Museums and 21st century skills

2014 VAM WHITE PAPER SERIES: Teaching 21st Century Skills at the Museum

By Jody Allen

8/19/2014

What are 21st Century Skills and how are they Relevant to My Museum?

1 WHAT ARE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS? “21st century skills” can be defined as a core group of abilities that help one succeed in today’s world. What makes these skills different from those required in the 20th century is they allow a person to be more efficient in a society that is non-routine. With the rise of the global economy and the rapid advancement of technology, people today thrive when they widen their scope of the world and become more aware of global issues. Additionally, when a person is a capable of digesting and analyzing all the information they encounter on a daily basis, they are better suited to succeed. Examples of 21st century skills include, but are not limited to: global awareness, digital literacy, and collaboration.

2 WHAT RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE TO MUSEUMS? Recently, The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) examined a list of skills most commonly referred to as 21st century skills, and made adjustments to better fit with the priorities of museums. Notable additions by IMLS team are cross-disciplinary thinking, visual literacy, and environmental literacy. Museums have always revolved around education and learning, but as a museum, you don’t want to simply share information with your visitors— you also want to engage them.

Of course, not every skill considered to be a 21st century skill will be relevant to your museum, so it is important to understand how to best utilize such competencies to fit the character and requirements of your organization (as well as its audience). For help with this task, download IMLS’ self-assessment tool (http://www.imls.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/21stCenturySkills_matrix_print.pdf) . This document will help determine where your museum fits on the continuum of 21st century skills programming. While you won’t receive specific activities, you should come away with some effective practices that will enhance your museum’s ability to help improve your audience’s 21st century skills. By becoming more involved with the development your audience’s 21st century skill set, your museum will become more attractive to potential visitors.

Aside from the self-assessment tool, the IMLS Initiative on Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills project provides a website, a list of 21st century skills, and a community learning document that is capable of providing information to people outside the museum field so they can become more aware of what museums can contribute to the 21st century skills movement.

Additionally, the project provides other valuable resources, including SIX different case studies,

to help people who work in museums to better ready their organizations to promote these skills. More information can be found using the links below.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Home Page: http://www.imls.gov/about/21st_century_skills_home.aspx Institute of Museum and Library Services’ List of 21st Century Skills: http://www.imls.gov/about/21st_century_skills_list.aspx

3 BUILDING MOMENTUM FOR A 21ST CENTURY SKILLS INITIATIVE Even after utilizing the IMLS’ self-assessment tool, you may still be wondering how to begin teaching 21st century skills in your museum. To help you get started, on the IMLS’ website, there is a six-step agenda to help build momentum for your institution’s program. These steps are listed below.

Step 1: Engage with the community By engaging with your community, people become more aware of what you and your museum have to offer. Additionally, by communicating with other organizations you are more likely to sustain an ongoing awareness of what the community needs.

Step 2: Establish your vision It is likely your museum already has a purpose and vision, but is it fit to help teach its visitors 21st century skills? Additionally, is that purpose clear enough for outsiders to understand?

Step 3: Assess your current status Similar to the step above, make sure you know and understand where your museum sits in the community today. What is your museum already doing that can help develop 21st century skills? And what could it be doing in the near future to do even more?

Step 4: Implement a prioritized plan Unfortunately, without a prioritized plan, it is unlikely you will make much progress in helping your community. You don’t have to teach every 21st century skill to be successful, so focus on what is possible for your museum.

Step 5: Focus on comprehensive alignment Additionally, you don’t have to do this process alone. Develop an identity among the community and make partnerships with other organizations. The more help you and your museum have, the easier it becomes to educate people about 21st century skills and the easier it becomes to continue educating people.

Step 6: Track and communicate progress

Lastly, make sure you stay aware of the progress you are making and make sure to keep the community around you in the loop. Express how they are helping and express where you need more help. Without communication, sustainability is not likely.

4 ART SPEAKS! A CASE STUDY IN TEACHING 21ST CENTURY SKILLS To examine an example of a successful 21st century skills initiative, consider the partnership between the Philadelphia Museum of Art and several other local museums - an initiative called Art Speaks! The goal of the partnership was to engage 4th graders in Philadelphia and teach them art appreciation, information and visual literacy, and communication skills via onsite museum experiences. Working closely with local school officials, the partnership developed a curriculum for their program.

The 4th grade educators received supplemental teaching materials from the partnership to assist in planning their classes’ free trip to one of the participating museums. The materials helped introduce the students to one piece of art from each institution. By introducing the students to various pieces of art, the teaching materials better prepared the students for their trip to the museums.

While providing supplemental material to educators may not be in your museum’s budget (especially if you are operating on the smaller side), that doesn’t mean you cannot help.

Perhaps you could try exploring alternative avenues to provide similar information to educators in your area. Today, the internet is an incredibly viable resource and can be used to transfer documents, sound clips, videos, and other media with relative ease. If the internet doesn’t seem like the option for your institution, there’s also the possibility of having employees of your museum visit local schools to showcase to young minds why art is important. By having students interpret pieces, describe their significance, and express how the art makes them feel, skills such as visual literacy are bound to improve. Now, of course, such skills are simply not going to develop overnight, so a wholehearted effort will definitely be required.

In the case of the Art Speaks! Initiative, students were required to write about their knowledge of art before AND after each visit to a museum. Teachers then had them complete an evaluation matrix, and these evaluations showed a significant improvement in the student’s writing after their onsite museum experience. So not only would a program like Art Speaks! teach the youth how to better understand art, it can help foster better writing skills as well.

The above example is just one of many ways your museum can become involved in educating the public about 21st century skills. Museums range in all sizes and some do not possess pieces capable of captivating the mind of a 4th grader (or even someone older), but the actual content of your institution is not what matters the most in this concept. What does matter, however, is that you become present in the community and make those around you understand why they should be visiting your site. Sure, programs like Art Speaks! in Philadelphia will [ideally] boost

your museum’s attendance, but it should also be boosting the skills of those attending. 21st century skills are incredibly important and are going to grow to be even more important. If your institution can incorporate ways for visitors to learn these skills on your site, you will undoubtedly leave an impact on the lives of the community members around you.