Not "Cooperation," but "Coordination"

Richard Alterman just published a piece in Cognitive Science: an interdisciplinary journal on the ways that coordinated activity between people invites the emergence of conversational structure and shared representation, which turn out to be important for developing a shared view (often called intersubjectivity) of collective work. This, in turn, allows for progress (always something we seem interested in) and expansion of activity.

Why is this interesting to museum folk? Well, for one, it might be interesting to reframe conversations about exhibit design to include discussions about their ability to provide for 'coordinated activity.' If we take Alterman's account to be believable, then exhibits that provide for coordinated activity will also allow the emergence of conversational structure and shared representation, which then invite opportunity for increased intersubjectivity, and eventual escalation of 'progress' (however you, I, or those playing with the exhibit might define this) and expansion of what's getting 'done' (something I wholeheartedly want to encourage - as exhibits often seem to illicit repetitive, short-lived activity with very finite endpoints, rather than expansive, differentiating activity).

I also want to point out that a lot of the literature on museum learning and activity has, in the past 10 years, focused on the importance of creating enough space for families to participate as a group (increased counter-space, viewing angles, multiple 'stations,' etc), while this work is not discontinuous with Alterman's observations, I think Alterman is pointing to the potential for an even broader interpretation of coordinated activity than just "inter-family." What if we could focus on exhibits that produced "intra-family" interactions as well? To what degree would this multiply the effects of progress and expansion of activity?

As an interesting side-note to this pondering, see Museum 2.0's dappling in questions of "partially limiting barriers," which begins to theorize some mechanics of experiences that allow for, otherwise unlikely, social interactions.