Date: July 3rd 2009

Some years back, when I was at Griffith Observatory, I used some of
what I had read about VTS to develop interpretive training. It seemed
to have good results bridging the differences in perception between
subject matter novices and experts. It integrated well with some of my
other aspects of training I was attempting.

One issue I was trying to address was the tendency of novices to give
surface details importance, even when they were not. The VTS approach
allowed more to be spoken out loud and addressed.

The approach also seemed to help with the strategies for addressing
misconceptions -- largely because it presents science, accurately, as
a means for finding the best explanation for the available evidence.
It seemed particularly promising as a means of introducing areas of
science with open questions.

From a training perspective, it helped break the unconscious tendency
of subject matter experts to skip fundamental steps and go straight to
"this is a..." or "this shows that...". When I started showing real
world examples using the technique, it also helped trainee
interpreters understand how visitors actually perceive the objects and
phenomena. This integrated with my focus on understanding the visitor
experience.

I did only get to use it in the context of walk-in visitors, so there
was more freedom to be open-ended and treat the objects as complex and
ambiguous.

In the future, I'm hoping to experiment with the technique in a
history of science context and add evidence in stages matching the
history.

My notes, bibliography, and training materials are currently archived,
but I'd be happy to discuss this further and dig things out.


Paul Koenig
pdkoenig@variablearts.com