The findings of this study suggest that pre-service teachers do not adequately understand key concepts in climate science. They see the greenhouse effect as a problem, not as a natural phenomenon. By contrast, they inaccurately see chlorofluorocarbons as key contributors to global warming. The practical implication is that training programmes for teachers—and indeed for other learners—need to explain key terms more effectively. These programmes must also emphasize the links among causes, consequences, and solutions.
Museum educators rarely experience ongoing training. They tend to rely on their past experiences of teaching and learning to guide their interactions with learners. Allen and Crowley describe the implementation of a new school trip program that challenged museum educators’ beliefs. The program involved a five-month process of reflective practice and the iterative testing of student-centered, inquiry-based facilitation approaches.
This paper discusses a modification of the Delphi technique as a tool for bridging research and practice. The technique was used to build consensus among a variety of stakeholders on the subject matter of a proposed Ph.D. study, but it could also be used to identify a focus for other research or collaborative projects.
Rather than enacting imaginative approaches, some teachers tend to engage in safe but unexciting transmission of science knowledge. This study examined a professional development programme wherein primary school teachers learned the skills and approaches of Dramatic Science. The findings indicate that the programme met its aim of helping teachers become more confident and creative in supporting children’s science learning.
This document evaluates a meeting held by the New Mexico ISE Network (NM ISE Net) to link research and informal education institutions with one another to build capacity for informal science education.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kirk Minnick
resourceevaluationWebsites, Mobile Apps, and Online Media
The UMass Donahue Institute (UMDI) was contracted to provide formative evaluation services for WGBH’s PEEP and the Big Wide World project development of curriculum units and instructional modules for use by family child care providers (FCCPs). This formative study piloted three 3-week curriculum units focused on three science content areas, integrated with media and professional development materials for family child care settings (videos and a Facilitator’s Guide for trainers) in English and in Spanish. This report describes the methodology used to implement this study and the findings from
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WGBH Educational FoundationUniversity of Massachusetts, Donahue
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In December, 2013, a group of leaders of six informal science education (ISE) assessment projects met in Palo Alto, CA for a 2-day exploration of the state of the art of measuring the impact of informal STEM education experiences. The goals for the meeting were to explore in depth the technical and practical details of the assessments, share and critique findings, and review plans for ongoing work to validate and refine measures.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. Madison Area Technical College, in collaboration with the Institute for Chemical Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the American Chemical Society (ACS) and area science centers and museums will create a national program to disseminate the Fusion Science Theater (FST) model which directly engages children in playful, participatory, and inquiry-based science learning of chemistry and physics topics.
This paper summarizes a Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) convening (June 20-21, 2013) on Evaluation Capacity Building. The convening was designed to facilitate discussion about the resources needed to improve the quality of evaluation in ISE. Participants included evaluators currently practicing in the field, as well as those working in other disciplines; learning researchers; experience and setting designers; organizational leaders; program officers from the National Science Foundation (NSF); other federal funding agencies; and private philanthropic foundations.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. It describes a professional development collaborative research project to explore commonalities between native and western science, infusing an indigenous voice into programs and exhibits focused on environmental change. Native Universe builds on the Cosmic Serpent project.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. Using STEM America (USA) is a two-year Pathways project designed to examine the feasibility of using informal STEM learning opportunities to improve science literacy among English Language Learner (ELL) students in Imperial County, California.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting. The Prairie Science project is about facilitating learning STEM concepts by integrating a historical perspective (Conner Prairie Museum) and a science center-based perspective (Science Museum of Minnesota).