DESIGN FOR INCLUSION: MULTIMODAL PEDAGOGIES IN THE NARRATIVE, PERFORMATIVE AND SIMULATED SPACES OF A DOC MCSTUFFINS EXHIBIT

Abstract

Studies in the current research paradigm follow a pattern of pre-exhibit activities, in-exhibit monitoring and post-exhibit test to evaluate learning and program effectiveness in museums. These efforts helped identify some important factors correlative to learning, but little is known about how exhibits are designed in a way that space, materials and instruction are organized as an integrated pedagogy. By examining knowledge production in-situ, in progress and in interaction at a Doc McStuffins exhibit in a children’s museum, this study aims to find out how the exhibit is designed effectively as a pedagogical effort to engage children and parents and achieve its teaching objectives. In order to unpack the complex and dynamic pedagogy, I examine the three major components of the pedagogy separately for the convenience of analysis, namely, physical space organization, materiality (human-object interactivity), and differentiated instructions (parent-child and educator-visitor interaction), even though these components are organically interwoven together in practice. As a reconstruction of a toy hospital from children’s favorite TV show, the Doc McStuffins exhibit organizes its pedagogies into narrative, performative and simulated spaces. This consistent and coherent arrangement of space, time and activities offers a backdrop of familiarity and fantasy that excites young children’s imagination and offers them easy access to content learning. The study has discovered: (1) how the organization of physical space communicated to visitors the themes of the exhibit and impacted the ways in which parents and children interact with each other; (2) how materials and technologies are used for effective teaching and learning; and (3) and how parents and educators worked together to construct pedagogy in the form of differentiated instructions. These findings iv can provide useful information for children’s museums that are committed to creating a family centered learning environment. They could also have widespread implications for classroom environment design and the design of community-based learning environments that involve a nexus of materials, space and a diverse population.