Report :: Trautmann, C., St. John, M., & Goudy, D. (2005). Teaming Up: Ten Years of the TEAMS Exhibition Collaborative. TEAMS Collaborative.

last updated: 2008-05-09 14:51:30

Abstract

SECTION 1
Introduction and History of the TEAMS
Collaborative
PURPOSE AND APPROACH OF THE MONOGRAPH
This monograph has been created by the
TEAMS (Traveling Exhibits At Museums of Science)
Collaborative, a group of seven small U.S. science
centers, to share experiences, observations, and
lessons learned with the broader science museum
field. Our intention is to help others who might be
interested in forming a collaborative to work though
some key issues, most of which have to do with the
relationships between collaborative members, rather
than more technical matters. We hope that this will
provide a vision for others as to how collaboration
among science centers can work.
The monograph looks at intellectual issues related
to the design of collaboratives, as well as policy
implications related to the costs and benefits of a
collaborative as an investment in museum capacity.
In addition, we touch on a broad spectrum of practi-
cal day-to-day issues related to exhibition collab-
oratives, ranging from policy implications to photo
documentation.
To this purpose, we provide descriptions of a series
of lessons learned (see the Summary in Section 2)
that we hope will prove useful to others embarking
on a collaborative exhibition development project.
Additionally, we have included a collection of essen-
tial documents (see the Appendixes in Section 8) that
will help to facilitate the collaborative process. For
the convenience of users, these documents are pro-
vided in an electronic form suitable for modification
and use by others.
This monograph is not, however, intended as
a “how-to” guide. While we do include a series of
appendixes with technical information, we do not
provide an exhaustive checklist of technical items
or a list of criteria for collaboration; such lists can
be found in a wide variety of other publications. We
reference several publications in the annotated bibli-
ography in Section 7 that provide excellent resources
of this kind.
When referring to ourselves, we use the terms
“science center,” “science museum,” and “museum”
somewhat interchangeably throughout. While we
believe that science centers are in many ways funda-
mentally different from other types of museums (for
example, placing far less emphasis on the collection
and display of objects of historical or scientific value),
we also recognize that there are many other types
of organizations working together on exhibitions, for
whom the information given here might be appli-
cable. These include children’s museums, aquaria,
zoos, and botanical gardens. With this recognition in
mind, we have tried to remain as general as possible
in our museum terminology.
Our approach is largely conversational and
reflects our experiences during the past ten years,
from before the first grant proposal through the first
year of our third four-year grant from the National
Science Foundation. The experiences reported were
elicited and recorded largely by Inverness Research
Associates, the independent evaluators who have
been part of the TEAMS Collaborative since its
inception.
OVERVIEW OF THE TEAMS COLLABORATIVE
The TEAMS Collaborative first assembled in 1995
as a group of five small science centers with National
Science Foundation funding. TEAMS has had a total
of three 4-year rounds of funding from the National
Science foundation. Professional development was a
key element in each and took the form of workshops
in formative evaluation, exhibit design charrettes, and
workshops on broader topics such as family learn-
ing in museums (TEAMS 1) and universal design of
exhibits and programs (TEAMS 2).
Our first project, TEAMS 1, was to build and circu-
late 1,500-square-foot traveling exhibitions and asso-
ciated educational programs dealing with various
topics in science.
For TEAMS 2, three additional museums joined the
Collaborative, each working with a mentor museum
to develop their exhibition design capabilities more
fully. One of the original five museums was deeply
involved in a major building expansion at the time
and therefore unable to continue after the first round,
leaving seven participating museums.
TEAMS 3 has added a research component, with
the goal of looking for ways to improve conversations
between youthful museum visitors and their adult
caregivers at science exhibits.
Some key features of the TEAMS Collaborative
include:
• All exhibitions are 1,500-square-feet. They can
be on any topic of science or math
• All exhibitions initially circulate within the
Collaborative on a common schedule at no
charge; shipping is split equally between
Collaborative members.
• Each exhibition is accompanied by a set of edu-
cational programs, with activities for family
science events, a teacher guide, an explainer
guide, and a take-home family activity brochure.

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