Resilience: What Do We Mean?

Sculpture by Michal Trbak

MUSEUM NOTES

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning

Among the buzzwords brought to us by COVID-19–pivot, unprecedented, agile, and pandemic–is the near-ubiquitous word, resilience. Throughout the pandemic, resilience seems to have been everywhere, in headlines, blog topics, articles, and conference themes. 

When I asked two colleagues what they mean by resilience, one said, “keep going in spite of all sorts of things that have happened and continue to happen.” The other said, “optimism and hope that what you’re working towards is going to get you to a better place.” One website recommended museum workers develop resilience by taking a break and allowing time for self-care. Other views of resilience in a museum context are set in long-term, large-scale challenges such as Louisiana Children’s Museum’s resilience framework developed in response to Hurricane Katrina. 

And that’s resilience only in the museum context. 

My introduction to resilience was in the mid 1990’s by Ann S. Masten, then a Minnesota Children’s Museum board member, professor of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, and researcher on resilience in children. In that context, resilience refers to children’s ability to pull through or bounce back from challenges and stress with the help of a set of protective factors provided by positive experiences, individuals, the family, and the community. 

So, when someone refers to resilience, I can’t help but wonder what they mean. Are they referring to individuals—children, youth, museum staff, or leaders? Maybe they mean groups such as families, museums or schools. Or cities and communities. Might they be viewing resilience as mental health, child development, family strength, organizational health, or climate change? Are they thinking resilience is surviving, recovering, or thriving? While any, or even all, of these meanings are possible, they are not always clear or applicable. 

Resilience, also referred to as resiliency, is understandably of great interest to museums especially after our long pandemic year, economic slowdown, and social unrest. The pandemic, however, was not the first upheaval for some museums; nor will it be the last. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012), museums coped with environmental disruption, endured related trauma, and struggled to survive. Going forward, all museums will encounter change including large-scale disruption. External circumstances intersect with museum missions, community responsibility, resources, and long-term viability. They always have, but we are acutely aware of it now. 

An attractive, timely construct, resilience is much more than bouncing back which is precisely what makes it so valuable. 

Unpacking Resilience 

Over the last 40 years, multiple theories, frameworks, models, and studies on resilience have developed across disciplines, from human development to epidemiology to educational administration to social sciences. Although terms and definitions vary among disciplines, models, and researchers, resilience is applied at the level of the individual, family, organization, community, and environment. Frameworks and models are not interchangeable, but they do share some underlying elements related to good outcomes in the face of challenge, adversity, and misfortune. 

In general, resilience is an asset-based, not a deficit-based, construct. Rather than focusing on the negative consequences of exposure to adversity, resilience centers on the positive variables, or protective factors, that individuals and organizations possess to deal with stressors and to moderate exposure to risk and trauma. Not a single, static trait located in a particular place or person, resilience is more like a capacity distributed across people, organizations, places, and relationships dealing with personal loss, natural disaster, or a pandemic. Interconnections occur not only among individuals, organizations, and other systems, but also among multiple internal and external factors. Internal factors include skills, hardiness, support, and optimism while external and environmental factors include supportive resources, relationships, and robust systems. There appear to be parallel resilience factors such as close relationships, active coping, hope and optimism, and a positive view of self or community that work at multiple levels. 

Across various stages of adversity and challenge, individuals, organizations, and community respond by surviving, recovering, or even thriving. 

• Surviving involves continuing to function but at an impaired rate. 
• Recovering points to a return over time to where the individual or organization was previously in spite of stressful experiences. 
• Thriving is going beyond the original level of functioning as a result of experiencing setbacks as a growth opportunity. 

These shared features across models and scales, from individuals to groups like families and organizations, to cities and regions are a helpful context to museums thinking about and growing their capacity for resilience. 

Resiliency Frameworks 

Much more than reacting to events thrust upon us or our museums or those of our own doing, resilience is how families, museums, and communities prepare for, respond to, and adapt to change and challenge. Since every museum will at some time meet with upheaval as will its leaders, staff, community, and visitors, museums want–and need–to be prepared for the next disruptive event whether it is economic, social, ecological, or medical. 

As many museums have learned over the last 18 months, how they weathered the pandemic was a function of multiple factors, some within their control and others beyond their control. It was not only the nature of the pandemic itself, but how the museum was prepared and how it responded that made a difference in the pandemic's impact. 

To minimize setbacks and adapt successfully to disturbances, museums need to anticipate and prepare for both incremental change and major disruptions before the next crisis. One step in preparing is developing a resiliency framework that identifies risks, develops protective factors, and increases readiness to adapt. 

Each museum’s resiliency framework will be, and should be, different. The specific steps taken, questions explored, and participants involved will also vary by museum. The following sets of questions are intended to help launch discussions and reflections on how the museum has fared over the pandemic, consolidate lessons learned, clarify local resilience challenges, and identify protective factors and opportunities. 

Build a deeper, shared understanding of resilience. Think about: 

• How does the museum view resilience in its context? 
• Where is the museum’s greatest interest, or need, in growing resilience? Is it in its staff, leadership, the organization, its audience? 

Ground the framework in the current situation and its particular resiliency challenge. Think about: 

• In what areas–health and well-being; equity; cohesive and connected communities; resources; environmental–is the museum most likely to face challenges? 
• What might the nature of these challenges, or disruptions, be? 
• What are alternative ways to view the greatest challenges, or view a challenge as an asset? 
• Over which external factors does it have greater and lesser control over? 

Examine the museum’s internal capacity and challenges. Think about: 

• What protective factors does the museum, leadership, staff, children and youth in the community or the city currently enjoy? 
• How can the museum intentionally build on this capacity to better meet disruptions? 
• In what areas could additional capabilities enhance the museum’s resilience? 
• What does the museum have control over that can promote resilience? 

Look ahead, prepare for what’s next. Think about: 

• What does surviving, recovering, and thriving look like in the face of disruptions? 
• Where is the museum under-investing in its capacity? 
• What additional strategies must it develop? 
• Where does the museum start in growing and organizing resources for resilience? 
• What will keep the museum flexible and nimble? 

Developing a resilience framework won't stop a pandemic or natural disaster in its tracks, but it will help soften the blow, assist the museum in adapting, help it bounce back, and, ultimately, flourish in the face of change. 

Resilience Across Contexts and Scales

• Resilient Cities Work being supported by the Rockefeller Foundation 
• The Resilience Playbook, Ann W. Ackerson, Gail Anderson, and Dina Bailey 
• Resilience Theory and Research on Children and Families: Past, Present, and Promise by Ann S. Masten 
• Multisystem Resilience for Children and Youth in Disaster: Reflections in the Context of COVID-19 by Ann S. Masten and Frosso Motti-Stefanidi 
• Conceptual Frameworks and Research Models on Resilience in Leadership by Janet Ledesma

Foundational Experiences in Museums Deconstructed

This post, part 2, continues to focus on Foundational Experiences in Museums 

from November 17, 2020 

Jeanne Vergeront

Understanding that there are foundational experiences that contribute to a solid foundation for a good start in life for children, regardless of age, ability, or background is an important step in providing them. Pointing out that museums can have a role in supporting these experiences is promising. Recognizing where these experiences are embedded in museums—in the vision, mission and values, understanding the audience, and the possibilities and challenges facing a city, region, or community—is a start in museums making these experiences available. Considering characteristics of foundational experiences is also helpful in shaping them. But…

… What does a set of foundational experiences for a museum actually look like?

Answering that question involves a lot of other questions that I have heard over the years in working with staff at many museums to develop foundational experiences. It’s typical to want to know how many foundational experiences should a museum have? How does a museum know if it’s being unrealistic about what it can and can’t accomplish? How are foundational experiences expressed? How does a museum use foundational experiences in developing exhibits, environments, and experiences? 

Foundational Experiences: An Example and the Headlines

Using my work with museums and with learning frameworks, I have developed a set of foundational experiences to show a possible format, explore these questions, and give a helping nudge to this work. Something of a rough draft, museums are welcome to take this, work with it, and make it their own.

The set of 6 foundational experiences below are intended to establish where a museum believes it can make a positive difference for the children it serves. It might be helpful to think of these 6 statements as something like headlines for the 6 foundational experiences. 

All children, regardless of age, ability, or background should have opportunities to enjoy:

1. A sense of connection, acceptance and belonging

2. Growing capabilities, confidence, and independence

3. Engaging in making sense of the world 

4. A feeling of well-being

5.     Exploring and understanding feelings, ideas and perspectives, one's own and others’ 

6. Finding their place in the world

Some relevant features of the headline experiences, how they are described, what
they cover, and how many a museum might have are highlighted below. 

• These experiences reflect an understanding that healthy development occurs across domains (social, emotional, sensorimotor, language-cognitive) and across all ages. While domains should be reflected in the foundational experiences, domains themselves are not foundational experiences.
• The 6 headline experiences define important areas in which children should enjoy many varied and positive moments, interactions, and opportunities over the years. For each of the experiences, there are many ways a museum might support them with “building-block experiences” which are covered below. 
• There’s no right number of foundational experiences, just as there’s no right number of goals for a strategic plan. Having too many, too few, ones that are too broad or too specific can be difficult to manage. To focus, a museum might consider where it has expertise, a track record, and likely opportunities it can offer: outdoors, play, relationships, cultural competence, etc.
• The short answer to how many foundational areas a museum might select is  5-7. 

Adding Building-block Experiences

Each of the 6 headline experiences focus on the essence of something critical for a child’s good start in life and on-going healthy development. While providing focus, they also represent many experiences and opportunities that can be enjoyed again and again and that contribute to a child’s development each time, but not in the same way every time. 

These more specific types of experiences can be thought of as building-block experiences; they add support, supply variety, and point to how museums might begin to operationalize these experiences. Some of the ways building-block experiences support a headline experience such as A feeling of well-being (#4 below) might be: children have a shared and safe place to be part of something larger, have frequent and positive experiences with nature, enjoy opportunities to rest and reflect and others.                                                                                                                                                                         The headline and building-block experiences below represent a possible set of foundational experiences. Together they help address typical questions covered in the comments that follow: how foundational experiences are framed or expressed; how a museum knows it’s not being overly ambitious about what it can and can’t accomplish; and how building block experiences begin to connect with museum experiences.

1. Children feel a sense of connection, acceptance, and belonging, when they:

• Feel valued for who they are

• Enjoy supportive relationships with peers and caring adults

• Enjoy positive interactions including rewarding contact with staff and volunteers

• Participate in activities at home, school, and communities

• Care about and help others

• Make memories with their family

2. Children experience growing capabilities, confidence and independence, when they:

• Develop a sense of agency, a belief that they can have an impact on their world

• Practice emerging skills and capabilities 

• Assess abilities and risks realistically

• Experience and see their impact, both big and small, on the world around them

• Discover and follow their interests

• Make choices and follow their implications 

3. Children engage in making sense of the world, when they:

• Notice, ask questions, and look for answers

• Have access to varied opportunities to explore, interact, and engage

• Collaborate with others and work as a team to accomplish something greater 

• Find relevant, meaningful connections with their everyday life

• Have varied opportunities to explore, interact, and engage

4. Children experience a feeling of well-being, when they:

• Have a shared and safe space to be a part of a community

• Find wonder, joy and delight in themselves and their experiences

• Have frequent and positive experiences with nature

• Making healthy food, movement and activity choices

• Enjoy opportunities to rest and reflect

5. Children explore and understand feelings, ideas, and perspectives, their own and others’, when they:

• Share and talk about their experiences, ideas, and dreams with others

• Express their ideas in varied and creative ways

• Enjoy extended time playing and directing play

• Explore varied objects, materials, and rich environments

• Listen to others with different views or ideas

• Respect how others experience sight, sound, and touch in different ways

6. Children find their place in the world, when they:

• See themselves reflected and appreciated in big and small ways in the world around  them

• Have positive interactions with people of diverse backgrounds

• Explore their own and others’ cultures with increasing confidence

• Open up to the possibilities of and manage the uncertainty of an expanding world

• Can see a future for themselves 

Identifying building-block experiences gives further direction and insights into developing foundational experiences: how they are framed or expressed; how a museum knows it’s not being overly ambitious about what it can and can’t accomplish; and how building block experiences begin to connect with museum experiences. Some examples follow. 

• Foundational experiences are about opportunities children should have for optimal development. Focusing on the child reflects this. Saying children… explore, engage, feel, find, etc. not only places children as the subject, but the structure of the statement itself centers on how children benefit from the building-block experiences: Children enjoy a sense of connection, acceptance, and belonging, when they… feel valued, etc.
• It’s not unusual now-and-then for a building-block experience to fit in more than one area. When that happens, choose the best fit. 
• Foundational experiences express an aspiration, a goal. Building-block experiences are stated more like outcomes, or long-term impacts. They point to where a museum has some capacity to provide an experience for a child in its setting that supports development and contributes to positive changes. A museum can identify ways it can contribute to a child finding their way in the world (#6) such as seeing themselves reflected in museum staff and volunteers, in images of children like them and of diverse families, and in experiences personally relevant and meaningful to them. 
• Many small and large gestures across every dimension of the museum support the foundational experiences. Although not every foundational experience is present in every activity, gallery, or program, headline and building-block experiences do inform exhibit and program planning, shaping spaces, selecting amenities, and preparing staff and volunteers for interaction. With use, foundational experiences inspire activities, translate into criteria for planning, become part of the museum’s shared vocabulary, and focus evaluations. 
• To get to a final version of the experiences, a few test questions helpful: Do the experiences all use the same format? Are they parallel to one another, for instance, do they start with verbs? Are they in the museum’s own voice?

No Small Matter    Through foundational experiences a museum can focus, act, and matter to the families, children, learners, friends, and communities they serve; they have an opportunity to contribute to children getting a firmer toe-hold in life.                                                                                        The process starts with locating these experiences in the museum’s vision, mission, and values; its audience; its community; and its own strengths. The set of foundational experiences which emerges, includes headline experiences supported by building-block experiences, which, in turn, inform activity and design choices, and encourage children explore, play, learn, and grow.  

With time and practice, with discussion and shared reflection, by learning together, a museum creates opportunities and experiences intentionally, with impact. When museums create experiences that emphasize relationships and facilitate social interactions, and that allow them to collaborate with others and work as a team to accomplish something greater. Museum experiences in rich environments with remarkable objects and intriguing materials invite children to notice, ask questions, and look for answers. Experiences offered in a gallery, program, or special event provide relevant, meaningful connections to their everyday life and support children in making sense of the world (#3). 

Doing this for children now and for their future is no small matter.

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning

December 9, 2020

 

How Does Your Learning Framework Help Navigate Covid19?

Photo credit: Vergeront

Rebecca Shulman, Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum’s Director, shared their newly completed learning framework with me recently. She also mentioned how the museum has been able to reinvent what it does in a timeframe that would have previously been unimaginable. In reviewing their at-home offerings and aligning them with their framework, Rebecca wrote, the “Framework has been invaluable.”

 

In a time that is in great motion, museums of every size and type have had to be resourceful, courageous, and nimble. These qualities are being tested again and again, month after month as museums move from closing, to planning, re-opening, to rebuilding and recovery.  

 

Perhaps unaware at the time, museums have been preparing for times like this. They have developed foundational documents like strategic plans to guide long-term thinking; grown staff capacity, fostered relationships and goodwill with the community and partners, and deepened understanding of their potential to do well and to do good. In responding to new and unexpected opportunities and learning from successes and missteps, museums have been preparing for moments like this by investing in themselves.

 

Whether a museum is in a quiet phase, planning to re-open, thinking about rebuilding—or all of these at once—the challenge is not just getting through this time, but navigating well and coming through the pandemic crisis stronger and more essential than ever.

 

Learning Frameworks for a Time Like This

Those investments, the strategic plan, facility plan, marketing plan, staff development plan, and the learning framework are valuable resources for the process of uncovering the museum’s next and better version of itself.

 

A learning framework transforms a museum’s instincts about learners, learning, and its learning experiences into a set of shared understandings that can be acted on in a collaborative way and over time.

 

If a learning framework hasn’t seen much use, it’s time to get reacquainted. Why? Because here is a working tool grounded in a museum’s vision, mission, and values; focused on learning experiences; and intent on building learning value. As a kind of magnetic north for a museum’s learning interests, it is essential for staying true to the core purpose and pedagogy, serving audiences, and being agile in adapting to new situations, challenges, and opportunities.

 

Even if a framework has enjoyed active use, the context in which it is now being applied is in flux. These shifts are also openings for where the museum can be active, responsive, and innovative. Moreover, these frameworks by their nature have some attributes that make them especially helpful at times like this. They:

·       Distill what is most important about a museum’s learning experiences 

Photo credit: Capital Group

·       Are both firm and flexible

·       Keep the learner at the center

·       Connect

·       Help in reimagining what’s possible

·       Are tools for learning

Frameworks distill what is most important about a museum’s learning experiences; they serve as an anchor in times of change.

A learning framework articulates a museum’s foundational ideas about how children and adults engage and learn in the museum’s experiences within its spaces, online, and at other locations. By highlighting its view of learning* and connecting with theory and research in its learning principles*, a framework helps a museum stay true to what is core and where it believes it can be effective.

This is helpful because, when a museum closes temporarily, rethinks its experiential offerings, or serves new visitors in new ways, a firm connection to what’s core is critical. That connection also allows it to build on its strengths; use time, money, and staff expertise wisely; and be nimble.

 

If a museum is reaching its audience at home on social media, through distributed play packs, or at the re-opened museum; if learners are alone, in a camp, or in a family group, a framework can be helpful in exploring and thinking about what is central to the museum’s learning experiences. For instance:

-        The nature of the expectations that learners have for these new learning experience encounters

-        How the museum’s learning experiences are much more than just the activities it presents

-        What aspects of its view of learning are especially relevant to engaging learners in contexts such as the at-home museum or post-COVID museum environments

-        How it might promote social-emotional learning and contribute to a sense of well-being and security during an uncertain and difficult time

 

Frameworks are both firm and flexible; they provide focus, adapt to various contexts, and offer relevant choices.

A framework makes a museum’s critical elements of learning experiences, their functions, and the relationships among them clearer and visible. Shared and fairly stable over time, a framework allows a museum to revisit and thoughtfully explore these elements and the many possible ways they might come together in learning experiences for families, school groups, or toddlers. Yet, a framework is not prescriptive; it allows for interpretation and adapting to various conditions and groups.

 

This is helpful because, when conditions change—as they have recently—when new needs become visible, and when priorities shift, a museum can have confidence in the tested elements and ideas it is working with while using them in new circumstances.

 

In developing on-line programs, a museum may adapt an existing program, develop a new one, import another museum’s activities, or do all three. For any of these, its framework helps maintain a focus on its primary interests, its learners, and areas of expertise considering the context of a new situation. A museum might find it’s helpful to reflect on and explore:

-        Where it has a solid track record related to particular audience or age groups; experiences in indoor or outdoor settings; facilitation strategies; or particular content or skills

-        How it can adapt and update past camps for a new format, settings, and expectations

-        How social media and digital learning fit into its framework and how it understands its learning experiences. Is digital learning a long-term learning experience platform* like exhibits and environments or community engagement? Is it a short-term, on-line programmatic strategy?

 

Frameworks keep the learner at the center; they focus on individuals engaged in the process of learning

How a museum views its learners—whether they are children, adults, parents, caregivers, educators, experts, or staff—influences how it shapes experiences for them. A view of the museum’s learners* gives priority to the characteristics of learners that a museum intends to engage and support through varied experiences on site, on line, or across the community. One museum may view its learners as active, inquisitive, and caring; another may view its learners as empathetic, thoughtful, and social.

 

The learner at the center of the framework is important because, what is at the center is valued. Placing the learner there places their capabilities, potentials, and interests at the heart of learning experience planning. And while a museum’s view of its learners is unlikely to change with a shifting context, those qualities might assume new meaning, be expressed differently, or be engaged differently.

 

Planning for program participants or virtual visitors as learners who are often reflective, curious, or social invites a museum to think about how to engage and support those qualities in at-home surroundings or in a re-designed post-COVID museum. In the context of its learning framework, a museum might explore:

-        How being curious is expressed in a familiar environment (home) rather than unfamiliar environment (the museum); how being active as a learner at home varies from being active as a learner at the museum; ways of supporting learners being social while maintaining social distancing at the museum

-        How it can support the learner’s agency when it is engaging them remotely in multiple at-home museum environments

-        Ways to engage communication skills, research skills, organizational skills, and critical thinking skills in real-world, real-life contexts

  

Frameworks connect. They connect ideas; help connect learners with ideas, with the museum, and to the world.

In effect, learning frameworks deconstruct and re-construct a museum’s learning experiences in order to create learning connections. They identify and clarify major elements about learning experiences at the museum and highlight how these elements relate and work together to create rich, layered experiences for a wide range of learners across varied settings. Working with connections articulated in the framework, helps in engaging the learner and their interests. It facilitates connections with previous experiences and lays the groundwork for future connections.

 

This is helpful, especially now, as museums seek ways to reach out, connect with, and support their learners. In a time of social distancing, museums search for ways to promote social interaction. At a time when people are limiting their community activities, museums are looking for ways for people to meet, connect, and enjoy positive interactions. And at a time when museums are engaging their learners remotely, they are looking for ways their learners can make meaningful connections with personal interests, content, materials, and other activities.

 

As a museum reaches out, connects with its learners virtually, and tries to strengthen relationships with them, it might think about:   

-        What it already knows about extending learner engagement in the museum setting that can inform at-home museum experiences; how making drawings, photos, or videos and uploading them helps support connections

-        How a family or siblings of multiple ages might get into the act and work together creatively and collaboratively

-        In what ways experiences can help learners feel closer to their neighborhood, community, and to the museum

Photo credit: Vergeront

Frameworks help reimagine what’s possible; they help speed up the process of reimagining.   

The physical environment is an essential dimension of the learning experiences museums create. The settings where exhibits, programs, co-created projects, and art installations take place allow museums to deliver learning value in ways distinct from other formal and informal learning settings. The pandemic’s wide-ranging impact on museum experiences has dramatically changed the museum’s primary place and engagement strategies*. The same, tried-and-true ways of developing and presenting learning experiences and spaces will not work as they have until only 

recently. But these shifts are also opportunities for the museum to expand its thinking about environments and experiences.

 

This is helpful because a museum’s framework and repertoire of learning experiences are sources of creative thinking especially when old ways don’t work and nimbleness is needed. A wider range of learning experiences surfaces new insights, makes them more accessible and capable of being added to a fresh mix.

 

With a shift to virtual, low-contact or no contact spaces, appearing in living rooms across a city or region, the museum environment is experiencing dramatic change. More than ever, museums need to think about spaces, their features and affordances and explore questions as basic as, what is an on-line learning environment? And think about:

-        Aspects of at-home learning settings that serve museum learners well: over which conditions in these settings a museum has, or doesn’t have, control; how various conditions support or interfere with exploration; how at-home museum activities can work together and build on one another to extend interest and build impact

-        Whether virtual experiences are a new learning experience platform like exhibits or programs and should be developed as such or are an on-line format of museum programs

-        Repurposing outdoor spaces to serve as learning experience platforms: the park next door or the big, relatively empty parking lot

-        Putting the neighborhood in play or the city itself as a platform for a series of choreographed learning experiences

Frameworks are tools for learning; they are friendly to thinking, learning, and an experimental mindset.

Learning frameworks are multi-purpose tools that help in making choices, planning experiences, enhancing activities, setting goals, and evaluating impacts*. They help a museum understand where it is, where it can go, and what it is learning along the way. Regardless of how long a museum is closed, goes virtual, or re-opens with COVID adaptations, the learning experiences from this time period are now a part of who a museum is and is becoming.

This is important because, not only do frameworks support learning for visitors, they also support learning for the museum. Lessons and insights from these times emerge from what it has learned from its learners and what it has learned about itself; from insights and lessons it is aware of and from those that are not yet visible.

A museum that can ask itself new questions generates new inputs into its thinking and expands its understanding of possible new ways to support learning. Questions might not be resolved in short-order, nor ever be addressed fully. Discussions and related practice, however, can create movement and set the museum’s sights ahead. Questions, big and small, near and far may include:

-        What is the museum talking about with and learning from its visitors now? What can it learn from learners’ perceptions of this time and its meaning for them?

-        How is the museum bringing an equity, diversity, and inclusion lens to its new work?

-        How can it benchmark programs and learning experiences for this period or phase? How does it intend to evaluate these new programs? Determine what a full schedule of virtual offerings looks like; and count participation/participants?  

-        How is the museum preparing now to look back and understand this time from the future? What traces or documentation is it collecting to be able to look back and reflect?

-        What must the museum need to know to plan for what’s next?

Even if a museum is without a formal learning framework, it can explore these questions and situations in developing and designing, or redeveloping and redesigning, learning experiences. And, while it may not seem to be the optimal time to develop a learning framework, it could be if a team of staff is not actively engaged during shutdown. Museum Notes learning framework resources follow.

• Learning Frameworks:

• Question-powered Learning Frameworks

• Ten Lessons from Learning Frameworks

• Driving for Learning Frameworks 

• Updating Learning Frameworks

 

* Denotes some of the typical elements of learning frameworks

 

Imagining Interactive Museum Experiences Post-COVID 19

A question swirling about in museum association emails, social media, museum colleague conversations, on blogs, and soon, no doubt, in museum journals is: how will museums manage in a post-COVID-19 environment? The scope of this question is far-reaching and overwhelming, affecting funding, attendance, programs, exhibits, facilities, impact, etc. Difficult as this question is, we don’t have the luxury of side-stepping it with a shrug of the shoulders.

We do know the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world in profound ways and that includes museums, cultural, and public institutions including zoos, orchestras, libraries, schools, and playgrounds.

In short order, museums have risen to the occasion with creative, adaptive responses to the pandemic and shelter-in-place orders across the country. I have been impressed with how museums have responded and adapted to a complex, rapidly changing environment. Their public presence, messaging, and variety of experiences have quickly found their way onto social media and into e-mail boxes. Many museums are delivering their missions more actively than ever in spite of the challenges. They have stepped into a more visible public role in helping the public understand COVID-19 and pandemics, working with partners to reach out and support communities, becoming a resource for parents who are homeschooling, and documenting the pandemic itself.

We are in the midst of a gigantic experiment that will push museums in ways and directions they hadn’t imagined. Just what the nature and implications of the pandemic are and how they will unfold will take months, if not years or even decades, to become apparent.

Full of trade-offs and tough decisions in this dynamic environment, these times are, and will be, challenging and full of change. Some change will be within the control of an organization, its director, and trustees while others will be well beyond any organization’s control. Some shifts may be transitional, temporarily useful and lead to new adaptations. Other shifts will, undoubtedly be more difficult and complex, especially initially. As public spaces where many people come together, museums’ physical settings and beloved objects are likely to be problematic in returning to business as usual.

We can only guess at the changes we will be encountering. On re-opening, there is likely to be pent-up demand to visit familiar and favorite public spaces and do something new. People will be likely to look forward to going somewhere that has been off limits for months; museum visitation may enjoy an early bounce. At the same time, some people  are likely to stay away out of health concerns. Many who do visit will return with new expectations around hygiene in public spaces. If, or when, a second peak of the virus arrives, museum visits are likely to plunge again. Other unknowns are how long post-COVID-19 concerns will affect attendance, whether visiting patterns will vary regionally, or if particular types of museums will be impacted more.

The interactive museum experience that invites touching is likely to undergo transformations in a post-COVID-19 world. With hands-on, multi-sensory engagement with objects and materials at the heart of children’s museum and science center experiences, the impact is likely to be significant. However, since most, if not all, types of museums rely on hands-on, interactive spaces and experiences to some extent in their galleries, programs, family spaces, and festivals, changes to interactive experiences will affect the field more broadly.

2020 in the Rearview Mirror

I believe we will look back at 2020 and recognize the beginnings of a generational shift in museums. Less of a dramatic departure from current approaches, we are likely to see new versions of current practices that are grounded in:

• A commitment to the fundamental value of learning from experience—objects, social interactions,

The learner as active, engaged, curious

relationships, and play across the life-span

• Recent trends in the field especially where museums have been intentional around equity, diversity, and inclusion

• A view of the visitor as curious, active, motivated, and engaged

• A collaborative, creative response of many museums to the pandemic in rethinking the interactive experience

Some changes are already underway, even if emergent and fluid. Channeling the thinking and creativity of museums around the world, they reflect museums’ complex, integrated functioning of spaces and environments, objects and materials, staffing and interaction, operational practices, and resources. Adapting practices from other public-facing settings like libraries, gyms, cruise ships, hospitals, and grocery stores, museum operations and services are going beyond higher standards for cleaning and hygiene. New awareness and practices are differentiating among the variety of loose parts. While digitizing museum content and experiences and presenting them to audiences remotely will undoubtedly be part of this new scenario, museums are also innovating around the value of direct experience with objects and other people. 

In considering what will make returning visitors feel safe and comfortable and nourish the public’s trust and affection for them, museums will be drilling into what is core to their value. Children’s museums will be looking for new ways to stay true to their fundamental purpose as champions for children, valuing interactions and relationships with others and the material world, and the essential role of play in children’s development. Resilient museums will work to be nimble in keeping the visitor at the center and finding new ways to support meaningful engagement and durable connections.

  

Looking Ahead

Considered both a disaster and an opportunity, these times present creative and innovative opportunities to become better versions of ourselves.

Some of the shifts I have been noticing and thinking about are highlighted below. More like hunches than promises or predictions, they are far from comprehensive. Hovering around the interactive experience, they are adapted to a particular museum, its community, audience, and mission. Because they are more like shifting currents in museum practices than completely new directions, here they are cast as changes in emphasis, from where we are currently to what we are seeing more of.

Recognizing changes in the learning group

• Currently… in most museums, children are viewed as a distinct audience group with parents and caregivers as an important, but separate, audience group.

• We’re seeing more of …families actively learning together. With families sheltering together at home, parents stepping into the homeschooling role, and parents as more active participants in the at-home science experiments, families are playing a larger, more active role as multi-generational learning groups.

Working on multiple fronts

• Currently … museums describe themselves as destinations, recognized public spaces that serve locals and tourists. To serve their visitors, museums develop experiences to bring visitors to the museum.

• We’re seeing more of … museums developing themselves as multi-dimensional resources, creating more experiences that reach their audiences in multiple locations and through diverse formats. These include activities broadcast into homes, home-based and mobile projects in a park and neighborhood, partnering with experts on current topics, and found encounters.

Prioritizing the interests of visitors

• Currently … museums work to understand the interests of their visitors and reach out to invite their input into museum-created experiences.

• We’re seeing more of … a greater permeability between the museum and its community and visitors that follows and supports visitor and learner interests and ideas. Self-directed explorers and learners are children starting a neighborhood newsletter, laying out a solar system across city blocks, setting their own challenges, and families originating content through stories and projects. 

Opening up for new kinds of engagement

• Currently … visitors’ person-to-person interactions occur at the museum with staff and facilitators, family members and complement self-guided experiences.

• We’re seeing more of … the museum as an instigator of family engagement. Museum-inspired ideas launch family explorations which are then shared with the museum and other doers. Teddy bears in the window involve families in a similar activity at home that is shared with others; families go on treasure hunts with maps, flashlights, and backpacks and share their adventures; the museum sends its recorded stories to families to share.

Photo credit: interactionimagination.com.se

Shifting from immersive environments to immersive experiences

• Currently … interactive environments are favorite spaces in many children’s museums. These rooms, settings, and vehicles are familiar in the child’s world: the grocery store, post office, the bus.

• We’re seeing more of … immersive experience. Less like containers for activities or prompting scripts from daily life, immersive experiences wrap, bathe, and envelop the visitor and engage the senses. Sometimes relatively simple full body explorations with color, light, movement, shadow, and sound, they can also be more complex motion-activated experiences, foot-activated floor projection systems, and visual tricks. 

Re-framing experience for a new context

• Currently … children’s museums and science centers offer self-guided exhibit activities, demonstrations, and programs, often planned to fit within timed segments of a field trip visit, classroom activity, birthday party, or curriculum topic.

• We’re seeing more of … projects that unfold over time, evolve through multiple iterations, and respond to new ideas. Initiated by motivated family learning groups, they respond to a museum’s challenge; investigate ideas through drawings and research; head outdoors; and use digital experiences as departure points.

Improvising with materials

• Currently … objects and materials that encourage hands-on exploration invite children to push and carry, build and take apart, pretend with and create, test and transform.

• We’re seeing more of … ways to not lose the richness of abundant materials and objects to hygiene concerns and cleaning needs. Museums are finding new ways to distinguish among tools that are easy to wipe down frequently; volumes of consummables in smaller quantities frequently resupplied; multiple sets of props rotated and cleaned frequently; quarantining objects and materials; and rethinking media like sand, rubber granules, and bubbles.

Keeping close

• Currently … museums are staying top of mind with frequent, helpful messaging across multiple platforms.  

• We’re seeing more of … messaging as high-engagement dialogue. More than ever, communication is a two-way dynamic that strengthens museum relationships, whether it is personal connections developing between families with Zoom-based facilitators like Children's Museum of Houston's Mr. O; visitors sharing what they are making with the museum; or children working on projects at home and sharing them with residents at a retirement home.

Rainbows as a symbol of resilience. (Louisiana Children's Museum)