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Museum Audiences Ebony Bailey Museum Audiences Ebony Bailey

How Do You Create Meaningful and Fulfilling Community Partnerships? 

What makes a community partnership effective? How do you build genuine, reciprocal relationships with your visitors and local organizations? How do you work toward a common goal with your local community? I have been invested in these questions throughout my career—as an intern at museums and now as a researcher at a museum evaluation firm.

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Evaluation & Research Design Emily Skidmore Evaluation & Research Design Emily Skidmore

Why Interviewing is Essentially the Pursuit of Curiosity

As evaluators, we use many different methods to collect data, and one of the most-frequently used methods we use to collect qualitative (descriptive) data are interviews. Interviews take many forms depending on the context and project but what does not change is the essential element of curiosity that is built into the interview process.

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Creating Change Stephanie Downey Creating Change Stephanie Downey

Three Years Later: Museum Education Remains Vulnerable

In the fall of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Kera Collective did a small pro bono study for the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association, and the results were published in the Journal of Museum Education the following year. The study was initiated as layoffs were occurring across the museum field. We suspected that more museum educator jobs were being cut or reduced than other positions in museums, so we sent out a survey to educators to gather data. Our suspicions were confirmed. You can read the full results in our article but suffice it to say the data indicated:

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DEAI Claire Lucas DEAI Claire Lucas

Expanding Accessibility in Museums: A Conversation with Ross Edelstein

We recently interviewed Ross Edelstein, a pioneer in the museum industry in creating accessibility on all levels. Ross is autistic, and brings his lived experience into the lens of his work with museums and accessibility. Below are some key themes from our conversation that are great ideas to incorporate into your own accessibility work.

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Museum Audiences Hannah Heller Museum Audiences Hannah Heller

Why You Should Evaluate Your Long-Standing K-12 Museum Programs

From my years as a museum educator, I know well that program evaluation is one of those things that we know is important, but often find hard to prioritize. Program managers juggle a million responsibilities just to get a program off the ground, and it can feel overwhelming to also have to dedicate time and resources towards assessing a program’s impact once it’s running.

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Museum Audiences Stephanie Downey Museum Audiences Stephanie Downey

Are You Sure That’s a Good Idea?

Museum professionals are the original content creators. They are extremely passionate and possess special knowledge and expertise. These characteristics, in combination with museums’ collections, are a perfect recipe for idea generation. I’ve been in many meetings where the energy exuding from museum professionals about potential new programs, exhibitions, apps, or other initiatives is captivating and contagious.

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DEAI Claire Lucas DEAI Claire Lucas

Expanding Accessibility in Museums: A Conversation with Finnegan Shannon

I sat down with Finnegan Shannon, a disabled artist and activist, to get a better understanding of their perspective on disability and accessibility in museum and art spaces. I was drawn to their work entitled “Do You Want Us Here Or Not” which critiqued the lack of places for rest in museums, ultimately creating inaccessible spaces. Below are a few themes we explored in our conversation.

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Katie Chandler Katie Chandler

What is Front-End Evaluation?

In evaluation, we sometimes use technical terms to describe our work. Some of the most common terms we use are those that describe different phases of evaluation: front-end (also known as concept-testing), formative research and prototyping, and summative. This post focuses on breaking down the earliest phase of evaluation: front-end evaluation. What is it? Why do we do it? When should we do it? And, what methods work best?

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Evaluation & Research Design Cathy Sigmond Evaluation & Research Design Cathy Sigmond

What the The Art of Gathering Taught Me About Convening Focus Groups

Every gathering has the potential to be great. And anyone can learn how to “gather well.” This is the premise of Priya Parker’s 2018 book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. As someone who plans a lot of gatherings in my personal life, I recently picked up a copy hoping to gain some insight into how I could be a better host for my friends and family.

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DEAI Lina Bhatti DEAI Lina Bhatti

Orientalism 101

As someone who has a background in anthropology and cultural studies, understanding orientalism is something that has become embedded in my approach to not only academic study, but to everyday life.

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DEAI Amanda Krantz DEAI Amanda Krantz

How I Pursue Care Ethics in My Work

At this year’s National Art Education Association National Convention (NAEA), I presented (although not in person as intended) as part of a session called “The Ethics of Care: Love, Morals, and the Future of Museum Education.” As my former professor Dana Carlisle Kletchka described in our presentation, the Ethics of Care, or Care Ethics, is a philosophical approach to morals developed in the 1970s with feminist roots.

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