A Conversation about Intended Learning Outcomes
by PINO MONACO AND THEANO MOUSSOURI
Recently, the Smithsonian Institution addressed the challenge of coordinating the articulation of intended learning outcomes for educational programs. Pino Monaco, and Theano Moussouri, got together to discuss the Generic Learning Outcomes (GLOs), and a similar framework proposed by the National Science Foundation in the U.S., as concrete guidelines to provide tangible and assessable shapes to learning outcomes.
Issues discussed and still open for elaboration rotated around the concept of intentionality – why is the informal education community still discussing whether we should or should not have intended outcomes in mind when we facilitate a learning experience?
Furthermore, after presenting examples of how outcome-based evaluations could be integrated within our current practices, the authors recognized the need for further pondering, especially concerning the issue of “measuring learning outcomes.”
- Isn’t a measurement in contrast with a free-choice learning experience?
- How do we measure fun and enjoyment?
- Instead of measuring, could we gather and describe?
Feel free to join the conversation in the Forum by adding your comments below.
Tags: education, educational programs, evaluation, Generic Learning Outcomes, GLOs, informal, learning, learning outcomes, measurement, National Science Foundation, Pino Monaco, Theano Moussouri
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Isn’t measurement in contrast with a free-choice learning experience?
I offer that gathering and describing experiences is a valuable approach to implimenting and evaluating learning outcomes in the museum context. Since some museums present exhibits and other information to their visitors in the hopes that these visitors will have a learning, enjoyable, fun, and/or leisurely experience at their own will, it might be important for such museums to not impose upon the visitors experience and their means by which they obtain, retain, and use the provided information. Still, the bias of editors and other exhibit producers has to be taken into account. If it is the producers mission to ultimately evaluate the learning outcomes, then it is probable that the certain content and sources were placed into the experience intentionally, even though visitors still have the choice to acknowledge this material and act upon it. So, I don’t think the concept of measurement is a new phenom or contrasts my understanding of “free-choice learning”, it simply takes into account the producer’s unconscious and conscious choice to have a role in the museum experience.
So, I guess another question that could be asked or another way to restate one of the above questions could be, “how much willing influence do museums have over their consituents?” Moreover, “does that influence create advantages or disadvantages in the visitors experience?”
Perhaps, some museums keep these questions in mind and perhaps some do not. However, I’m sure that in some cases, the act of evaluating learning outcomes, “fun,” and other aspects of a visitor’s museum experience, is crucial for that museum’s ability to prove credibility, establish authority, and increase funding and sponsorships opportunities.
I think we should all readily accept that we need to envision outcomes during our planning stages because it results in better projects. (Otherwise, what else do you envision? Programs planned around “making the donor happy,” “using up all these extra paper airplanes,” or “doing something really flashy the PR department will like” may have nice qualities but outcomes should come first.)
Measurement is where I still struggle.
If my intended outcome is that participants learn “knowledge between and across subjects,” how do I measure that? Wording that as a survey question certainly is a challenge. How do you observe that this outcome has been successful? Anecdotes become really helpful in this instance: “One museum visitor told me that he came to this program because he likes World War II history but he ended up learning a lot about airmail in America, which he didn’t know so much about.” But is that real evidence?
That’s where I’m at right now in my GLO process.
Perhaps there are milestones along the way of measuring a learning outcome such as fun, in terms of observable behaviors or cues from individuals. Or, in terms of groups’ learning outcomes, could friendly engagement or competition between two groups during a discussion (i.e., “Family Feud”)…are they participating or not…?
Hello,
Would it be possible to have the transcript of the whole conversation?
Thank you
G
Hi Gina,
We are working on that for you. Thanks for your interest!
Nancy
Yes, please, the transcript of the whole conversation is needed.
A comment without knowing the content of the conversation: it seems to me that providing information/experience in various forms is our professional duty and one of important purposes of existance. Thus it is useful to know how much and in which way the provided information was learned and conceived.
On the other hand, the tools of measuring GLO can clarify and formulate for us ourselves which exactly knowledge/information and experience we would like to convey and whether we succeeded.
For example, looking at countless ‘hands-on’ activities, such as dressing up into synthetic ‘Georgian’ wig or putting on a ‘Tudor’ dress made yesterday from synthetic fabric on electric sewing machine, I really would like to find out what is the intellectual and informative content of these activities, what is on offer beside ‘fun’, and what idea of the spirit and struggles, achevements and failures of the past our visitors conceived?
Jarrid, thanks for your comment to the abstract. I completely embraced the way you reformulated the question about intentionality to which I would like to add: “what kind(s) of willing influence do museums would like to have over their constituents?” In a very recent ICOM-CECA conference (http://ceca.icom.museum) George Hein spoke about the concept of museums and democracy. One of the participants, from Croatia, raised the concern of different forms and meanings of democracy in different cultures and the challenging role for museum to represent and balance different view-points and believes. Also, during the past VSA meeting (http://www.visitorstudies.org) I recall a provocative paper by Philipp Schorch, from the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand, on the very same issue.
In the definition of a “free-choice learning environment, I think it’s embedded that users would have additional and different outcomes from what originally intended.
Other aspect that I would like to offer for consideration, it is the articulation of intended learning outcomes as a flexible guideline during the conceptualization and implementation of the education program (and as a program I also include exhibitions). Front end evaluations could help understand users’ desired outcomes, entry points, etc. Formative and remedial evaluations could help museum professional to understand whether we are on the right tracks. We -Theano and I- actually addressed this issue during our conversation.
Pino
For the people who are interested in learning more about the forum and in continuing the conversation, you could also write me at
monacop@si.edu
Pino
I am arriving a bit late at this conversation, but am arriving nonetheless, thanks to Pino’s suggestion. In reading the comments, I see both the interest and the questions about how using learning outcomes and measurement in museums. This makes me wonder how many of you are having conversations in your museums to arrive at shared definitions of learning; to get a sense of outcomes that resonate with your visitors; to translate Generic Learning Outcomes into specific your Museum Learning Outcomes; or to decide what measurement looks like for your museum and your community? Also, … who’s joining you in these conversations? Who are you sharing your work with? Is it gaining any traction beyond a small group? What are you able to accomplish because of this work that you weren’t accomplishing before? Conversations, dialogue, questions, and revisiting compelling ideas – it’s hard to find time to do this, but when you can, what works?
alguem me pode explicar o que entende por avaliações de front end?