The Museum-Ed Blog

We’ve had it in mind for some time to create a collaborative resource for the development of effective docents, (or gallery guides) and are thinking of it as kind of a test case for a larger museum educator handbook, building on thoughts many of us had in an earlier Museum-Ed blog about handbooks. The idea is to create an online, easily updatable resource for those who work with docents in the form of a “Wiki.” A Wiki is an online tool that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. It is community driven and corrected.

We’d like to call the Wiki: The Visitor-Centered Docent: A Museum Docent Source Book

We envision a source book that will:

- allow the field to explore gallery teaching in these unique environments at a depth of rigor not possible with more general publications on museum education.

- serve as a pedagogical and organizational handbook and as a source of effective teaching methods to be used in the professional development of new and experienced docents.

- act as a tool for museum educators helping docents develop the vision and skills necessary for teaching museum visitors effectively.

So how do we begin? Some potential chapters and subheadings might be:

Docent Programs with subheadings for setting up a new docent program, docents as adult learners, planning for change

Audiences with subheadings for general, children, youth, teens, college, adults, families, seniors, teachers and special needs

Building Skills with subheadings for group management, questioning strategies, interdisciplinary learning, constructivist learning, learning styles, visual literacy, interpretive strategies

Collections with subheadings for art, history and science

Evaluation

Technology

Museum/School Collaborations

Tell us what you think of our list, and in the coming weeks, we’ll post chapter headings in a Wiki on Museum-Ed and ask experts and friends to write a few introductions for the chapters. Then, we’re hoping you’ll contribute case studies, examples from your own work that teach others about the topics we’ve defined as essential to teaching museum docents. We’re also hoping you’ll gather feedback from docents within your institutions who are representative of the ideas featured in the source book. In essence, we envision the source book to function much like talk@museum-ed.org, with ideas and examples contributed by you, but all organized and preserved around a central theme – museum docents.