How to Care for Your Learning Department (Before It’s Too Late)

When times are uncertain, organizations often tighten budgets, delay new hires, and try to wait out the storm. That instinct makes sense, but it can quietly weaken one of your most valuable assets: your learning department.

The danger is subtle. Learning departments don’t usually collapse in a day. They erode slowly, over time, through neglected staff, fuzzy strategy, or a lack of clarity about their role. And when the moment comes that you need them most, whether to adapt to shifting school reforms, meet changing audience expectations, or experiment with new tools like AR, VR, or AI, you may find they’ve lost their edge.

Now is not the time to sideline learning. It’s the time to take stock of its health.

The New Landscape

The ground under education and culture is shifting in ways that directly affect learning departments:

• School reforms are accelerating. Several states are rethinking accountability and assessment models, exploring competency-based systems, and recognizing out-of-school providers as formal education partners (Education Commission of the States, 2023). This means cultural institutions with robust learning teams are positioned to play a bigger role in public education, if they’re ready.

• Audiences are changing. Families expect programs that are hands-on, personalized, and relevant to their daily lives. Teachers need curriculum-aligned, flexible supports, not just one-off tours. Adult learners increasingly demand experiences tied to wellness, creativity, or career development (National Research Council, 2009).

• New engagement methods are emerging. Museums and schools are experimenting with AR and VR to deepen immersion, AI to personalize learning recommendations, and hybrid experiences that blend online and in-person participation (Parry, 2021). If your department isn’t scanning these trends, it risks falling behind.

• Economic uncertainty persists. History shows that cultural institutions with strong local buy-in and education offerings weather downturns better than those seen as “luxuries” (Brown & Ratzkin, 2011). Learning departments can anchor that relevance—but only if they’re healthy.

A strong learning department isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the safeguard that allows your institution to adapt, stay relevant, and demonstrate public value when conditions change. To put it bluntly, the world of learning in cultural institutions is changing quickly, and the old way of doing things is inadequate.

Common Pitfalls

When I consult with institutions, I see the same patterns repeat:

1. Siloed staff
   Learning professionals are often left to “do their thing,” separate from curators, visitor services, or strategy. This creates duplication of effort, missed partnerships, and, most importantly, a sense that learning is secondary instead of integral. Research on effective museum practice emphasizes cross-departmental collaboration as a hallmark of innovation (Falk & Dierking, 2016).

2. Shortcut fixes
   It’s tempting to rely on docents, volunteers, or minimally-prepared staff to deliver school programs. But content knowledge alone doesn’t equal instructional expertise. Studies on docent-led versus educator-led programs show significant differences in how students engage, especially in questioning and higher-order thinking (Tran, 2007).

3. Sticking with “how we’ve always done it.”
   The world around us changes; schools revise their standards, families expect new forms of engagement, and technology reshapes how people learn. Yet many institutions cling to legacy program models because “it’s what we’ve always offered.” The danger is that what worked for audiences in 2005 may no longer resonate in 2025. For instance, a once-popular lecture series may now feel inaccessible to families who prefer interactive or digital formats. Failing to adapt sends an implicit message: we value our traditions more than your needs. Over time, that erodes trust and relevance.

4. Lack of a Clear Vision for Learning.
   Everyone has an opinion about learning programs. Without a defined vision, a learning department can easily become a “catch-all” for anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere in the institution. This leads to staff being spread thin across disconnected tasks rather than working toward a coherent purpose – burnout tends to follow. A strong vision statement provides focus: is the priority serving K–12 students, engaging families, creating adult lifelong learning, building partnerships, or something else? Clarity here prevents drift and strengthens alignment with institutional goals.

5. Mission creep
   Learning departments are particularly susceptible to being treated as catch-all spaces: a tour here, a workshop there, a new event tacked on because “no one else had capacity.” Without guardrails, departments lose their identity and become overextended.

6. Treating Learning as a Service, Not a Strategy
   Often, learning programs are seen as add-ons, something to “offer” once exhibitions and operations are in place. This mindset limits the department’s influence, keeps learning from shaping the broader strategy of the institution, and forces a learning department to take a reactive position. When learning is treated strategically, it informs exhibit design, drives community engagement, and strengthens partnerships. In other words, it moves from being a supportive function to a central pillar of the institution’s identity.

These pitfalls aren’t signs of incompetence; they’re signs of neglect. Leadership hasn’t invested the time to define the department’s purpose, boundaries, and role.

The Bigger Lesson

At its best, a learning department is more than a program delivery team. It’s a strategic function that connects the institution’s mission to its public. But that function must be defined.

• Is the department primarily responsible for K–12 school partnerships, aligning programs with curriculum and supporting teachers?

• Does it serve as the hub for general audience learning, spanning families, adult programs, and lifelong learners?

• Is its role to deliver content designed in-house, or to facilitate partnerships that bring outside expertise and community needs into the institution?

There isn’t a universal right answer. But there is a wrong one: trying to be all of these things without clarity or capacity.

This is where analogies help. At times, a learning department can act like the brain of an organization, providing direction, shaping specific experiences, and anticipating needs. In this view, the learning department possesses a certain type of expertise that is sought by other partners in the organization. At other times, it’s more like the kidneys, filtering all proposals, ensuring consistency, and maintaining institutional health. In this view, the learning department is responsible for everything, in some way - everything goes through the department. Bear in mind, a body cannot operate without either of these organs, so they are both essential. The problem comes when leadership asks a department to be both without realizing the tension or the distinction. That’s when staff end up caught between contradictory expectations, burning energy in a cycle of role dissonance and diminishing returns. Not articulating the true purpose and function of your learning team sets them up for failure.

The deeper opportunity lies in interdisciplinary planning. Too often, organizations think of subjects in rigid categories, with science here, technology there, art somewhere else. But as research on STEM integration shows, the richest learning happens when boundaries blur and connections emerge (Beers, 2011). A department operating with a classification mindset misses those opportunities.

A Practical Tool

Reflection is important, but without structure, it’s easy to default back to old habits. That’s why I’ve developed the Learning Department Health Check (click to access the full PDF).

This downloadable tool isn’t just a checklist. It’s designed to:

• Diagnose strengths and vulnerabilities. A series of prompts help you see where your department is thriving, and where cracks may be forming.

• Spark leadership discussions. Each section includes guiding questions to bring to leadership teams, ensuring alignment between staff vision and institutional priorities.

• Clarify function. A diagnostic tool helps surface potential mismatches between role, function, and expectation.

• Plan for the future. A framework for positioning your department in light of school reform, audience shifts, and new technologies.

Institutions that use this tool will come away with not just a to-do list, but a map of where to focus and where outside expertise may help accelerate progress.

Call to Action

The institutions best positioned for the coming years will be those that treat their learning departments as strategic assets, not afterthoughts.

Download the Health Check above. Share it with your leadership team. And if the results suggest gaps, don’t ignore them. HB3 Consulting helps cultural institutions and schools align their learning functions with mission, audience, and future trends, so when change comes, you’re ready.

References

Beers, S. Z. (2011). 21st Century Skills: Preparing Students for THEIR Future. ACSD.

Brown, A. S., & Ratzkin, R. (2011). Making Sense of Audience Engagement. The San Francisco Foundation.

Education Commission of the States. (2023). K–12 Policy Trends.

Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (2016). The Museum Experience Revisited. Routledge.

National Research Council. (2009). Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits. National Academies Press.

Parry, R. (2021). Museums in a Digital Age (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Tran, L. U. (2007). “Teaching Science in Museums: The Pedagogy and Goals of Museum Educators.” Science Education, 91(2), 278–297.