In-person workshops for teams
The Thinking Museum® Approach workshops
Claire Bown regularly facilitates 1, 2 or 3 day Thinking Museum® Approach workshops for teams of museum teachers, docents, volunteers and more.
These fully interactive and participative workshops provides your team with the tools they need to facilitate engaging inquiry-based discussions about art and objects with audiences in the museum or heritage environment.
Every workshop is fully customised to the needs and requirements of your team, your collection and the environment they are working in.
WHAT IS THE THINKING MUSEUM® APPROACH?
The Thinking Museum® Approach is an easy-to-follow framework that has been developed by Claire Bown over the past 13+ years.
The approach offers a flexible structure for exploring museum and heritage collections, and their stories.
It allows museum and heritage educators, guides, docents and teachers to confidently design and facilitate inquiry-based experiences with art and objects, for any audience.
Thinking Museum® Approach COURSES for teams
Thinking Museum® Approach Foundations
This half (3 hours) or full day (6 hours) course offers a solid foundation to working with the Thinking Museum® Approach developed by Claire Bown and an overview of numerous Questioning Practices. Participants will be given an introduction to the art of facilitating discussion using art and museum objects followed by practice in the museum.
Thinking Museum® Approach Intermediate
In this follow up course we explore and dig deeper into more complex Questioning Practices and frameworks. We further practise observation and interpretation techniques and hone our facilitation skills further through exercises in the museum. We will work with a variety of modalities and creative approaches to facilitating inquiry-led museum discussions.
Thinking Museum® Approach Advanced
In this third day we focus on how using the Thinking Museum® Approach can encourage perspective-taking and empathy to deepen understanding of art, history, society and broader issues of global importance. We will deploy advanced facilitation skills to facilitate discussions on complex topics of global significance.
Slow looking workshops
Book Claire Bown for a half-day, 1 or 2 day Slow Looking workshop. Participants in my SL workshops learn the basic principles of designing and facilitating slow looking experiences.
The session includes practice exercises and the chance to explore a variety of artworks through thinking routines, activities, and different modes of engagement.
The Art of Engaging Guided Experiences
The Art of Engaging Guided Experiences is designed for educators, front-of-house staff, and anyone who interacts with visitors. Learn practical strategies to enhance engagement through observation techniques, shared visual inquiry, and questioning practices that foster curiosity and connection. This workshop introduces the Thinking Museum® Approach from my book, The Art Engager: Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums.
Custom request
Get in touch with Claire Bown to discuss custom training requirements for teams of museum and heritage educators, museum docents, guides and volunteers, teachers and learning practitioners in a range of museum education practices, facilitation techniques, questioning skills and more.
TESTIMONALS FOR IN-PERSON TRAINING
It was a pleasure to work with Claire Bown, both in the planning, and implementation of the online training sessions.
Her in-depth knowledge of art, the museum context and thinking routines made the customisation of the training for an advanced team fun and professional.
We arranged the training in two parts, one part more focused on working with children and schools and one part more focused on general audience and adult groups.
The sessions have provided a common area of reflection for our team as well as new practical tools in facilitation.
Lena Eriksson, Head of Education, Nationalmuseum, Sweden
We just finished our virtual training sessions with Claire Bown and it was absolutely fantastic! There are 90 Docents in our Museum program and I received nothing but positive feedback. The strategies, activities, and questioning tools provided will have a lasting impact on the quality of our Docent Program
Grace Toth, School & Docent Programs Manager at the Toledo Museum of Art
I have booked several courses with Thinking Museum over the years. The courses always give inspiration to the guides and to the whole team. It makes everybody reflect upon their own style, role as a guide and techniques. Furthermore the courses give very practical tools to make guided tours more interactive, memorable and fun. I would recommend these courses to everybody.
Saskia Nyst, Educator at Koninklijk Paleis, Amsterdam
Claire, thank you so very much for your incredible slow looking masterclass for my art museum education graduate students. We were all completely riveted by your calm, even demeanor and soothing voice. We could have listened to you all day. You were like the Pied Piper of Art Museum Education! You could have led us anywhere and we would have followed!
I was incredibly impressed with your organization both leading up to and during the session, the flow of class, the captivating piece of art you chose for our discussion, and the content of your presentation. It was everything I hoped it would be and more! I would love for all of my future cohorts of students to get the same opportunity to study with you. Thank you, Claire!”
Laura Evans, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Art Education and Art History, University of North Texas