The Visitor Studies Group

Seen but not heard!
Listening to children's voices in visitor studies

10th Anniversary VSG Summer School
Chester Zoo, North of England Zoological Society
18 & 19 September 2008

Children as both formal and free choice learners make up a large segment of audiences in museums and living collections. Through a series of presentations and workshops the 2008 VSG Summer School will focus on how to glean valid and reliable data from children.

During the 2008 Summer School we will also be celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the VSG, which held it's inaugural meeting in November 1998.

Programme - Thursday

10.00 Registration & Coffee

10.30 Welcome & Introduction to the event

10.45 Keynote Address
Listened to or heard? The experience of children (Professor Cedric Cullingford, School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield)

11.30 Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael - the voices, views and experiences of young people and children (Jocelyn Dodd, Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester)

12.15 Amble across the zoo for lunch at Oakfield Manor

14.15 Watching learning - Research the experiences of young children with learning difficulties in an interactive museum gallery (Hannah Shepherd – Freelance Consultant)

15.00 Evaluating success through the eyes of children (Reinaldo Neibles Barranquilla Zoo, Colombia)

15.45 Concurrent Sessions + Tea and Coffee to take to workshops
Workshop 1 – The Evidence of Upbringing (Professor Cedric Cullingford, School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield). To what extent can we explain human behaviour on the experiences of childhood, given all we know about the influence of the environment? And to what extent can we trust them to be witnesses? What can we learn that will make a difference. In this workshop the issues implied will be shared, using all the evidence that people bring and showing how it makes sense.

Workshop 2 – But children don't read labels! Lessons from Launchpad on how to engage children with exhibits (Sofie Davis, Science Museum, London) Launchpad is the Science Museum's most popular gallery and is aimed at children aged 8 to 14 years old. During the recent redevelopment of this gallery intensive evaluation was carried out with family and school groups. This workshop will demonstrate how small changes to the design and interpretation of exhibits can have a big impact on children's understanding and enjoyment.  There will be a particular focus on innovative methods of interpretation as we share lessons learnt about how to effectively test interactive exhibits with children, and look at what this can teach us.

Workshop 3 - CANCELLED (due to illness)

17.15 Finish and safari walk across the zoo

18.00 10th Anniversary celebrations - Zoo Safari, Supper and Speeches!

The evening is kindly sponsored by SNAP Surveys, managing all aspects of survey work and supported by a powerful, intuitive Windows-based programme for questionnaire design, publishing, data collection and analysis.

Programme - Friday

09.00 Coffee & Registration

09.30 Involving future visitors in creating digital interactives (Nicola Jagger, Centre of the Cell)

10.15 Hard Rain: Can zoos risk delivering bad news? (Andrew Moss, Chester Zoo)

11.00 Concurrent Sessions
Workshop 4 - Our Intuitive Conceptions about Learning (Reinaldo Neibles, Barranquilla Zoo, Colombia) This workshop offer some experiences to respond the question: Which our intuitive ideas about learning? The participants will work with some methodologies to evaluate implicit conceptions while recent advances of the investigation are revised in the area of conceptual change. The shop will offer a group of tools of immediate application to energize the strategies of visitors' study.

Workshop 5 - On Common Ground (Sarah Greenhalgh, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales) The workshop will start with a presentation about the OCG scheme as a whole and then move on to discuss the specific approach to the 'Booktown' project. THe overall aim of this session is to offer practical advice with a focus on the potential for museums/ galleries to reach out to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds; the strength of the partnership approach; the importance of acknowledging the achievements of the young people; and the benefits of accrediting the work of the young people.

Workshop 6 - Creative evaluation tools with young people (Nicky Boyd). This workshop will involve looking at how we might measure learning outcomes on projects with young people and looking at different methods and their pros and cons.

12.30 Networking lunch at the Lecture Theatre; Short Committee meeting over lunch in Lecture Theatre

13.15 Marketplace of ideas

• On Common Ground - a flagship youth inclusion project (Sarah Greenhalgh, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales)
• 'Shipwrecked Club' - a children's panel (Vivien Bell, National Museums Liverpool)
• SNAP Surveys, the professional IT and research service for survey management and processing
• Audience research with children in preparation for the design of the new Children's Zoo at London Zoo (Jinny Barratt, Zoological Society of London)
• How children are able to contribute to audience research with family groups in museums (Sheena Muncie, Scotinform Ltd)

14.15 What does learning look like? Evaluating children's experiences in the Science Museum's Launchpad gallery (Teresa Teizeira, Audience Research and Advocay Team, The Science Museum, London)

15.00 Children and Ethics - What are your Views? (Gina Koutsika, Natural History Museum, London)

15.45 Plenary: Why Visitor Studies at the Zoo? (Maggie Esson, Education Programmes Manager, Chester Zoo)

16.00 Finish

Downloads of presentations from this event are available to fully subscribed VSG members in the members resources section of this site.