Public Learning

Learning Nobody Is Required to Do

The entry node · attention as the working budget

Practised · resource not yet written

Without enrolment, completion or consequence for leaving, continuation is granted moment by moment and every element has to earn it again. Studies of visitor time establish that most people spend well under half an hour in an exhibition and stop at a minority of what is available, which sets an honest ceiling on what a single encounter can be designed to achieve and directs the design toward interest, orientation and a reason to return.

Grounding. Free-choice learning (Falk & Dierking); visitor time and attention (Serrell); Learning Science in Informal Environments (NRC)

Sources

• Reference 1: Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2000). Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. AltaMira Press (2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
• Reference 2: Serrell, B. (1997). “Paying Attention: The Duration and Allocation of Visitors’ Time in Museum Exhibitions.” Curator: The Museum Journal, 40(2), 108–125.
• Reference 3: National Research Council (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. National Academies Press.
• Reference 4: Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2002). Lessons Without Limit: How Free-Choice Learning Is Transforming Education. AltaMira Press.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter — Community · 2 shared sources
• Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together — Community · 1 shared source
• Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes — Community · 2 shared sources
• Access in a Public Room — editorially linked
• Human Rights in Public Interpretation — Community

Connected contributions

• Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together
• Access in a Public Room

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Designing for Motivation & Relevance, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Engaging Voluntary & Cautious Adult Learners, on the Universal Design for Learning page

Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together

The conversation is where the learning travels

Practised · resource not yet written

Families, school groups and pairs of friends arrive as a unit, and the accompanying adult interprets while also learning. Research on museum conversation shows that what people say to each other in front of an exhibit is a principal route through which understanding forms, which makes the design object the exchange rather than the individual: prompts that give an adult something to ask, and content that supports several reading levels at one label.

Grounding. Learning conversations in museums (Leinhardt, Crowley & Knutson); sociocultural learning (Vygotsky); free-choice learning

Sources

• Reference 5: Leinhardt, G., Crowley, K., & Knutson, K. (Eds.). (2002). Learning Conversations in Museums. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Reference 6: Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
• Reference 1: Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2000). Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. AltaMira Press (2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — Community · 1 shared source
• Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes — Community
• Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams — Community
• Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter — Community

Connected contributions

• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Learning Community Design & Facilitation, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Plain Language and Writing for Learning, on the Learning Design page

Interpretation Bound to an Object and Its Provenance

What the collection holds, and how it came to be held

Practised · resource not yet written

In collection-based settings the content available is the content the institution holds, and the history of how each object arrived is part of what the label is answering for. Interpretation is therefore developed with the communities to whom the material belongs and whose knowledge it carries, with authorship, protocol and the terms of display settled alongside the text rather than after it.

Grounding. Interpretation (Serrell); difficult heritage (Macdonald); ethical space (Ermine); OCAP® principles

Sources

• Reference 7: Serrell, B. (2015). Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.
• Reference 8: Macdonald, S. (2009). Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. Routledge.
• Reference 9: Ermine, W. (2007). “The Ethical Space of Engagement.” Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 193–203.
• Reference 10: The First Nations Information Governance Centre. The First Nations Principles of OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession).

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Community-Held Records and Community-Led Digitization — Indigenous knowledge, Ethics · 2 shared sources
• Human Rights in Public Interpretation — Interpretation · 2 shared sources

Connected contributions

• Human Rights in Public Interpretation

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Supporting Indigenous-Led Learning Design, on the Learning Design page
• Indigenous & Equity-Centred KMb, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• When Integration Becomes Assimilation, on the Epistemology page

Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes

Interest, identity and participation, evidenced

Practised · resource not yet written

Public learning produces outcomes that arrive slowly and diffusely — interest, confidence, a sense that a field is open to the person standing in it — while funding decisions often expect the shorter, school-shaped kind. The strands of informal science learning set out in the National Research Council synthesis give these outcomes a documented structure, which supports proposals and reports that describe what public programmes genuinely do and evidence it on its own terms.

Grounding. Strands of informal science learning (NRC); free-choice learning; evaluation of public programmes

Sources

• Reference 3: National Research Council (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. National Academies Press.
• Reference 4: Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2002). Lessons Without Limit: How Free-Choice Learning Is Transforming Education. AltaMira Press.
• Reference 11: Ebrahim, A. (2005). “Accountability Myopia: Losing Sight of Organizational Learning.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 34(1), 56–87.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter — Evaluation, Community · 1 shared source
• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — Community · 2 shared sources
• Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together — Community
• Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams — Community

Connected contributions

• Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Reporting to Funders Alongside Learning from the Work, on the Evaluation page
• Evidence Brief & Knowledge Product Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Arguing for the Work Before the Constraint Is Set, on the Learning Design page

Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams

Designed to hold in the hands of a short-notice team

Practised · resource not yet written

Much public programming is delivered by volunteers, students and casual staff who join for a season and receive a short orientation. The design response is to decide deliberately what is fixed and what is left to the person: a small number of well-rehearsed moves, prompts and worked examples in hand, and a clear account of what to do when a question runs past the brief.

Grounding. Legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger); job aids and performance support (Rossett & Schafer)

Sources

• Reference 12: Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press.
• Reference 13: Rossett, A., & Schafer, L. (2007). Job Aids and Performance Support: Moving from Knowledge in the Classroom to Knowledge Everywhere. Pfeiffer.
• Reference 14: Gottfredson, C., & Mosher, B. (2011). Innovative Performance Support: Strategies and Practices for Learning in the Workflow. McGraw-Hill.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• The Reference Encounter as Teaching — Craft, Capacity
• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — Community
• Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together — Community
• Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes — Community
• Community-Held Records and Community-Led Digitization — Capacity

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Facilitation and Live Delivery Craft, on the Learning Design page
• Building Design Capability in Non-Designers, on the Learning Design page
• Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building, on the Accessibility page
• Learning Community Design & Facilitation, on the Learning Experience Design page

Access in a Public Room

The building, the crowd, and who is able to come

Practised · resource not yet written

Public settings add conditions that a document-centred approach to accessibility does not reach: sound levels, crowding, sightlines, seating, reach and operating force at an interactive, and the sensory load of a busy gallery. Alongside these sit the conditions that determine attendance at all — admission cost, transport, opening hours and distance — so that scheduled low-sensory times and subsidised access are programme decisions as much as facilities ones.

Grounding. Universal design (Center for Universal Design); accessible physical environments; CRPD Article 30

Sources

• Reference 15: Connell, B. R., Jones, M., Mace, R., Mueller, J., Mullick, A., Ostroff, E., Sanford, J., Steinfeld, E., Story, M., & Vanderheiden, G. (1997). The Principles of Universal Design, Version 2.0. Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University.
• Reference 16: United Nations (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
• Reference 17: CAST (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, version 3.0.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — editorially linked
• Access to the Evidence Itself — Access

Connected contributions

• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Accessible Physical and Hybrid Learning Environments, on the Accessibility page
• Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, on the Accessibility page
• Equity-Centered Learning Design, on the Universal Design for Learning page

Access to the Evidence Itself

Whether the reader can open what the work cites

Practised · resource not yet written

Practitioners, community organizations and independent researchers frequently work outside the subscriptions their evidence base sits behind. Designing for this means citing what the reader can reach, using open-access versions and repository copies where they exist, and treating access arrangements — community borrower programmes, open licensing, deposit practice — as part of the knowledge product rather than as someone else's concern.

Grounding. Open access (Suber; Budapest Open Access Initiative); public library mandate (IFLA-UNESCO)

Sources

• Reference 18: Suber, P. (2012). Open Access. MIT Press.
• Reference 19: Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002). Budapest Open Access Initiative Declaration.
• Reference 20: IFLA and UNESCO (2022). IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto 2022.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• The Reference Encounter as Teaching — editorially linked
• Access in a Public Room — Access

Connected contributions

• The Reference Encounter as Teaching

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Evidence Brief & Knowledge Product Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility, on the Epistemology page
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced, on the Epistemology page

The Reference Encounter as Teaching

One conversation, an unknown starting point, no second session

Practised · resource not yet written

A staffed desk in a library or learning centre delivers a large share of an institution's teaching, one enquiry at a time, to people whose prior knowledge is unknown and who may not return. The established reference interview — establishing the actual question, negotiating scope, and closing by checking that the answer was usable — is a compact instructional method, and it pairs with information literacy frameworks to make a single encounter transferable rather than transactional.

Grounding. Reference interview (Ross, Nilsen & Radford); ACRL Framework for Information Literacy

Sources

• Reference 21: Ross, C. S., Nilsen, K., & Radford, M. L. (2019). Conducting the Reference Interview (3rd ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.
• Reference 22: Association of College and Research Libraries (2015). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. American Library Association.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Access to the Evidence Itself — editorially linked
• Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams — Capacity, Craft
• Community-Held Records and Community-Led Digitization — Capacity
• Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter — Learner research

Connected contributions

• Access to the Evidence Itself

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• When the Consultation Is the Whole Intervention, on the Learning Design page
• Researcher Capacity Building, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Building Design Capability in Non-Designers, on the Learning Design page

Community-Held Records and Community-Led Digitization

Capability transferred, and the files kept where they belong

Practised · resource not yet written

Community archives and digitization initiatives are strongest when the institution supplies equipment, training and standards while the community holds the material, the decisions and the resulting files. Toolkits, workshops and documented workflows are the design deliverables; ownership, control, access and possession of the records remain with the community throughout.

Grounding. OCAP® principles (FNIGC); ethical space (Ermine); Indigenous storywork (Archibald)

Sources

• Reference 10: The First Nations Information Governance Centre. The First Nations Principles of OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession).
• Reference 9: Ermine, W. (2007). “The Ethical Space of Engagement.” Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 193–203.
• Reference 23: Archibald, J. (Q’um Q’um Xiiem) (2008). Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. UBC Press.
• Reference 24: United Nations (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. General Assembly resolution 61/295.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Interpretation Bound to an Object and Its Provenance — Indigenous knowledge, Ethics · 2 shared sources
• Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams — Capacity
• The Reference Encounter as Teaching — Capacity

Connected contributions

• Interpretation Bound to an Object and Its Provenance

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Supporting Indigenous-Led Learning Design, on the Learning Design page
• Indigenous & Equity-Centred KMb, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Researcher Capacity Building, on the Knowledge Mobilization page

Evaluating an Anonymous Encounter

No roster, no follow-up, and evidence all the same

Practised · resource not yet written

Public settings rarely permit named participants or later contact, so evaluation is built from what can be observed and asked in the moment: tracking and timing, structured observation, brief exit conversations, and repeat cross-sectional sampling across a season. Each method answers a narrow question well, and stating which question it answers keeps the resulting claims proportionate.

A resource in two areas. Its home is Public Learning, and it is also part of the Evaluation set.

Grounding. Tracking and timing (Serrell); visitor studies methods; informal learning evaluation

Sources

• Reference 2: Serrell, B. (1997). “Paying Attention: The Duration and Allocation of Visitors’ Time in Museum Exhibitions.” Curator: The Museum Journal, 40(2), 108–125.
• Reference 3: National Research Council (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. National Academies Press.
• Reference 25: Mayne, J. (2012). “Contribution Analysis: Coming of Age?” Evaluation, 18(3), 270–280.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes — Evaluation, Community · 1 shared source
• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — Community · 2 shared sources
• Designing for Groups Who Arrive Together — Community
• Delivery by Volunteers and Casual Teams — Community
• The Reference Encounter as Teaching — Learner research

Connected contributions

• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do
• Making the Case for Public Learning Outcomes

Where this work leads

• Public Learning, on the Public Learning page
• Evaluating at Small Numbers, on the Evaluation page
• Reading Course Signals Without Overreading Them, on the Learning Design page

Human Rights in Public Interpretation

Rights content in a gallery, a memorial or a public programme

Practised · resource not yet written

Public settings reach audiences that no course reaches, and increasingly carry rights content: contested collections, memorials, and exhibitions on histories of harm. The interpretive questions are who narrates, what the visitor is told about provenance, and how a self-directed visitor of any age and background is supported through material of this weight in a short, unsupervised encounter.

A resource in two areas. Its home is Human Rights Education, and it is also part of the Public Learning set.

Grounding. Difficult heritage (Macdonald); interpretation (Serrell); Calls to Action (TRC); museum education (Hooper-Greenhill)

Sources

• Reference 8: Macdonald, S. (2009). Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. Routledge.
• Reference 7: Serrell, B. (2015). Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.
• Reference 26: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action.
• Reference 27: Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2007). Museums and Education: Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance. Routledge.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Interpretation Bound to an Object and Its Provenance — Interpretation · 2 shared sources
• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do — Community

Connected contributions

• Interpretation Bound to an Object and Its Provenance
• Learning Nobody Is Required to Do

Where this work leads

• Human Rights Education, on the Human Rights Education page
• Teaching About Serious Harm, on the Human Rights Education page
• Supporting Indigenous-Led Learning Design, on the Learning Design page