Productive Struggle Webinar 1 – Why emotion?

As part of an NSF-funded project, Guidelines for Designing Challenging and Rewarding Interactive Science Exhibits (DRL-1612577), the Museum of Science, Boston, CAST, EdTogether, and the University of Rochester held a four-part webinar series on “productive struggle,” a mixed emotional experience during which learners persist through negative feelings like confusion and frustration to achieve a satisfying resolution. In this webinar series, members of the team talk through their thinking and methods in designing productive struggle exhibits and also highlight how designing for emotions can create deeper, more inclusive learning experiences.

This webinar introduced the four-part series on August 13, 2020. The session focused on the role of emotion in museums, beginning with a primer on theoretical perspectives of emotion, reviewing applied concepts of emotional accessibility and emotional intelligence, and including interactive activities through which participants examined emotions in context.