Samantha Heywood describes the Cool Pink group's experience at the Imperial War Museum
Inspiring Learning for All has given the "Cool Pink" group a language and framework to use when we describe what learning in museums is and can be, and to explain our priorities and working methods.
It gives a clearer idea of what buzzwords like 'lifelong learning' mean in our context, to colleagues who are not learning specialists. We have witnessed several 'eureka' moments when it is clear that our colleagues have understood and shared the meaning of 'learning'. We have been able to move forward with a new definition of learning which encompasses more staff and more of what they do.
We have used the Generic Learning Outcomes from the Measure Learning toolkit to define and agree the focus of particular projects. In particular we used these to brief designers for the new Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms. We are now able to communicate and explain projects to others with greater clarity and to raise funding for them. Using the GLOs we have also developed our thinking about the process of evaluation and how it will be reported.
