Museum Project Team

nternally, we have created a dedicated five person team to ensure the successful completion of the project. This team is comprised of:

• Lucas Skorczeski, (Project Manager) Director of Early Childhood Education & Parent Resources
• Neil Gordon, Chief Executive Officer
• Denise LeBlanc, Director of Learning Experiences
• Steve Roake, Exhibit & Facilities Director
• Cara Lonardo-Roy, Director of Visitor Experiences

This team is scheduled to meet every other week and additionally as needed. Additional staff will be involved on different elements of the project, but this core group will stay consistent throughout the three project. The focus of meetings thus far has boiled down to three main components: messages, methods, and environments.

Messages

This is an issue that differs from many of the existing exhibits found at the Museums and at many children’s museums in general. Historically, we have been more focused on creating creative and memorable experiences with objects and phenomena, and much less concerned on what specific knowledge an individual is leaving with. This exhibit hopes to make several key takeaways explicit to visitors. These specific learning objectives will be shaped by our evaluators and advisors (to be introduced in a later post), but could include some of the following ideas:

• Recognition that verbal and nonverbal turn-taking can profoundly impact a child’s early brain growth (serve & return)
• Ability to observe subtle indicators that provide insight into children’s cognitive processes
• Capacity to initiate communication through research-based strategiesand respond to their children’s verbal and non-verbal communication

Methods

Given that we are handling messaging in a different way, we also need to examine the methods in which we are communicating. This messaging may be presented via signs, photographs, staff interactions, or environmental cues. Specifically we are reviewing:

• Documentation as inspired by the Reggio style pedagogy to help parents see themselves as researchers, capturing images and observations of children’s learning in order to understand the child’s point of view and cognitive processes.
• Staff modeling of appropriate behaviors as learned through a series of training sessions
• Use of technology such as LENA to measure number of conversational exchanges between child and parent.
• Meet-up groups to share observations and confirm children’s actions
• Feedback in person or via Web from professionals such as Brazelton Institute at Boston Children’s Hospital or Harvard Medical School.
• Signage which limits direct questions and instructions in favor of text meant to be read aloud as conversation starters and descriptors of the child’s action and surroundings

Environments

As a flip from our regular design process where we are more likely to start with an exhibit idea and then work in the interactions and content, the built environment will follow the aforementioned Message and Methods. Thankfully, we have as a resource over 300 children’s museums across the country to draw experience from and our own 33 year history of designing and building interactive exhibits. We will review existing gallery spaces, particularly those which have undergone thorough reviews or evaluations, such as:

Playscape at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

PlaySpace at Boston Children's Museum

Habitot at Minnesota Children's Museum

Place for Threes and Younger at Children’s Museum of Phoenix

Questions to the Community

What are good examples of exhibits specifically for children 0-3 that you have seen?

Do you know of examples of evaluation done around signage that is available online?