ABSTRACT
In 1990, the Museum Education Roundtable (MER) instituted the annual Research Colloquium as an experiment in professional development. Research in museum education is as varied and rich as the disciplines represented in our museums, from philosophical inquiry into an abstract question of professional values to high-tech proof of a working hypothesis. The key to real intellectual advancement is activating individual minds. New ideas are often best inspired by the collegial exchange at which museum educators tend to excel. All are aimed toward the practice of consciously disciplined learning, critical thinking, and the professional exchange of ideas. The rapid growth in the first years of MER's Research Colloquium combines with many other signs to indicate that this is the time to make active efforts, as individuals and institutions, in the direction of formal and informal research in the field.
