Thoughts about how we experience and how we learn seminar Museum leads and officers

1. Learning experiences in museums:
A user perspective

2. User
perspective:
For somebody
– not for something!
”Firstly, it is becoming even
clearer that museums have
to manage the problem of
being for somebody within
the jungle of information”
(Hagedorn-Saupe 2013,
p.113)

3. Objects are experienced by people …
Therefore, it makes little sense to design exhibitions for objects
Design exhibitions for people …

4. Museum visitor
Navigators of information jungles

5. Getting
a ticket
Learning conditions: Museum contexts, setting and situations
… can be troublesome

6. Information
overflow
what’s for me?
Learning conditions: Museum context, setting and situations

7. Design challenges
Learning conditions: Museum context, setting and situations

8. Text and reading capability
Average reading speed is 200-230 words per minute with 70% comprehension
Learning conditions: Museum context, setting and situations

9. Restrictions
I think that in general if you as a visitor are presented with dozens
of restrictions in the entrance, the museum just doesn’t feel that
attractive. It is like you think ”argh do I really need this?
(Visitor at The Danish Media Museum, Odense)
Learning conditions: Museum context setting and situations

10. The user perspective
Looking at what people are in terms of their…..
• desires
• worries
• interests
• problems
• motivations
• disbelief
• passion
Narrative knowing
Identity development
Communities of practice

11. Social psychological trends
Museum experience should support visitors to engage objects actively
and to construct personalized meaning in ways that are motivating and
satisfying (Hagedorn-Saupe 2013)
It should reinforce positive self-perception and sense of identity in a
community (Paris 2006, p.264)
Identity-related motivation is becoming more important (Falk 2010)

12. Motivations for
visiting museum
Identities seem to be:
Explorer
Recharger
Facilitator
Professional hobbyist
Experience-seekers
(Falk 2012)

13. What is experience?

14. Experience
The Experience Economy (Pine & Gilmore 1999)
Experiences go beyond goods and services
The cup of coffee:
• Coffee beans (commodity) 2 kroner per cup
• Ground and packaged (goods) 7 kroner per cup
• Brewed coffee (service) 15 kroner per cup
• Coffee shop (experience) 35 kroner per cup
Try out the communication of Baresso on Instagram

15. Experience
Sensing, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling … exploring, playing,
experimenting, investigating, discovering
• A subjective process, as it is seen from the point of view of the
person experiencing. It is also a collective process because when
we experience as individuals we also do so through a socially
structured consciousness (Illeris 2007, p. 128)
• The value of an experience lies within the individual
• People want experiences that change them
(Packer 2013)

16. What is learning experience?
• Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through
the transformation of experience (Kolb 1984, p.38).
• Conscious, immediate experience, as well as the re-experience of
these through recall from memory, are the important and primary
outcomes of leisure an tourist behavior (Mannell and Iso-Ahola
1987, p. 316)
• Experience-based learning involves three aspect of the individual
mind: intellect, feelings and senses (Cohen 2001, p.225)

17. Learning for fun
• In museums, it is not just the
presentation of information that is
important, but the experience that
surrounds it
• Learning for fun is a potentially
transformative experience that many
seek, and others find by accident
• Learning for fun sets museums apart
from both formal educational settings
and other leisure activities
(Packer 2013)

18. Visitors engage in learning because they
enjoy the process of learning itself
• Like window-shoppers who enjoy
shopping, without necessarily buying
anything (Falk)
• Like artists who paint for the sake of
painting, not for the work of art that results
(Csikszentmihalyi)
• The possibility that learning outcomes
may occur almost by accident is what
makes learning for fun alluring
• Under certain conditions, learning is fun –
it does not need to be made to be fun
Learning for fun is kind of playing

19. Learning for fun
Museum visitors engage in learning because it …
92%
92%
64%
60%
37%
36%
35%
22%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
is finding out something I did not know
is an enjoyable way of spending time
is making sense of new information
means finding new ways to look at things
means I can remember information
means knowing how to use information
helps me become a better person
involves concentration and effort
(Packer 2013)

20. Learning for fun
• encompasses a mixture of discovery,
exploration, mental stimulation and
excitement – an active search for
experiences that are new, interesting and
exciting
• sets aside the everyday routines, and
invites people to look closer into
unknown territory
• support or initiate other social interaction
than normal

21. Transformative
learning
• The meaningful and experiental
learning is based on a level of
interest and curiousity in the learner
• Contrasting of power relations and
involvement in divergences
• Capability to use imagination in
seeking meaningfulness
• Challenge of boundaries
• Reflection through some type of
interaction
(Illeris 2013, p.XX)

22. Transformative learning
• It is about self
• Reorganization of
cognitive structures
• Reexperience yourself
• Identity development
This form of learning is more about
accommodation, and less about assimilation
Holstebro stHolstebro st

23. Facilitating transformative learning
• Seeing new things
• Combining thoughts and logics from different fields of reasoning
• Enabling of using imagination
• Thinking out of the box

24. Object and
visitor relation
• The visitor is a central part of
the object
• The visitor creates and
recreates the object
• Built the exhibition up to
enable interaction
• Invite visitors to experience
themselves in new ways
• Social relatedness is bound
capacity of the object

25. Transformative experience and senses

26. Students’ learning experience in digital art
workshops
• School class visits to the ARKEN Museum of
Modern Art and The National Gallery of
Denmark
• Workshop last three hours
• Dialogue about art works
and exhibition theme
• Students produce audio podcasts
• Target group is 13-19 year olds
• Workshop aim to facilitate students’
reflections about identity, social or cultural
themes and issues in the exhibition

27. Museum Education Department interests
What impacts the learning outcome?
How can we measure and interprete effects of selected central factor
in learning?
Conditional
factors
Visitor
engagement
Learning
outcome

28. Understanding learning
Social interaction
Incentives
Content
The general perspective: ”Learning always to some degree is about these three
factors” (Illeris 2007)

29. Understanding learning experience
Identity
Explanatory
engagement
Learning as
conversational
elaboration
Learning
environment
Socio cultural theory and conversation: ”Learning goes through explanatory
engagement” (Leinhardt & Crowley 1998)

30. Learning experience and reflection in art
education
Findings from phd project Student learning experience in digital workshops (Kobbernagel
2013)

31. Facilitating reflections
• Invite people to share
• Your ears are the most important tools when you want to educate,
teach or facilitate learning
• Use the things people are saying

32. Conclusion
• Design for people
• Look at experience
• Learning for fun
• Transformative learning
• Facilitate reflection

33. Thank you