Elyse Handel

Member-at-Large (2027)

Elyse Handel is the Early Childhood Education Manager at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and received her degree in Early Middle Childhood Education with Mild Intervention Certification from Butler University 2011. Elyse taught in the museum’s Preschool for 9 years incorporating the beliefs of Dr. Maria Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and Project-Based Learning. Elyse firmly believes that when students discover and follow their own curiosity and interests, those experiences will support their learning and enable them to build connections to the world around them. Since her last year teaching in 2020, Elyse has been educating and advising the museum’s visitors, staff, and volunteers on the importance of early childhood development and family learning.

Additionally, Elyse often collaborates with other museums, universities, preschools, and educators while leading workshops and training on early childhood best practice, educational methodologies and frameworks, and family learning. Elyse’s experience using the classroom methodology, Powerful Interactions, in her own classroom and as well as adapting the methodology and training museum staff on the approach is a featured chapter in A New Role for Museum Educators: Purpose, Approach, and Mindset, edited by Elizabeth Wood.