Introduction

Becoming a Better ME: Chinese science museum educators' expectations for professional growth

“…Anderson and Fu (2017) compare the deficiency of conventional training models and championed the idea of credentialing museum educators, which could also be “a new and promising frontier for the museum field and for university‐based education” (p. 55). In McIntosh's (2011) study, museum educators valued “conversational opportunities” with colleagues as an important approach for their professional growth, in which they were encouraged to share thoughts, beliefs, challenges, and reflections about museum education work. Tran (2013) proposed that museum educators' professional development should be rooted in an authentic context as a way to help museum educators make connections between their self‐thoughts and practices.…”

“…Conclusively, a recurring theme in the literature on the professional training of museum educators demonstrates a dissatisfaction on the traditional learning approaches and reflects their strong desires for a more collaborative and socially interactive professional learning community (King & Tran, 2017; McIntosh, 2011; Tran, 2013). Their desires originate from the reflection of the practical work reality as well as from the imagination of idealized possibilities of being a professional practitioner in museum education.…”

“…And then I made some changes. It was so tough during the first year (Jie).MengMeng's experience acted as an “advanced organizer” for Juan to start her museum education career (McIntosh, 2011). In this learning process, Juan grew up and acted as a facilitator and supporter of Jie, a newcomer to museum education work.…”