Creating Meaning in Museums: Conversational Strategies for Guided Tours

This practical handbook is a proposal for transforming museum tours. The target audience is museum guides, docents and interpreters who are interested in facilitating conversations about seen and unseen meanings in artworks, objects, and artifacts. The goal is to engage visitors in meaning-oriented inquiry which involves “doing” and not just “viewing” creative work. Grounded in whole to part learning theory and best teaching practices, each chapter includes a tour “vignette” written as a “you are there” experience. The vignettes–from different types of museums–show guides and docents using diverse strategies that invite readers to assume the role of guide and guest. Meaningful Museum Conversations: Strategies for Guiding Tours also offers an extensive Museum Guide Toolkit that aligns with inquiry thinking, and features recurring chapter sections that include Advice from Museum Guides and Adapting for Differences.