Katherine Rose's Discussion on Informal Learning in a Museum Setting

CULTURAL LEARNING AND THE FUTURE OF MUSEUM EDUCATION – SOME THOUGHTS FROM INDIA

Katherine RoseFounder Director, Flow India, New Delhi

Director, Flow Associates, London

CULTURAL LEARNING AND THE FUTURE OF MUSEUM EDUCATION – SOME THOUGHTS FROM INDIA

Katherine RoseFounder Director, Flow India, New Delhi

Director, Flow Associates, London

Flow theory & a model of learning

Definitions: formal &informal education

The rise of social and open learning

• Opportunity for self-directed, lifelong learning has exponentially increased

• Opportunity for creating non-hierarchical learning communities exists in a way it never did before

• Permanently changed relationship with knowledge and facts: the google/wikipedia effect

• This is bringing about a shift in the relationship between learner and traditional knowledge provider i.e. a school or museum. They are no longer the sole guardians or ‘imparters’ of knowledge.

Characteristics of 21st century learning

• Active• Enquiry-based• Collaborative• Participatory• Creative• Connected to research• Connected to real world= Focus on aptitude development

and fostering appetite for learning rather than simply knowledge acquisition.

Flipped learning & engaged learning

Development of museum learning in UK

Who is involved in cultural learning?

The cultural & creative capabilities of LEARNERS

The RESOURCES:the cultural & creative organisations or practitioners, that enrich it

The MEDIATORS, or TEACHERS(who include parents/carers), who tap the resources and develop the competenciesof learners.

LEARNING PROCESS

Defining dimensions of cultural learning

PRACTICE: Learning and practicing the skills of creativity (making and thinking)

ACCESSING CULTURE: Learning across the curriculum enhanced by cultural and creative stimuli and resources

ENRICHMENT: The approach might vary with context and veer towards one or two of these: - Learning the values, rituals and stories of your own peoples (culture as identity)- Learning how your own cultural identities are part of a complex global whole (culture as diversity) - Learning about high culture and methods of appreciation (culture as canon).

Maximising optimal learning: creative enquiry

Evidence for the impact

UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport 2010 report found that participating in structured arts activities led to:

• increases in transferrable skills (including confidence and communication) of between 10-17%.

• increase children’s cognitive abilities test scores by 16% and 19% on average.

In the US, large cohort studies of 25,000 students done by James Catterall show that taking part in arts activitiesincreases student attainment in maths and literacy, withparticularly striking results for students from low incomefamilies.

Flow India

• Founded 2010 to introduce cultural learning / creative enquiry model to India

• 3 directors: 2 British, 1 Indian

• 5 full-time staff members

• Team of 15 freelance workshop facilitators

• We are an independent organisation that operates commercially in the Indian education market.

Partnership programming

FICA (Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art)

Partnership programming

Sanskriti Foundation: Museum of Everyday Art, Museum of Terracotta, Textiles Museum

Consultancy programming

British Council India – The Big Draw

Consultancy programming

Subodh Gupta exhibition at NGMA

Capacity building/ training

The Flow School Programme

The process of ‘creative enquiry’

•Critical thinking

Honing Critical and analytic judgment

•Creativity

Employing imagination and reflection

•Cultural awareness

Encountering wide based cultural art

forms

•Communication

Articulating our own ideas while listening to

others •Enquiry

Developing research skills through fascination and

self discipline

Stories of water, ancient and modern

Challenges opportunities constraints

Scale and scaling

Training

Operating within a market with customers

Logistics

Unpredictability of environment

Developing cultural learning evaluation in India

educational e.g. measurable through attainment

physical e.g. measurable through wellbeing & sporting aptitude

cultural e.g. measurable through participation in culture & creativity

economic e.g. measurable through production of financial & non-financial capital for groups/communities and economically viable skills in individuals

social e.g. measurable through 'belonging', cohesion, improved behaviour

Museums and education in the future?

Will continue to be vital places, spaces and catalysts for experiences and learning that allow us to connect with our past to help us better understand our present and future.

The distinction between informal and formal learning will matter less.

But the cultural empathy that museums afford is more important now than it has ever been before.

[email protected]

www.flowindia.com

www.facebook.com/flowindia