Within learning environments kids talk can often be seen as disruptive or off task. However, Gutierrez et al reframe how teachers can engage kids talk and welcome diverse activities and linguistic practices to deepen learning and participation. This article explores how teachers allow students to offer local knowledge, reorganize activities, and make meaning that can connect to the official curriculum in unexpected ways.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Makerspaces are social spaces with tools, where individuals and groups conceptualize, design, and make things using new and old technologies. Literacy practices are the ways people use representational texts to navigate and make sense of their worlds. They are used in particular contexts with particular goals. By “representational texts” we mean written words, talk, photographs, diagrams, videos, schematics, computer code, electrical circuit diagrams
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Earth Partnership: Indigenous Arts and Sciences (IAS) refines a model for integrating Indigenous and Western STEM education utilizing a 10-step framework for ecological restoration, project-based learning, and professional development. Through community dialogues and a collaborative design process with Native Nations of Wisconsin, Earth Partnership is developing an Indigenous Arts and Sciences approach that has allowed Native participants to voice their insights
This is a report of a project titled ‘The Contribution of Natural History Museums to Science Education’, funded by the Wellcome Trust and ESRC with a Phase 1 grant from the Science Learning+ initiative. The project explored how Natural History Museums (NHMs) and schools can complement one another to maximise learning among school-age learners, and researched the long-term benefits to learning and engagement with science that NHMs can provide. During the course of our work, our team, which consisted of museum professionals and academics in the UK and the US, worked in the UK and the US with
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Magnetic Neighborhood is an interactive where visitors build their ideal neighborhood on a cookie tray using magnets of various urban features.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The project studied middle-school students using the Waves exhibit in order to understand how interacting with functional metaphors in a mixed reality environment impacts conceptual change, motivation, and scientific habits of mind while engaged in learning physics content.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Through My Window is engineering education that applies research from the learning sciences—including the use of cognitive tools such as narrative and knowledge building—in an idea-centered digital environment. Together these approaches support deep learning and address the critical need of preparing young learners to participate in the knowledge society. The curriculum includes young adult novels; interactive, online learning modules; and offline enrichment
This study examined the validity of the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST), which is commonly used to capture students’ perceptions of scientists. Findings suggest that the DAST is not valid as a sole measurement. The originally identified stereotypical traits are no longer widely held by students.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. The project's research goal is to identify the most important exhibit design attributes for engaging girls at STEM exhibits.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. This project engages underserved Native and non-native youth and adults in environmental science content and awareness through innovative exhibitions and hands-on activities. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and western science are communicated and promoted within culturally relevant contexts as valuable, complementary ways of knowing, understanding, and caring for the world.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. Designing Our World (DOW) empowers and promotes girls’ pursuit of engineering careers by cultivating networks of community stakeholders and engaging girls with experiences that illuminate the social, personally relevant and altruistic nature of engineering.
This poster was presented at the 2016 Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) PI Meeting held in Bethesda, MD on February 29-March 2. After-School Math Plus (ASM+) combines inquiry-based, hands-on activities connected to students’ interests outside
of school; standards-aligned skill development; strong focus on reaching groups underrepresented in math; role models and career exploration; and family involvement.