The moment when I first heard the words ‘Visible Thinking’
Summary
Claire Bown recounts the pivotal moment she discovered "Visible Thinking" during her master's research at the Troben Museum, leading to the development of her "Visible Thinking in the Museum" method. She details how this framework combines Harvard Project Zero's Visible Thinking with museum education practices to foster discussion, slow looking, and collaborative learning. The episode explores the initial "Stop, Look, Think" program, "Stories Around the World," and its successful application with various objects, showcasing how it transformed museum engagement for both students and teachers.Episode description
In this first episode, I’m going to be talking about the main method I use to engage audiences with art and ideas - that’s my Visible Thinking in the Museum method which I started developing 10 years ago this year.
The Visible Thinking in the Museum method is an easy-to-follow framework that allows educators to confidently lead engaging discussion-based sessions with art, objects and ideas with any audience.
It takes elements of a framework called Visible Thinking from Harvard's Project Zero and combines them with museum education practices, facilitation techniques and questioning strategies.
I didn’t know it at the time, but hearing the words ‘Visible Thinking’ was about to change everything.
This method has influenced everything I’ve done in the past 10 years and has completely revolutionised the way I work.
So, what is this Visible Thinking? How did I hear about it and how did I start to use it in my method?
All will be revealed in this episode.
Links
Visible Thinking http://www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/visible-thinking
'Cultivating a Culture of Thinking in Museums' by Ron Ritchhart
The Great Pustaha https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-great-pustaha/AQ2ZzxcN collection: Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, NL
Madonna (After Omomá and Céline), 2008 collection: Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, NL