Thinking Like a Museum Evaluator

Poster Session conversations at the VSA Conference

In my next life I want to be a museum evaluator and researcher. I guess that will have to be after I am a museum planner, a librarian, an urban planner, and an arborist. I was reminded about how much I enjoy the evaluator perspective at the recent Visitor Studies Association conference in Chicago, July 24-27.

One thing I tuned into over the two-and-a-half day conference was how presenters, evaluators, and researchers answered questions. When a question was posed, I often noticed there was a short but perceptible pause, followed by a well-crafted reply. In the cartoon part of my brain, I pictured a thought bubble above her head with a list or steps in a logic model she checked before answering. I also thought I saw another thought bubble hovering over the head of someone whose answer noted specialized terms.

This is the second year I have attended the VSA conference. Both years I have been drawn to and invigorated by the thoughtful and disciplined thinking and interest in critical reflection in so many sessions and among so many people. Again and again, I saw a willingness, even a zest, to explore questions. I often had a sense of an evaluator’s independence, objectivity, and neutral stance related to information that was gathered, presented, and interpreted.

Thinking About Practice, Finding Patterns
Listening to projects, studies, methods, and results, I thought about the related thinking and practices that support this work. These practices not only made the sessions better, but are relevant for me in my work and in work across museum. Four sets of practices have stayed with me. 

Questions Everywhere. There’s no doubt about it. Evaluators and researchers love questions. Sessions opened with questions as titles and ended with questions as well. “Based on this, how can we create programs that…?” was a question I heard more than once. It wasn’t just the sheer quantity of questions that was impressive. They were well-crafted questions. Some framed major conversations, others took into account the complexity of situations: “How do we evaluate fairly when pupils have different social, economic, and family circumstances…?” Even standing at the elevator, in the poster session, or at lunch, evaluators and researchers were asking questions.

Checking and Challenging Assumptions. Checking assumptions is sometimes procedural like asking if everyone has had a chance to speak. Other times it seriously challenges the fundamentals like asking how (in)adequate attendance is as a measure of success. Checking assumptions can also flip a switch and reroute thinking, as when Joe Heimlich said that measures are met when we’re successful; we’re not successful because we meet our measures. There were many friendly provocations such as asking whether we are preserving success measures to preserve ourselves. Besides a willingness to challenge assumptions, I admired an appetite for experimenting in what presenters shared and encouraged others to try. In the middle of a session, one of the presenters reminded participants, “We’re trying to do new things.” 

Finding Language. I appreciate precise language for clarity, variety, and getting at meaningful distinctions. Multiple references to the role of language in visitor studies were made. In the first session I heard “languaging visitors,” or giving them the tools to talk about and share art. The value of visitors’ language to get at what’s intangible, like intrinsic benefits, also came up. For that matter evaluator and researcher language and “articulating intended results” received attention. There were many acknowledgements of context-specific terms: Big I and little “i” identity, inquiry-based strategies, and the Exploratorium’s own definition of “immersives.”

Playing It Forward. Frequently, the follow-up to presenting a project or a study was a slide or the question, “What can we do better?” If this question wasn’t posed, then a focus on Next Steps or areas of future study was. Often specific ways in which programs, exhibits, or marketing materials could be changed were highlighted. I greatly appreciated the push for improvement this represents­–a strong interest in action, change, and closer alignment of intention and achievement. Someone in the final session asked, “How do we, as a field, increase the rigor of our work in ways that are supportive of our colleagues but hard on the research and evaluation?”

Now, there’s a great question that challenges assumptions, makes meaningful distinctions, and plays the conference forward.

An Evaluator’s Perspective

New perspectives arriving

These practices interested me and I wanted to learn more about how evaluators see these and their own practices. During the conference I asked five people about what they see as a distinct perspective of an evaluator. We talked in line for the bus, at the elevators, and before sessions started. Speaking primarily about the perspective they bring to evaluation, they mentioned the following.

•                  I’m constantly wondering how the visitor experience will be. I look at prototyping as the value of the visitor’s report and behavior. (Elizabeth, in-house exhibit planner with evaluator responsibilities)

•                  Testing assumptions about what the visitor, or learner, takes away or understands from the experience. I try and bring multiple stakeholders and their perspectives to the task of interpreting what people are taking away. (Camilla, independent evaluator)

•                  I’m constantly asking questions and wanting to know the reason for things. Everything you figure out leads to a new question. (Lorrie, independent evaluator)

•                  I’m hungry for context. I ask myself if I have and understand the context I need (background, perspective, familiarity, etc.) to bring the right tools to this person or team to do what they need to accomplish. (Nina, in-house evaluator)

•                  Objectivity. An evaluator has a neutral relationship with information; she needs to show the information and let program people bring their perspective and needs to interpreting it. (Andréa, in-house evaluator)

Over the course of my five conversations, I shifted my question from asking about an evaluator’s thinking to an evaluator’s perspective. I debated about whether and when to tell them I was going to put their response in this blog and decided to do so. I did notice I had a mix of internal and external evaluators and researchers, but also realized by sample included only women. I wished I had more time for conversations and a new round of questions.

The conference was valuable as was my little study. I have a lot to play forward and a lot of work ahead before I’m thinking like an evaluator.

Learning Assets - Part 2

Lookout Cove: 2.5 acres of outdoor exploration at Bay Area Discovery Museum

In exploring museums' learning assets recently, I mentioned about 15 different substantial resources through which museums deliver experience and learning value to their visitors and communities. The list continues to grow through conversations and reading. But neither the precise list nor the number of items is really important. Instead it illustrates that museums have many learning assets. As you can see, most of them are quite familiar.

•           Exhibits, programs, collections, library, school or preschool, maker space, film and multi-media, historic structure, gardens, science park, the building, research center, outreach or mobile museum, recycle center, nature center, planetarium, aquarium, teacher resource center, theater, and hall of fame.

Every museum has learning assets. But not every museum knows what its learning assets are and why they are valuable. Museums do consider exhibits (or programs, teacher resource center, or aquarium) as financial assets and perhaps as strategic assets. But these assets are also critical resources for accomplishing broad strategic and learning goals. Making explicit how they contribute to a museum’s being a recognized convener for children’s well-being, supporting 21^st century learners or workforce development, or activating civic engagement around urgent social or environmental issues–is necessary to activating their value

The Benefits of Learning Assets

Beyond a general sense that identifying learning assets might be helpful, what does clarity about learning assets accomplish?

Earlier this year, I wrote about a hard-working question I often use as a tool: what can this attractive option accomplish, that needs to be accomplished, that another attractive option cannot? That’s a good test for evaluating learning assets as well. There are two perspectives on this question to consider. First what does this help the museum accomplish for itself organizationally and second, what does it accomplish for the audience?

Internally, defining a set of learning assets:

•          Creates a shared strategic and organizational context for all learning assets. Each asset has a distinct and significant contribution to make to the organization’s strategic and learning interests. Aligning assets on one strategic platform assures they all focus on advancing those interests.  

•           Establishes a framework for accountability. Responsibility for delivering learning value follows the asset by: calibrating organizational impacts to each asset and its capacities and opportunities; organizing staff for work; and allocating and managing resources.

•           Strengthens interdependence and interaction among learning assets. Clarifying that there are, in fact, learning assets and what they are makes each more valuable. Defining the contribution of each asset positions all of them for interaction by pointing out ways they can work with, support, and enhance one another.  

A museum’s valued and complementary learning resources help:

•           Serve the full audience and age range. Every learning asset does not have to serve the full audience or age range. Certain assets can serve targeted audience and age segments well. Together all of the assets can serve the audience fully.

•           Serve the audience with choice. Multiple assets increase the number and range of activities to assist learners in customizing their visit to interests, time, visitor group, and relationship with the museum.

•           Assist learners in extending and deepening their learning and play experiences. Managing learning assets to afford specific opportunities makes it easier for learners to build on an experience, follow-up on an activity in greater depth, explore interesting content through a new format, or experience a different perspective.

Working Assets

Defining a museum’s learning assets is a good start, but knowing their qualities and contributions is important to putting assets to work. I find four reference points helpful to consider: context, comparability, complementarity, and capacity.

1830's Log Home at Madison Children's Museum

•    Context explores an asset relative to the museum’s strategic and learning interests and to other assets. Consider the garden in relation to exhibits. What does it accomplish that an indoor exhibit does not? How important is the garden in providing first-hand experiences with naturally occurring seasonal cycles and changes important to the museum’s mission?

•     Comparability refers to the relative size of the assets. There can be wide variability among assets. In one museum a theater might be a program space for weekly performances; in another it might have a full schedule of live theater and demonstrations that explore current issues through science with students and the general public. Size is not only physical space or audience numbers. An asset may have staff assigned to it, a strong identity among constituents, or a recognized expertise for the museum.

•      Complementarity is the usefully different aspect of each necessary and valued resource through which a museum delivers learning value. Push on distinctions to probe what’s distinct and how it serves the other assets; a museum school is an on-going learning community with a continuity among students and teachers that programs do not have. Research on inquiry learning conducted in the museum's research center can be delivered through the teacher institute or programs; research on collections can inform exhibit planning.

Science Park at New York Hall of Science

•     Capacity is the asset’s ability to make an impact on or for learners or the community. Impacts­–or positive changes the museum believes are possible–are not easy to define. Still it’s helpful to keep a broad view of learning, be clear about the nature of the impact, and relate it to the organization’s long-term, intended impacts. How will the teacher institute reduce the achievement (or readiness) gap among students?

There are more ways to work a museum’s assets. Recently I heard from a science museum and library that I worked with 2 years to develop a learning framework that described 4 learning assets: exhibits; programs; collections and library; and the house and grounds. We also developed an exhibit master plan. The museum is now completing a program plan that describes the audience, vision, strategies, results areas, and impacts for programs. A collections plan is in the queue for 2012 and will be followed by an updated building and grounds plan. In addition to developing a plan for each asset that looks at and explores these assets at close range, the museum is using the 4 assets for budgeting and funding requests.

Your Museum’s Learning Assets

Size up your museum’s learning assets. Look around the museum to get a sense of where and how the learning assets are coming through on your website, in the organizational structure, the budget, and vocabulary. Think about the following.

•           How does your museum look at and talk about its exhibits, programs, outreach, film and   multi-media program, or resource center?

•            What are your museum’s leaning assets?

•           How do you define exhibits at your museum as a learning asset? or programs as a learning asset?

•           How does this help internally to strengthen these areas and encourage collaboration?

•           How has it benefitted your audience? your community?

Related Museum Notes Posts

• Learning Assets Part 1

A Museum’s Learning Assets - Part 1

Museums deliver learning value through exhibits and how many other ways? (California Academy of Sciences)

Exhibits and programs are the primary way museums and science centers deliver learning experiences and learning value.

And so are collections. So is film and multimedia programming. And also a school, a garden, or an historic building. What about a library? A teacher institute? Outreach or an aquarium?

Identifying the different ways museums are educationally valuable may start off easily enough. But the list quickly expands; more possibilities are found and more distinctions are made. If you’ve encountered this, you know it’s not easy. You should also know, it’s not uncommon.

Several years ago I developed a learning framework and exhibit plan with a museum that was experiencing multiple challenges. It re-opened at a new site just after 9-11 and it was undergoing multiple leadership transitions. Our planning process was a natural playing field for the tensions among exhibits, programs, and a museum/charter school the museum operated. In the course of planning, we needed to describe the primary ways in which the museum would implement its broad educational goals to serve its visitors, students, and community. It was tense with an impending sense of winners and losers; was the school really part of the museum? were programs being recognized for what they brought to the museum experience?

Four Small Words 

We avoided a seemingly inevitable hierarchy in what now seems like an obvious solution. We designated all three areas as valued and complementary assets through which the museum delivers learning value. In the end the plan’s legacy was not its pedagogical framework or exhibit concepts but the recognition that the museum needed all three of its learning assets. And they needed one another.

A family art program (Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose)

Identifying a museum’s learning assets also proved to be useful in developing a learning plan for 2-1/2 recently merged museums. Not only did each museum bring its valued assets to the new entity, but the new museum needed a single–and shared–set of learning assets to move forward. This approach has worked for a very established science center and museum with a planetarium and nature center as well as exhibits and programs; for a start-up children’s museum; and for an expanding science center.

Given their versatility and tested diplomatic capacity, learning assets have become a standard part of the strategic and learning planning I do with museums.

Learning Resources as Assets 
Learning assets serve as overarching objectives for accomplishing a museum’s long-term strategic or learning interests.  They may be referred to differently to fit a museum’s existing vocabulary. Some museums refer to them as learning platforms, others as learning resources.

The term assets, however, highlights useful dimensions for understanding and managing this accumulated value for a museum. Exhibits, programs, collections, gardens, historic structures, to name just some learning resources, are financial assets. Some, such as exhibits, are significant sources of revenue. Museums also invest in them on an on-going basis: hiring and supporting staff, developing expertise, and making new acquisitions.

The learning value of exhibits, gardens, a library, or a school should be considered as well. They attract audiences and engage specific visitor segments in targeted ways. They carry content, cultural heritage, and community stories. They embed the museum’s experiential brand and distinguish it from other venues that serve the same audiences.

Learning assets clearly also reflect museums as multidimensional learning and community resources. Although virtually all museums have exhibits, they are not just a bunch of exhibits. A planetarium is not just a “component;” programs are not simply a service. Thinking of them narrowly limits leveraging their format, media, content, or type of interaction to engage learners in pursuing interests, practicing skills, appreciating their heritage, or building a sense of community. In fact, when a museum views its exhibits and programs as a set of learning assets, or perhaps a portfolio of assets, it has a greater opportunity to impact learners and the community.

Defining Assets

Mill City Museum (Minneapolis): Building as artifacts as learning asset

After quickly deciding that exhibits and programs are learning assets, determining what else should be included can take some time. Lively discussions are ahead for the museum that explores whether its building is a learning asset as it is for The Bakken Museum or might be for the California Academy of Sciences. Could Lake Champlain be a learning asset for ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center? Should a museum’s website or social media be a learning asset? 

To identify assets and understand why they are valuable, ask: how does this resource advance our museum’s learning and strategic interests?  What are the particular learning interests it advances and how? Be specific, be concrete; give examples; back up with as much evidence as you have.

While the intent of this exercise is not to eliminate assets, it's possible there will be some reshuffling. Is the garden an exhibit or part of the house and grounds? Is science park an exhibit?  It's also possible the more limited value of some resources may become apparent to everyone; what is the recycling center accomplishing for us? This process may also help a museum recognize it has more learning assets than it thought it had.

Garden or exhibit? Greensboro Children's Museum's Edible Garden   

So far I have mentioned 15 various learning assets (in blue) that I know of in particular museums, although no one museum has all of them. Quantity aside, what counts for a learning asset in one museum may not register as one at another.

There’s no recipe for describing learning assets. It's important, however, to define them in parallel ways, emphasize what distinguishes each, and insist on the valued and complementary nature of these assets. An example for exhibits and for programs illustrates brevity, parallel construction, and distinctions.

Exhibits engage children and adults in self-directed, shared learning experiences through hands-on, bodies-on, and minds-on interaction in rich, experiential settings. 

Programs provide children and adults with special access to media, tools, objects, and processes through focused and facilitated experiences by prepared staff, volunteers, artists, scientists, and specialists.

One of several libraries at Seattle Art Museum

Both these learning assets mention the same audience. This isn’t always the case; a research library might serve local, national, and international scholars. Each asset does distinguish itself in the nature of the engagement it offers. Exhibits offer self-directed experiences while programs offer facilitated, or face-to-face experiences. Facilitated experiences allow special access to fragile objects (or hot glue guns) whereas the rich experiential settings of exhibits encourage physical interaction. These descriptions reflect the museum’s mission in general, although, they could do so more explicitly.

Definitions vary in length from one museum to another as does the territory they cover.  What's important is being clear about the capacity of different assets to deliver value and contribute to a cohesive set that works together. 

So, once you get this far, then what? Join me next week. I'll look at benefits of using learning assets.

Related Museum Notes Posts

• Learning Assets, Part 2

Wonder Years: The Story of Early Childhood Development

Wonder Years: The Story of Early Childhood Development, an exhibition from the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) should be in a mall. I mean that in a good way and as a sincere compliment.

The exhibition presents the science of young children’s development and insights into their everyday learning from the world around them and places both in a larger social and civic context. A clear long-term community interest is expressed in an ambitious goal: “Ensure that all children benefit from the growing body of knowledge about the science of early childhood development and get the best start in life.”

While the exhibition works in the Museum’s 4^th floor Human Body gallery, a mall setting would bring this message to a broader audience and further build on the Museum’s mission: Turn on the science: realizing the potential of policymakers, educators, and individuals to achieve full civic and economic participation in the world.

 My interest in the strong children-strong communities connection I’ve written about previously drew me to explore Wonder Years three times from March to late June. The first time I participated in an SMM tour for Minnesota Association of Museums and heard from Project Leader, Laurie Fink, about the exhibition. I spent an afternoon on my own exploring Wonder Years and a third time, I ducked in to it with a friend prior to visiting Tutankhamun.

SMM and its partners have managed the challenge of creating an engaging visitor experience with a serious public message. Alignment of a solid conceptual approach with its intended audience, a varied experiential mix, and a robust community platform is deliberate and strong.

The exhibition and related programs and events is a partnership among SMM, the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) at the University of Minnesota, and Public Agenda, a non-partisan engagement organization. Funding is from the National Science Foundation.

Reaching a Broad Audience

A Wonder Years flyer identifies the intended audience as teens and adults, parents and non-parents, anyone with a child,  was a child, or lives in a community with young children. In short, the audience is intended to be everyone. On each of my visits I saw a variety of visitors and visiting groups. There were 3-generation families, parent-child pairs, families with young children and with children of very different ages, groups of teens, groups of young adults, and young couples.

Some of these and future visitors may also be policy makers and community leaders. Very likely, many adults in the exhibition have a major role in the lives of young children–their own children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews; young neighbors, students, or youth volunteers. These relationships provide strong personal connections to exhibition content. As a neighbor, volunteer, mentor, caregiver, voter, and taxpayer, virtually every adult has a citizen’s interest in children’s current well-being and potential. Children’s experiences today shape their capacity as adults to work and take part in the community; this is the source of a community’s future vitality and resilience.

The flyer also makes clear that Wonder Years intends to reach and engage members of the community more broadly through public programs as noted below. These will undoubtedly draw in members from other parts of the community. Yet, broad and varied as visitors to SMM are and as inclusive as related programs are, a mall would undoubtedly provide a broader audience.

A Solid Conceptual Approach

The exhibition brings together recent research on early brain development, insights into how young children learn from the world about them, and a perspective on early childhood development as a common interest. 

A positive view of young children as strong, competent, and born to learn comes through clearly. Focusing on children's remarkable accomplishments before they even enter school and highlighting the great promise of the first years of life, the exhibition does establish early childhood as the Wonder Years. Overall it avoids clichés about young children and presenting them as cute. Large images of children on photo banners show them playing, engaging in everyday exploration, talking, touching, and laughing, hugging and being held. These images express and reinforce messages about the importance of positive relationships, active engagement with the world, and early language experiences. Occasionally the gleeful laughter of a laughing baby video can be heard and it is delightful.

Four key messages organize exhibition content and guide lay-out. The interests and perspectives of researchers, experts, parents, young children, and citizens intersect with areas and activities and reinforce the messages.

•             How scientists learn about children’s development looks at pioneers of child development research, how scientists study young children, and some questions that interest researchers.

•             What is happening in early development explores the role of early experience in shaping the brain and brain architecture; early language experience and the brain; and early social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development milestones.

•             How young children learn from the world around them highlights some of the amazing feats of early learning, the role of vision in language development, and the importance of play.

•             The impact each of us has on the healthy development of our youngest citizens brings together the impact of strong and positive relationships, the importance of everyday moments, and the contribution of many hands to the experiences children need for the best start in life. 

An important principle in early development comes across consistently throughout the exhibition but it is not made explicit. Interaction is critical and constant: interaction among developmental domains (physical, social, emotional, etc.), between children and the environment; and  interactions with parents, other caregivers, and others involved in children's lives.

Experience As Message

Wonder Years takes on and meets challenges many exhibitions face in translating information rich topics into active experiences without compromising content. It covers recent research, technical information on brain development, and hard to visualize processes of language acquisition and development. Resisting the temptations of extensive text, Wonder Years forges a fresh mix of familiar formats and creative strategies to present content experientially.

Videos, biological specimens, microscopes, quizzes, puzzles, and games familiar in many exhibitions are used well here. There are opportunities to hear what experts say, set-ups for conversation, and an invitation to record opinions on issues. Content is accessible and presented in both English and Spanish in text and videos. The writing style is generally clear and engaging and sometimes crisp, like “Experience is the brain’s electrician.”

How pruning makes the brain more efficient

At components like Connections Shape the Brain, text, images, and a relevant instrument or model work smoothly together. Illustrating how pruning makes the brain more efficient, flashing lights show the path a message might take as it travels through the brain of a toddler, a child, and a teen. A mother comparing the three ages told her 5-ish year old son, “That’s’ why we do things over and over again. So we can do them faster.”

What the exhibition does exceedingly well is to power exhibition messages with visitor activity, sometimes getting inside the experience of a researcher, a parent, even a baby. This parallels the critical importance of experience for early brain development; “Experience shapes the brain,” one text panel notes. Similarly, engaging in conversations, tasks, role-play, and perspective taking affords a first-hand experience.

"We are going to do an experiment."

 Children’s activity sometimes becomes the exhibit. I saw parents test their child’s “theory of mind” or being able to understand that others have their own thoughts and feelings. Saying, “We’re going to do an experiment with you, Kayla.” a mother settled in at the table and guided her 2-year old daughter through the test. 

The child's activity becomes the exhibit.

In the exhibition’s pretend kitchen, children climbed on the stool at the sink, turned on faucets, and washed dishes. Well-positioned text panels cued parents on opportunities for language, interaction, and how these support a child’s development for precisely those child behaviors they might see. Nearby, children as well as adults looked through a set of three goggles that allowed them to see like a baby sees at birth, at 1 month, and at 3 months.

Seeing as newborns and infants see.

The exhibition design is not as strong as the content. Occasionally it detracts from the experience and messages. Multiple exits and entries interrupt the flow serving as paths between the building's elevators and stairs. White text on pale blue panels renders text almost unreadable. One video is mysteriously placed at about 8 feet above the floor. Finally, design styles, particularly color palettes, differ between areas and feel as if they came from separate designers or even projects.

 

Community Platform

Wonder Years is framed as a project with an exhibition. Its strong and complementary partners are key to this configuration. They combine expert content, experienced public engagement, and a recognized public venue.

A slate of community programs has significant, although less obvious, presence than the exhibition–certainly for museum visitors. Nevertheless, they are planned to actively engage members of the community in considering what the science of early development means to us as individuals, to our communities, and to our youngest citizens.

• Citizen Conferences were held in the Twin Cities and in Greater Minnesota in May 2011. For parents, early childhood advocates, state and local policymakers, and interested community members and citizens, the focus on these half-day working sessions was to explore society’s responsibility to children birth to 5 years.
• Issue Conventions are intended to encourage smaller groups of organizations and community groups to explore how the exhibition and programs can further their efforts at educating others and expanding networks.
• Public Forums in Fall 2011 will bring experts and community members together for public presentations and conversations on the scientific findings and their implications for families and communities.

The partnership mix also suggests how seriously SMM is taking its goal for all children to benefit from the growing body of knowledge about the science of early childhood development and to get the best start in life.

Wonder Years is an engaging and responsible look at a critical social issue: the early development of children, their future capacity, and the ultimate strength of our communities. I think this makes Wonder Years a great exhibit to see at the mall. I hope you get to see it there. 

Resources

•            Gopnik, Alison; A. Meltzoff and P. A. Kuhl. (1999). The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. William Morrow & Co: New York.

•            Hart, B. and T. R. Risely (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co: Baltimore, MD.

•             Schonkoff, Jack P. and D. A. Phillips (Ed.) (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. National Academy Press: Washington, DC.

Collective Wisdom for Starting and Growing Museums

Skyline at Chicago Children's Museum (Eileen Ruan Photograhy ©2011)

A great new tool set is now available and on-line to help power dreams of starting museums for children. It’s the Association of Children’s Museum’s Collective Vision Toolkit for Starting and Sustaining a Children’s Museum.

I can only imagine how starting Madison Children’s Museum might have progressed 30+ years ago had we had had the Collective Vision Toolkit. I’m pretty sure it would have been easier and faster and we would have gotten some things right sooner. That’s probably true as well for other efforts to start hundreds of children’s museums across the country and around the world over the last 30 years.

The Collective Vision Toolkit is a priceless on-line resource of collective wisdom from people who have started museums, lead new museums, and grown museums to become recognized and valued community resources. While I’ve helped start a children’s museum, work as a museum planner with emerging children’s museums, and worked on this Toolkit, I’m still finding new and useful resources and learning new things inside the toolkit.

The idea for an on-line resource that could provide the basics for every start-up came from an anonymous donor and a true friend of children’s museums. In 2008 the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) began thinking about possible content and format. The next year, it handed off development to Mary Maher, Editor of Hand To Hand and Collective Vision, John Noonan, Executive Director at GreatLake Children’s Museum , and me.

The Toolkit is an ACM members only resource currently available on a demo site for ACM’s new website and available through the summer. Check it out at: www.childrensmuseums.org

Getting to Know the Toolkit

The Toolkit is accessible, conveniently organized, and multi-layered. Toolkit topics are just what you would expect and, perhaps, more important, would hope for in navigating new territory with a group of friends or a fledgling board to plan a museum for children. Topics range from the nitty gritty of getting tax-exempt status to a more philosophical meander through learning in museums. Topic titles such as Site Selection and Marketing are straight-forward. When a topic like Founding Governance does require some unpacking, it’s expanded: Gathering the people and building the structure to govern your museum.

Twelve topics move in a general sequence from the earliest glimmer of, “Let’s start a children’s museum” to opening the doors and considering what comes next. Steps are a clear, intuitive organizing principle. As a step-based approach the Toolkit is still both process oriented and flexible. Reinforcing this, Mary encourages both a beginning-to-end pathway and a pick-and-choose approach in her Toolkit introduction. The Case Studies in the final section, Opening the Doors, demonstrate this in being valuable for a museum at any stage of the process.

Each topic has three sections: an overview, common questions, and resources. The overview starts with highlights of what a museum has typically accomplished when it is at this step. It’s followed by a checklist for moving forward and by some of the sub-steps and issues likely at this point. This is a great set-up for the resources that follow: templates of standard documents, sample letters and policies, links to more online resources and organizations, and a bibliography. The FAQ’s handle perennial questions and address complicated or sensitive situations that arise over the course of any journey.

While valuable for starting any museum, these materials are customized for children’s museums. This is helpful in the somewhat specialized areas of early learning and hands-on exhibits.

Collective Wisdom

Something may seem amiss in calling this blog entry: Collective Wisdom for Starting and Growing Museums. After all, Collective Vision is the well-known title of ACM’s 1997 publication. Its collected advice from those who have created children’s museums addresses a full range of considerations for others on a similar path. In 14 years it has become a touchstone among museum leaders, more than a few of who have used it as a resource to start or expand a museum. 

This same collective wisdom and more is present in the Toolkit. Questions posted on ChildMus and years’ of helpful responses are covered. Should we hire professional fundraisers? Or, someone has offered us a great space for free in a mall/other location; should we take it? A synthesis of current thinking and practice provides background on and orientation to topics like fundraising, budgets, and staff and volunteers.

As an on-line resource, however, the Toolkit is even more a product of collective wisdom. Links to BoardSource, Guidestar, the Kellogg Foundation Communication Toolkitand dozens more organizations connect to their focused wisdom.

Within a rich range of resources are what I consider working tools: ready-to-use templates, like “Board Phone Log for Donor Thank You Outreach” and “Museum Trustee Evaluation” (with a place for a museum’s logo). They have been road tested by John Noonan who most generously has shared sample documents, templates, and forms. His collection has justifiably been called a goldmine. At past Emerging Museums Pre-conferences John provided templates on a CD. These CD’s were such great resources that afterwards he continued to not only get requests for them, but also received e-mails thanking him for them.

Starting Museums

Besides providing valuable content for starting a museum, the Toolkit is a helpful guide about the nature of the start-up process itself. Although steps in starting a museum are sequential, they are not automatic. The case studies illustrate this with variations in the sequence of a fairly standard process. Site selection, for instance, may happen earlier in the process as an opportunity or later when many pieces are in place and having a location is needed for fundraising to really kick in.

“At this point there is…” followed by a list of key accomplishments relevant to each step actively reaches out to folks navigating this new territory. I was delighted when John introduced this format. It orients and provides a simple diagnostic of whether this is the right step and whether the museum is ready. Is there a board ready to carry the mission to the next level? Are the articles of incorporation filed with the state? Is there a letter confirming your existence? If these and a few other conditions are met, it’s the right time to take the step. On the other hand, if many or most of these conditions aren’t completed, the museum isn’t ready. A close look at those conditions helps determine where to place effort.

“At this point” and “key accomplishments” often refer to other steps in the Toolkit and reflect the inherent interconnectedness of decisions. The checklist for “Moving Forward” extends a helping hand by addressing important accomplishments to focus on at each step. In Staff and Volunteers, a museum is advised to use the strategic business plan and museum master plan to determine the key positions to fill and in what order. Equally important, suggested actions point to the value of thinking of ahead: “Lay the foundation for a positive organizational culture and climate.”

The Collective Vision Toolkit has a strong and natural connection to ACM’s Emerging Museums Pre-conference at InterActivity. Both are ACM services to start-up member museums. Some Toolkit material was prepared for and presented by John, me, and others at past pre-conferences. The Toolkit also has significant potential value as structure and content for the Emerging Museums Pre-conference. In turn, the Pre-conference can become a vehicle for developing and gathering more and current resources, and updating the Toolkit annually.

Growing Museums

The Toolkit is not just for emerging museums. Even experienced executive directors leading museums of every size need to re-ground in areas over the years. Filing for non-profit status happens just once in an organization’s life. But board development and reviewing the mission statement is needed every year-or-so. Revisiting exhibit planning can be valuable before any large project. The Toolkit helps in getting oriented, finding resources, and preparing for work. 

Links to other ACM resources also broaden the Toolkit’s usefulness to more kinds of museums and museums at different stages of development. Building and Exhibits links to the ACM Product and Resources List, to Green Exhibits, and to Healthy Kids, Healthy Museums publication. Staff and Volunteers links to ACM’s HR Support Toolkit.

Established museums share similarities with start-up museums at different times. In preparing to grow or change in a significant way, a museum needs many of the same resources that a start-up museum needs. As a museum explores relocating, expanding at its current site, launching a capital campaign, or rethinking its exhibits, it faces many of the same questions, processes, and challenges as a museum starting up. When a major project is complete, that museum is inexperienced in its new context very much like a new museum.  Having worked with museums that are expanding and reinventing themselves, I know the Toolkit has relevant resources for guiding and strengthening them as they navigate change.

The Toolkit is full of spot-on advice for museums preparing for change, increasing capacity, or trying to meet annual goals. One piece of advice tops my list: “Though different people have different roles, fundraising is everyone's responsibility.”  

Toolkit With a Future

The Toolkit was designed with a flexible format. Individual sections and forms can be updated and added. Updating is not only standard in an on-line world, but also reflects the reality in which museums start and grow. Museums interact with a dynamic environment; practices evolve; established museums take risks and learn; and new tools like ACM’s Benchmarking Calculator are developed. These and other changes can and should be integrated with the Toolkit. New case studies should highlight emerging trends.

When Minnesota Children’s Museum built its new building in 1993-1995, I read and re-read (and re-read) a 1986 draft of a case study of Boston Children’s Museum moving to Museum Wharf in 1976 - 1979 by Elaine Gurian. I think the Toolkit is that kind of resource for others. And more.  As an on-line tool, it’s fast, current, updatable, with direct links to vast resources. Those qualities and the possibility of children’s museums for more communities will make The Toolkit the must-have, often-used, and ever-referenced resource.

The more the Toolkit is used and added to, the stronger, more useful it becomes. I encourage you to visit the Toolkit. Think about and share with me, ACM, and others, your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.

Add to the collective wisdom.

•                  Are resources you have found helpful included in the Toolkit?

•                  What resources would you like to see added?

•                  Do you know of any resources that are specific to children’s museums to add?

•                  Are there sections that can it be stronger?

•                  Are there more ways the Toolkit can relate to the other tools, such as Collective Vision?

Ready for Play

“Do you want to make mud with me?”

I was flattered at this invitation from a four year old girl at the recent opening of the nature play area at Tamarack Nature Center in White Bear, MN. It was just one of many expressions of enthusiasm, excitement, and delight from the hundreds of children, parents, grandparents, and neighbors who welcomed the addition of a regional resource for outdoor play.

Located about 20 minutes north of downtown St Paul, Tamarack Nature Center is in the process of transforming itself from a traditional nature center to a community resource in the region’s well-being infrastructure. This has come about through a fundamental rethinking of experiences in and with nature that Ramsey County Parks and Recreation has undertaken over the past 7 years. The nature play area, occupying approximately half an acre of the 320-acre nature center site, is the first of several planned destinations for discovery.

Work starts immediately on gathering stones and damming the water.

This is a kind of “nature’s backyard” where children can play freely, explore the outdoors, and connect with the natural world. These play environments hearken to the wood lots, fields, stream edges, and rocky outcroppings where generations of children have played and that now surface in  environmental autobiographies. The area’s stream system, rock walls and caves, logs and hollows, gardens, and (naturally) mud play was designed by MIG, a Berkeley CA firm that plans, designs, and manages children’s environments and programs.

The space isn’t perfect. It’s not entirely natural; it’s not completely finished; and the first year plantings haven’t taken hold. But as a nature’s backyard it works. It is a great big invitation to children to play. As I watched them explore the areas, children were up to their elbows and knees in all forms of nature play and loving it, in spite of the unseasonably cool weather that morning. And while adults worry that children aren’t playing and don’t know how to play, these children were active and engaged. They explored, took risks, got dirty, and completely soaked. They worked with other children, tried out ideas, and had fun.

These children showed they know how to play. Given our concerns about how children are playing outdoors, we might follow their cues about what happens when the get outside and play.

Water–pumping, pouring, swishing, sprinkling, splashing

Sand, dirt, and water call to children. The 4 year-old girl that I met probably doesn’t often spend time in or with mud. But she knew what she wanted: mud. Children are drawn to the feel of water, the brush of sand, and the squish of mud. The roll of gravel, the heft of rocks, and the rough of bark are inviting, interesting, suggestive textures. They are qualities that  define the loose parts that children roll, move, lift, carry, pile, and stack. They enhance the possibilities of objects and they multiply the possibilities of play.

A climbing adventure physical, imaginary

Place matters in play. Outdoors or in, children’s play is grounded in a place. Children shape spaces, name places, spin stories, add details, and navigate prominent features. In nature’s backyard, children quickly responded to place-making features and set about transforming places. They changed the stream’s flow, used the rock ledge for lookouts, balanced on logs and leapt into imaginary lagoons. Varied environments afford varied types of play, play that is suggested by landmarks, inspired by great vantage points, incorporates interesting vegetation, hides in enclosures, and conquers open spaces with running. 

Toddler smarts and persistence control water flow.

Children are smart about play. Watching toddlers and tweens and in betweens scamper across the streamscape, it was apparent that they were alert to where to find rocks, handfuls of gravel, sticks, and leaves to float. An 18 month old toddler figured out in-no-time-at-all how to activate the water flow (and flood the sand pit) by tapping on a domed valve. Children’s observations, repetition, trial and error, and cooperation relocated dirt, flooded areas, and got things done.

Play connects children with children. Connections between children and across ages happen during play. Undoubtedly some of these children knew each other beforehand; some were siblings. But many moments I observed involved children meeting up and starting to play. Two boys started to create a dam in the same place in the stream; they started working together. A younger boy couldn’t move the pump handle and some tweens gave him a hand. Two toddlers rushed to the giant bucket and dragged it through the sand. Older children watched out for younger children. 

Logrolling grandma and her fans.

Play inspires talk and stories (and literacy) One grandmother thrilled her grandchildren by challenging them to stand on a big fallen log so she could rock them off the log.  As she did so, she explained the finer points of log rolling. Her grandchildren begged her to repeat not only the description of logrolling but trying to roll them off. Stories and scenarios took shape along the stream and at the mud table. I overheard children saying “I know what this could be…”, “Let’s pretend we are lost,…” and “Have you found the magic stone?”

Ready for play.

Children complete the landscape. A few woodsy edges remain in this newly created and recently planted play area. While planting the site had been going on over the last two months and intensified just before the opening, plants had barely taken hold. What had looked like a sparsely planted area before the gates opened became lush and full of life when children filled in and animated the landscape with movement, flashes of color, and a symphony of sounds.  

Children are ready for play. They may not be getting as much open-ended and outdoor play as we would like for them. But from what I saw, children know just what to do in a loosely structured, material rich, wide open outdoor space. 

An acre is not necessary. Neither is a completely wild place, nor is a comprehensively designed environment. But children do need ready access to a place and a time to play outdoors. And they need frequent opportunities to do so. It could be their own backyard or the neighbors’, behind the garage, under a tree, or in a big puddle.

With reluctance I passed on the tempting invitation to make mud with the friendly 4 year old but not before I introduced her to two 13 year-old girls who were enjoying the mud themselves.

Resources

• Children and Nature: www.childrenandnature.org/

• Progressiveearlychildhoodeducation.blogspot.com/2011/06/
ideas-for-adding-natural-elements-to_18.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&
amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LetTheChildrenPlay+(let+the+children+play)

• Children in Nature Collaborative: www.cincbayarea.org/