... -Amanda