Tinkering: transforming museum practice?
Tinkering is increasingly being adopted by museums as a new way of engaging visitors into creative, highly experiencial, science-oriented, learning-through-construction processes. It is a vision for learning and supports 21st century competences. This means that Tinkering represents more than just another informal learning type of activity; it can be a way to evolve our learning practice in museums.
The session will focus on the transformative potential of Tinkering. Speakers will try to answer the following two questions:
a) whether and in what sense Tinkering has changed aspects of their work - such as facilitation, learning methodologies, practices and content of science and art, the role of experimentation, and the development of innovative new activities.
b) how Tinkering can/does change the way we see Making or Engineering activities in museums helping to go beyond the respective 'making' or 'problem-solving' aims of each of them.
Facilitator
Director, The Tinkering Studio
San Francisco
United States
Session speakers
Director of Education and of the Centre of Research in Informal Learning
The speaker will explore the transformative potential of Tinkering on facilitation (how has the Museum worked to bring the Tinkering facilitation methods into non-tinkering activities) and on learning approach (moving from content-oriented activities to "no-topic" activities; exploring the limits of "open-endedness"). Moreover, she will reflect on the objectives set by MUST in building the Tinkering Zone, which puts Tinkering and Making in one - related but separate - space.
The Bloomfield Museum Israel has coordinated the Engineeer EU-funded project which has brought the EDP to a European context and the opportunity to explore this approach into museum learning activities. The Museum has also adopted Tinkering activities. The speaker will focus on the transformative potential of Tinkering especially when it comes to the Engineering approach and activities.
The speaker will respond to the two questions mentioned in the abstract of the session bringing her experience in the Maker field.
