Training Goals
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Facilitators will gain a basic understanding of how to identify and operationalize engagement categories.
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Facilitators will practice identifying engagement categories for a specific open-ended exhibit and consider facilitation moves that can be used to shift visitors between engagement categories.
Training Guide
Introduce Practice-Based Facilitation and the training. Welcome participants and introduce Practice Based Facilitation as a framework for educators in informal settings to engage learners in the knowledge-making practices of specific disciplines. This training is focused on one of the facilitation pathways—Change Engagement. In this training participants will learn about how people engage with open-ended exhibits and how a facilitator can deepen that engagement.
Lead the Exhibits Card Sort Activity. Group participants in pairs or small groups and ask them to examine a set of images of museum exhibits and sort them according to the number of ways in which visitors might interact with each exhibit. This can be done in person by printing out the images and having the groups physically sort them into categories. Or the groups can use the "slide sorter" view in google slides and move the slides around. If you opt to have groups use the slide sorter function, each group should make (or be provided with) a copy of the file rather than using a shared file.
Ask each group share their top three exhibits with the greatest number of ways in which visitors might interact. Discuss similarities and differences among groups and how they characterized "ways in which visitors might interact". Define open-ended exhibits as having multiple entry points, multiple ways of interacting, and multiple possible outcomes. Without passing judgement on any of the other types of exhibits, state that we will be focusing on open-ended exhibits as they provide the widest opportunity for visitors to engage in knowledge-making practices.
Identify open-ended exhibits. Describe the difference between open-ended exhibits and not open-ended exhibits using Slide 6 of the training deck. As a group, compile a list of open-ended exhibits in your institution. Discuss what makes them open-ended.
Introduce Engagement Categories. In PBF, facilitators need to deeply understand the ways a visitor might engage with an exhibit and which practices they might use. Introduce engagement categories to the participants using the Roll-it-Wall exhibit example provided.
Show the seven videos of visitors engaging with the Roll-it-Wall (Slide 10) and ask participants to make a few notes about each video regarding the type of engagement they observe. In the case of the more complex tracks, the engagement is too long so the videos are just of completed tracks. Once all seven videos are completed, ask participants to work in small groups to identify the different levels of engagement they saw. Ask them to rank their engagement categories from simple to complex engagement.
Share the example categories MOXI uses for this exhibit (Slides 11-12) and discuss similarities and differences in observations.
Apply engagement categories to an exhibit. In pairs or small groups, ask participants to select an open-ended exhibit from the list compiled earlier and brainstorm the different engagement categories for that exhibit. Encourage participants to go out onto the exhibit floor to observe visitors or engage with the exhibit as if they were visitors.
Ask each group to share out their engagement categories with the group.
Connect back to Practice-Based Facilitation. Now that participants are familiar with the different types of engagement categories various exhibits have, they can frame their facilitation moves to encourage the visitor to either engage in more complex engagement categories or invite a struggling visitor to engage with a simpler engagement level to reduce frustrations.
Ask participants to choose two engagement levels and discuss how they might facilitate a visitor to move between the two engagement categories.
Encourage participants to consider engagement categories when interacting with visitors.
Optional Homework
Encourage participants to consider the engagement categories for other open-ended exhibits in the museum space. Participants should spend time on the floor observing visitors and trying to identify the engagement category that the visitors are using.
Then ask them to try to facilitate at least one interaction by asking a question that would prompt the visitors to engage in a different engagement level.
Have them reflect on this experience and write up what happened during their facilitation attempts.