DLI: iPhones and Intersessions: The Potential for Civic Engagement through Mobile Learning

How can a museum facilitate civic engagement with high school students? How can a design approach catalyze real world learning and mobilization? The Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum is the founder of the ArtLab, a design studio for teens. This year, the ArtLab partnered with two D.C. public charter schools to answer these questions.

With guidance and support from the Pearson Foundation, the ArtLab developed a Community Design program for high school students. During week-long workshops, teens formed design teams and explored their communities to identify sites that (a) they care about and (b) that need revitalization. Sites ranged from their over-crowded local youth center to the gang-controlled streets of San Salvador, El Salvador. Once they identified and researched sites they wanted to change, teens conducted field research and interviewed community members to find out how others relate to their site. Finally, the participants developed potential solutions to their problem locations and presented them through documentaries and 3D models to members of their local communities.

The key to the Community Design program’s success is engaging teens with interest-based challenges that empower them to reexamine and redefine the world they live in. In the process, teens become active citizens and community members. The ArtLab’s design studio approach facilitates this process by encouraging team work and posing problems as design challenges. Young people are given professional roles and tools that allow them to design real solutions. This freedom allows teens to push the boundaries of what they think they can accomplish; gain important 21st century skills such as collaboration and problem-solving; and master with digital tools essential for today’s workforce. Furthermore, through access to the physical and professional resources in the Hirshhorn - a museum of modern and contemporary art - students learn to look for innovative, artful solutions to their tasks.

The “iPhones and Intercessions” workshop is an active exploration of real world learning and civic engagement. Participants will be challenged to explore a community problem and develop a design solution collaboratively--in 45 minutes. A concluding discussion will address challenges participants and ArtLab staff faced implementing this approach as well as possible solutions. Participants will leave with specific design challenges and applications for their own sites and communities.