The Language of Conservation was a collaborative project between libraries, zoos, and poets nationwide to replicate a project originally undertaken by the Central Park Zoo. The project model built zoo, library, and poet-in-residence partnerships in five host cities: Brookfield, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana. One aspect of the evaluation was to assess the collaborative process within each of the five partner sites, across the project as a whole, and with project leadership to determine the strengths and challenges of
The Language of Conservation was a collaborative project between libraries, zoos, and poets nationwide to replicate a project originally undertaken by the Central Park Zoo. The project model built zoo, library, and poet-in-residence partnerships in five host cities: Brookfield, Illinois; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New Orleans, Louisiana. It was anticipated that the zoo exhibits would result in positive outcomes for zoo visitors who encountered the poetry, including increasing the conservation thinking and language used after a visit and creating a
The Dallas Museum of Art's (DMA) Teaching Programs staff desires to learn more about the student experience occurring in the galleries during one-hour docent-guided tours. The focus of the present implementation evaluation is on the docents' role in facilitating the student experience. Before developing a summative study focused on the impact of tours on students, it was important to understand how the tours were being implemented and to what degree and in what ways they met the standards articulated by the DMA's Education Division. The strong partnership between the practitioner (Molly Kysar
In June 2010, the Gardner contracted with the Institute for Learning Innovation to augment the results of a large scale, Wallace Foundation funded quantitative study. Specifically, ILI was asked to conduct a focused, qualitative study that would provide in depth data about local visitors' long term perceptions of their Gardner Museum experience. Semi structured, retrospective interviews were conducted with 31 museum visitors, months after their Gardner experience. Key results include the following: 1) Study participants demonstrated a range of motivations for visiting the Gardner, but most
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Jeanine AnceletIsabella Stewart Gardner MuseumJessica J. LukeErin Johnson
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to study its young adults. The study, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), provides a profile of the young adult audience, including their demographics, behaviors, perceptions, and values. The DAM intends to use the results of the study to inform future programming and communication with DAM's young adult visitors. RK&A employed two data collection strategies: standardized questionnaires administered online at Surveymonkey.com to program participants and telephone interviews with core program
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Denver Art Museum
Illuminated Verses explored issues of traditional culture and modernity, as well as differences and diversity within the Islamic world, and offers an interpretive bridge to these content areas for both scholarly and general audiences. Through a symposium and a series of pre-events leading up to that program, Poets House and CityLore explored ways of using poetry, discussion and interpretation of poetry to create bridges for intercultural understanding. The symposium and pre-symposium events also served as a springboard to explore the potential for a broader, potentially national, program. This
This report describes the findings of an evaluation of the K-5 school tour program at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington. These school tours observed in this study are based in the methods of the educational model of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), but take place during hour-long tours in the galleries, rather than repeatedly over longer periods of time, and are integrated with other questions, information, and activities developed specifically at the Frye. The findings reveal positive correlations between the use of VTS questions by gallery guides and desired student participation
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Valerie GrabskiLauren LeClaireAmanda Mae BomarFrye Art Museum
Throughout the year, El Museo del Barrio hosts various cultural programs that are open to the public and often free. To explore the effectiveness of the Museum's cultural programs, Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) conducted case studies for three programs Day of the Dead, Three Kings Day, and Super Sabado - Carnival. RK&A conducted naturalistic observations of visitors to the three programs. Trained data collectors unobtrusively observed program attendees and took notes on select behaviors using observation guides specific to each program. RK&A interviewed program participants 18 years and
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.El Museo del Barrio
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) conducted a summative evaluation of the Gallery of California Art (Art Gallery) for the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA). The Art Gallery underwent an extensive reinstallation project, funded in part by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation. The OMCA Art Gallery reinstallation project focused on four goals: create a more welcoming, comfortable and lively Gallery of California; foster intergenerational learning; attract and engage an ethnically diverse community; and foster a personal connection between art and the visitor. The summative evaluation
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Oakland Museum of California
In summary, this Planning Grant has demonstrated that the Fusion Science Theater mode successfully uses the dramatic structure of a play to create an investigative, participatory theater event that conveys science information, concepts, and methodology in a way that is engaging to children and attractive to parents and educators. The model can be transferred to others both by teaching others to develop their own shows and by training undergraduates to perform FST shows that have already been created. Finally, significant achievements have occurred in publicizing the model and in recruiting
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Joanne CantorMadison Area Technical College
Our study at the Frye Art Museum examined the use of the gallery guides by visitors in Tete-a-Tete, the salon-style hang of the museum's founding collection. Our goal was to see who was using the guides, how, what effect this had on their experience, and what they expected from the guides. We discovered that the average gallery guide user was female, over 35 years of age, previously been to the Frye Art Museum but had not yet seen Tete-a-Tete. Although gallery guide users spent more time in the exhibit and were able to recall art historical information more readily, the use of the guides did
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Valerie GrabskiLauren LeClaireFrye Art Museum
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This evaluation looked at one set of visitor behaviors - taking and using photographs - in the whole of Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (EMP|SFM). It was conducted between April 30 and May 6, 2010 by collecting semi-structured interview responses from 58 EMP|SFM visitors during their visits. We sought to identify 1) whether visitors were taking their own photos in the galleries; 2) how they planned to use those photos; 3) whether they planned to use visitor-generated material (in the form of the Taking Aim Flickr site) after their visit; and