Facilitating the transition from academia to the

workplace

Theano Moussouri, Archaeology

t.moussouri@ucl.ac.uk

UCL Colloquium, 23/06/09

Museum Studies

• Taught courses:• Museum communication• Collections management & care • Museum management• Digitization & museums• Collections curatorship • Museum history & theory

• Seminars, field trips & placement

Communication course: content

• Educational & social role of museums

• Conceptualizing & studying audiences

• Communication theories

• Interpretation theories

• Learning theories

• Basic & applied visitor research skills

• Exhibition project

Communication course: approach

• Self-directed and managed learning

• Scaffolding individual & group learning

• Creating common understanding

Scaffolding steps I

1. Workshop-like sessions, group presentations, reading groups => bringing student knowledge into public view

2. Guest speakers & field trips => reference to common experience

Scaffolding steps II

3. Exhibition project team & panel meetings:

– ‘thinking in groups’, monitoring changes in project & own conceptions

– sharing sense of purpose with tutors & clients

Exhibition project I

• Professional development programme

• Supportive environment

• Domain-specific knowledge & practice

Exhibition project II

• Understanding of context within which people work

• Locally relevant • Professional

judgment to know when knowledge & techniques should be applied