I visited the MIT Museum during normal hours and was immediately drawn to the many interactive exhibits that allowed me to participate in some way.

I also attended the After Dark: Food night, which was a 21+ event filled with interactive exhibits surrounding the theme for the night. I don’t think I realized how much I was learning because of the genuine fun I was having.

The Art Lab at the ICA was filled with young kids collaborating and chatting over their exploration of light and shadow.

Upstairs, the Cicely Carew exhibit was not outwardly interactive, but it provided a break from a typical white box with its green carpet, blue walls, and nature sounds.

I observed a field trip at the Harvard Art Museums where students were jaw-dropped with excitement after being told that talking and running was allowed - only to be admonished by docents for running soon after.

At Harvard Student Night and Family Day, I saw lots of engaged visitors participating in the variety of interactive activities around the museum.

“A hands-on or interactive museum exhibit has clear educational objectives which encourage individuals or groups of people working together to understand real objects or real phenomena through physical exploration which involves choice and initiative.”

“In short, in the constructivist museum, visitors are encouraged to construct knowledge from the exhibit through personal and social interaction, and they are enabled to draw their own conclusions about the meaning of the exhibition.”

“Adults as much as children need a gallery environment that allows open and exploratory learning and encourages them to question and challenge.”

“Interactive exhibits are powerful learning tools of a dual kind: for the user they constitute an independent, teacher-free, learning device; for the researcher they are the means for rendering explicit the user's conceptions and studying the learning process. They are both a teaching device and a research device. Users learn subject matter and process; researchers learn how users learn. Each one of these two modes of use of the exhibit reinforces and refines the other.”

“Using the interaction of the visitors with the exhibits to study general questions about learning serves, in turn, to enhance the quality of the learning experience itself.”