Reflection for Readings Week 2
The finding from Packer and Ballantyne's article - that for adult learners, solitary and shared learning experiences can be equally beneficial - was interesting. I think it highlighted the difficulty of designing learning experiences for different groups of people (individual & group, adult & children) in a fixed setting like the museum. Adding to the difficulty, I think, is that even within the same group of people, reasons and expectations of a visit to a museum may be different.
Whether or not a visit to the museum is a social activity, I think depends on who we are talking about. For me, I consider a museum visit mostly a solitary learning experience. When I visit one with my friends, we usually agree on a time and place to meet, then go our separate ways. I think that's the case for most adult visitors. But for families - people who visit with their kids - the experience and learning value of a trip to the museum may well be social (as reflected in Crowley's article about parents' engaging their children in science exhibits). It makes sense for them to explore and work together; parents scaffolding their children's knowledge and discovery, without whom the kids would not be able to understand and appreciate on their own.
So, what happens if we have no specific, target audience in mind or if we want to appeal to (and engage with) as broad a group of audience as possible? What are some practical principles for designing these exhibits and spaces?
Three things I can think of right now:
The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the difficulty of designing a good learning experience in museums that caters to everybody (and I don't know if they should cater to everybody). I don't think museums should have the same expectations of every visitor. Some themes lend themselves easier to self-exploration, physical manipulation etc. (like science-based, inquiry-type of themes).