Lecture: Learning Across Time and Place

Learning Across Time and Place: The Role of Museums in the Informal Educational Landscape

The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies announces the next G. Brown Goode Education Lecture: 'Learning Across Time and Place: The Role of Museums in the Informal Educational Landscape.' The program will take place on Monday, March 3, 2008 from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. in the Ring Auditorium of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The program will also be web cast live on http://museumstudies.si.edu. 'Learning Across Time and Place' is the first of two G. Brown Goode lectures looking at the research on learning in formal and informal museum settings.


Less than 15% of a schoolchild's waking time is spent in the classroom. Yet the national investment in education is almost exclusively limited to that small portion of a child's life. This program will look at the role learning plays in other settings and times -- at home, in museums, in after school programs, and on the net -- in developing students' interest, readiness, and capacity to succeed both in school and as lifelong learners.

The program will feature two speakers:
Professor Phillip Bell is the associate professor of the Learning Sciences at the University of Washington Seattle and co-chair of the National Research Council's Informal Science Learning Committee. Dr. Bell will share recent research from the NSF-funded LIFE Center (Learning in Informal and Formal Environments) that examines how learning develops across time and setting.

Bronwyn Bevan is the Director of the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS), a partnership with the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Kings College London and University of California Santa Cruz. Ms. Bevan will report on what the NSF-funded CILS is learning about the role that museums can and do play in enhancing and extending learning that happens both in and out of school.

A companion program, 'The Role of Museums in Formal Education,' will be held on Tuesday, May 6, 2008. Dr. Bob Bain, Associate Professor of History and Social Studies Education at the University of Michigan will speak about his multi-year study of teaching and learning history in museums and with museum resources. Further information about the May lecture will be provided at a later date.

Both programs are part of the G. Brown Goode Smithsonian Education series of professional development. Through this series, named after the Smithsonian Institution's earliest proponent of museums as educational institutions, Smithsonian and other museum staffs can help keep abreast of emerging developments in education pertaining to many aspects of their work, from exhibit design to outreach in the schools. All Goode Lectures are web cast and made available for viewing at http://museumstudies.si.edu.


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