** Reply to note from Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>         Mon, 18 Nov 1996 08:11:16 +0200
The best information about learning information that I've
run across is in visitor studies literature.  Falk &
Dierking's THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE is a good introduction.
A non-museum literature piece is "What they saw at the
Holocaust Museum" an article in the New York Times
Magazine about interviews with visitors upon leaving that
museum--very interesting.  I don't have the citation
right in front of me, but can look it up if you're
interested.

The key to learning in the informal environment as well
as the nonformal environment is being able to identify
what the visitor's attitudes, social situation is that
they are bringing into the museum.  Falk & Dierking is a
great model for trying to understand that.  In nonformal
education you have a facilitator/leader who can
constantly work/monitor what the visitor is bringing with
the content of the program and adapt it because for any
learning to be successful you have to reach the learner
where they are and work to introduce new information.
Nonformal education can tailor learning to the individual
much easier than informal education in exhibits.  Hoping
for paradigm shifts from exhibits is a VERY TALL order
because the mediator (facilitator) is not there and the
exhibit is having to pick up the load not only of the
content, but of monitoring where and what the visitor's
attitudes are coming in.  Formative and front-end
evaluations are very helpful in that regard, but changing
or even presenting the visitor with new information in an
exhibit is difficult--not impossible--but a lot more
complicated and unpredictable.  The social structure of
groups is also important and what goes on in them is
usually the passing of more misinformation than
information, but learning in exhibitions is a social
process of people comparing what they've seen,
interacting with each other as well as exhibits.  My
theoretical work on this goes back to the popular
education theories of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and
his theory of generative themes.  Learning in exhibits is
still in the infant stage of what we know, but then again
that's what makes it so interesting.

Lynn Norris                 (919) 834-4040
Exploris                    (919) 834-3516 fax
615 Willard Place           [log in to unmask]
Raleigh, NC  27603