Imagine a room of adults peering into glass cases or looking at paintings. Some are standing, while others are sitting on the floor. A few minutes pass. Then a few more. And then a couple more. What’s happening here?
Nina Bhattacharya, the Incubator’s Instructional Design Specialist, joined gallery instructors, museum educators, and teachers from across Massachusetts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for an interactive Project Zero workshop on the art of slow looking. Project Zero is an educational research group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, dedicated to understanding and enhancing learning and thinking.
The workshop was run by Project Zero’s Shari Tishman, the originator of slow looking. Initially emerging from museum practices, slow looking “contends that patient, immersive attention to content” offers opportunities for critical meaning-making and critical thinking. “In short, it’s going beyond the first glance,” shared Tishman.
During their time together, participants split into small groups to spend ten minutes with an object, guided by two “thinking routines” designed to explore systems and human engagement. Through noticing, describing, and interpreting, participants made sense of the art in front of them and their relationship to it—and the process of measured, slow consideration opened new observations about the art across the group.
“At the Incubator, we explore interdisciplinary global problems—ones that even an expert can’t unravel by themselves,” said Bhattacharya. “Slow looking is a powerful approach for surfacing the complexity of systems and situations, and one that can add another dimension to our diverse teaching and learning products.”
Take a peek at the Incubator’s teaching packs on complex global problems.