Participatory activities that involve museum visitors in active communication arose in museum practice at the end of the 20th century in response to the need for new cultural, social and cognitive experience. The article deals with participatory methods that have been formed in the modern museum pedagogy over the past three decades: free discussion (A. Hausen, P. Yenawine, N. Ievleva, M. Potapova), art-mediation, method TABULA (O. Ward), visual intelligence (A. Herman). A general methodological principle of the museum participation is the denial of demonstration of an expert position. It helps to solve several tasks: to involve the viewer in communication, to tune to dialogue with the work, to help in understanding the artistic language. Collective discussion allows us to enrich our individual vision, to pay attention to many different details for their multi-interpretations. This communicative method helps to combine learning and entertainment successfully, and it has a positive effect even in the case of occasional educational activity. The purpose of the article is to identify the educational opportunities of participatory practices and to justify the relevance and effectiveness of their using. A comparative analysis of the educational results expected by the described methods and universal competencies showed their coincidence and allowed us to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of participatory practices for developing students’ communicative and cognitive skills and abilities related to information processing, systemic and critical thinking. The study has practical significance for the formation of both universal and special professional competencies. It is very important for the competence-based approach.