Accessing science museum educators’ discourse through multimodal narratives

Abstract

Museum educators play an important role in science communication, as they connect elements of an exhibit with visitors through emotion-driven experiences that are meaningful to them. Language is their main modus operandi in face-to-face interactions, but little is known of how they use it to communicate science, in part because little attention has been given to their practices and professional development. Nowadays, museums are changing, and science communication has become more demanding as these institutions exhibit hot themes of science. In this context, it is important that museum educators become aware of how they communicate science with an intended audience and reflect on how their practice can be improved. In this chapter, the authors focus on the way multimodal narratives can be used as a tool to access museum educators' discourse as well as how to promote museum educators' reflection about their practice and their professional development.