Evaluating Early Learning in Museums: Planning for Our Youngest Visitors - Hardcover

by Nicole Cromartie (Author), Kyong-Ah Kwon (Author), Meghan Welch (Author)

Evaluating Early Learning in Museums presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging early learners and their families in informal arts settings.

Written by early childhood education researchers and a museum practitioner, the book showcases what high-quality educational programs can offer young children and their families through the case study of a program at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Providing strategies for building strong community partnerships and audience relationships, the authors also survey evaluation tools for early learning programs and offer strategies to help museums around the world to engage young children. At the center of this narrative is the seminal partnership that developed between researchers and museum educators during the evaluation of a program for toddlers. Illuminating key components of the partnership and the resulting evolution of family offerings at the museum, the book also draws parallels to current work being done at other museums in international contexts.

Evaluating Early Learning in Museums illustrates how an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and practitioners can improve museum practices. As such, the book will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and early childhood, as well as to practitioners working in museums around the world.

Author Biography

Nicole Cromartie is the Director of Education and Programs at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado. Cromartie holds a MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts and a BA in Art History from the University of Florida. She is a museum educator with interests in early learning in museums, accessibility and inclusion, and interpretation.

Kyong-Ah Kwon, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum at the University of Oklahoma. She received her doctoral degree in developmental studies at Purdue University. Her research areas include the role of children's experiences at home and at school in their development and learning and the early childhood workforce with an emphasis on teachers' well-being.

Meghan Welch, Ph.D., is a program specialist at the Georgia Department of Education. She received her doctoral degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from Georgia State University where she also held a postdoctoral fellow position on a project funded by the National Science Foundation. Her early education research and writing interests include child development, digital literacies, educational media, and thinking about all of these from the perspective of a mother -- she has four young children.