Inclusion Training for Explainers in Museums and Science Centres Erasmus Project

Project Title

Inclusion Training for Explainers in Museums and Science Centres

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The inclusion of people with social disadvantages, e.g. senior citizens, immigrants, ethnic and cultural minorities, or people with lower levels of education, is a hotly debated topic, in society as well as politics. Education is a key issue of inclusion, since it is one of the most relevant factors of successful integration. Museums and Science Centres are pioneers in lifelong learning, and as such – next to schools – highly relevant places for inclusive education. Explainers/Facilitators in Museums and Science Centres play a key role in connecting the topics of exhibitions with visitors, i.e. they are on the edge of communicating to inclusive visitors.

The objective of the ITEMS project is to develop, test and promote a training programme for explainers in museums and science centres that enables them identify the needs of some of these groups and to properly address them in their daily educational work. The challenge for explainers is that the range of needs is vast, as are the possibilities to react to these and thus support the visitor. The project aims to develop strategies to open the content and activities for these groups with special needs, including the use of digital media to facilitate better communication and interaction. A modular design of the programmes will enable the partners to integrate the training into the established structures in use at the different locations.

For the development of the training module, a number of different strategies will be applied. It will build on best practices already available at the partners, supported by research on the abilities and needs of the respective target groups. In the whole process professionals, such as researchers or specially trained psychologists, will be included. The evaluation will help identify and correct for weaknesses in the programme, thus significantly improving the final product. By gaining active insights and using lots of practical examples during the training, explainers will not only get hands-on solutions to start with, but also the theoretical background to further develop measures and themselves in the future. Last, but not least, for the framework of the training programme the ITEMS project will build on the tried-and-tested professional development programme for explainers originating from the EU project PILOTS.

During the project, the participants of the programme – explainers – will significantly enlarge their competences to work with people with special needs visiting a museum or science centre. The over 60 participants at the partner institutions will be from various backgrounds, a gender balance is aimed at. Through the dissemination training more than 100 multipliers (“explainer trainers”) from all over Europe will be directly reached. To make the results available to an even larger community, the training module as well as a guidebook collecting strategies and best practice examples will be published online. This enables further museums and Science Centres to take up and improve their own programmes. Further, contributions to conferences, newsletters as well as journals will further spread the material throughout Europe.

Overall, the education of the explainers will enable inclusive activities for disadvantaged people, such as senior citizens or immigrants/refugees, to be consistently run at museums and science centres. For the participating organisations as well as those museums / science centres reached through the dissemination activities, the ITEMS project will not only enable a systematic approach to improving their offers to special visitor groups, but also lead to a more inclusive and open museum / science centre environment in general.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 364540 Eur

Project Coordinator

DEUTSCHES MUSEUM VON MEISTERWERKEN DER NATURWISSENSCHAFT UND TECHNIK & Country: DE

Project Partners

• ARS ELECTRONICA LINZ GMBH & CO KG
• FONDAZIONE MUSEO NAZIONALE DELLA SCIENZA E DELLA TECNOLOGIA LEONARDO DA VINCI
• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
• ETABLISSEMENT PUBLIC DU PALAIS DE LA DECOUVERTE ET DE LA CITE DES SCIENCES ET DE L’INDUSTRIE