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Abstract BackgroundIn this paper, we add to the scant literature base on learning from failures with a particular focus on understanding educators' shifting mindset in making‐centred learning environments. AimsThe aim of Study 1 was to explore educators' beliefs about failure for learning and instructional practices within their local making‐centred learning environments. The aim of Study 2 was to examine how participation in a video‐based professional development cycle regarding failure moments in making‐centred learning environments might have shifted museum educators' failure pedagogical mindsets. SampleIn Study 1, the sample included 15 educators at either a middle school or museum. In Study 2, the sample included 39 educators across six museums. MethodsIn Study 1, educators engaged in a semi‐structured interview that lasted between 45 and 75 min. In Study 2, the six museums video recorded professional development sessions. ResultsResults from Study 1 highlighted educators' failure pedagogical mindsets as either underdeveloped or rigid and absent of relational thinking between self‐ and youth‐failures. One key result from Study 2 was a shift from an abstract sense of failure as youth‐focused to a practical sense of failure as educator‐focused and/or relational (i.e., youth educator‐focused failure moments). ConclusionsBased on the results from Study 1 and Study 2, our research suggests that exploring an educator's relationship with failure is important and witnessing and reflecting upon their own failure pedagogical mindset in action may facilitate a shift towards a more complex and interconnected space for growth and development of both educators and youth.
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This content will become publicly available on November 19, 2025
Museum Educators Perspective of Failure: A Collective Frame Analysis
Museums offer a unique role and safe space in shaping how youth view and react to experiences with failure. The purpose of this study was to add to the conversation around failure in out‐of‐school learning, particularly from the perspective of educators within museum settings that implement STEAM‐related making exhibits, workshops, and/or camps for youth. We analyzed approximately 9 h of video data from two sources: video recordings of virtual group meetings with 14 museum educators from six partnering institutions, and video recordings from five of the individual partnering sites discussing failure as a concept within their organization and programming. In this article, we demonstrate how the framings of failure by museum educators are bounded, and transformed, by un/seen external forces that ultimately impact the professional practices of educators in their organizations. We contend that the significance of this study lies in how perspectives around failure are produced and how they influence educators' professional practice, specifically in how failure is framed and communicated within STEAM‐related learning opportunities in museum settings.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2005927
- PAR ID:
- 10559204
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Curator: The Museum Journal
- ISSN:
- 0011-3069
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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