TERC Inc. will conduct a one-year proof of concept study that includes the design, development, and research of two prototype science activities for the virtual Blue Mars Science Center located on the Blue Mars 2150 platform developed by Virtual Space Entertainment. Blue Mars is a science fiction-themed virtual world set on Mars far in the future and will be rendered in High Definition, an important incremental step in the development of highly realistic virtual worlds. It is in this virtual world context that the proposed learning activities and research are to be conducted. TERC's research will examine the challenges of learning in virtual environments and which types of tools and interactions can encourage and support collaboration, the results of which will advance both informal and formal learning in virtual worlds. Avatar tracking data, participant observations, interviews, and surveys will be used to study participants. The project has the potential to advance areas of computational visualization systems and cognitive science and will afford an array of learning opportunities using real time data. Millions of visitors to the Blue Mars world will be able to share in an unprecedented range of virtual activities and experiences. It is anticipated that the research will inform the future development of even more advanced immersive interactivity, such as avatar-based models and computationally-oriented interactivity. The study will serve as a basis for both further development of the Blue Mars Science Center and the advancement of research on science learning in virtual worlds. The investigators are interested in continuing to expand as the scientific community evolves in the virtual world. The online world has the potential to become a powerful attractor for the general public to engage in science learning.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jodi Asbell-ClarkeTeon EdwardsRichard Childers
The Shared Signing Science Planning Project will develop a prototype of a web-based Signing Science Pictionary. The prototype will be piloted to families and caretakers of deaf and hard of hearing children to study the feasibility and effectiveness of the learning technology and identify the activities that are most effective in helping deaf children learn life science at informal science centers. The project team will also compile a dictionary of science terms with the intention of including the terms in a full version of the Pictionary. The final Pictionary will be comprehensive; including scientific terms from life, physical, Earth, and space science and will be presented in animated sign language accompanied by written explanations and pictorial illustrations. The project will also produce a video guide with a description of activities that parents can implement with their children. The planning project will result in a prototype with 100 life science terms of species found at the three informal science centers the children and parents will visit to test the prototype. These informal sites are hands-on and exploratory featuring marine organisms and a range of terrestrial flora and fauna to touch and interact with. To prepare for the site visits, parents and caretakers of deaf or hard of hearing children will be taught how to use the Pictionary with children through a Flash-based movie that introduces the interactive features and assists the parents in engaging with their children in three activities using the signing scientific vocabulary. The preparatory vocabulary work with the parents and children will lay the educational foundation for the visits to the informal science education sites. Families will test the initial project prototypes with deaf children using a control group for comparison. Pre-tests will be used to assess childrens' vocabulary before use of the Pictionary. Follow up tests will test knowledge of the new words and will include field observations of children in museums, zoos, and farms, where the new terms will come to life in corresponding exhibits. The results of the ongoing evaluation will be compiled into a guide for other developers of similar materials for the deaf community, and will impact the development of the final project. The project will broaden participation of an underserved audience in STEM learning and generate new knowledge about how to effectively integrate emerging learning technologies into exhibits and programs for deaf learners.The project team includes TERC and Vcom3D and collaborators from Gallaudet University Regional Center at Northern Essex Community College, the College of the Holy Cross, and the Learning Center for Deaf Children. Participating informal science education institutions are represented by the EcoTarium, Davis' Farmland, and the Stone Zoo. These partnerships provide the necessary expertise and support for the proposed project to have significant impact on advancing STEM learning in informal settings for children with hearing disabilities through the use of assistive learning technologies.
Research Communications Ltd. will develop research designs, measurement, and analysis techniques for the assessment of the impacts of informal science learning television programming and other media. Experts in the fields of psychology, science education, communications research, and evaluation and testing will develop methodologies and instruments to: better assess impact on attitudes, cognition, and behavior for specific audiences, take into account the idea that informal science learning may take a variety of forms, and better assess cumulative impacts of television and other media on informal science learning. The PI's for the project will be Valerie Crane, President of RCL, and Beth Rabin and Suzanne Carter, both on the RCL staff. Advisors would include experts in research on children's television programming such as Ellen Wartella and Keith Mielke, specialists in inquiry-based learning and formal and informal science curricula such as Matthew Schneps, and specialists in evaluation and testing such as Edward Chittenden.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Valerie CraneBeth RabinSuzanne Carter
Building upon extensive prior work, the Institute of Learning Innovation is developing and implementing a conference to bring together media professionals, researchers, and policymakers that work in ISE to reflect upon recent research and develop frameworks for future practice and evaluation. Various media-related groups (print, broadcast, electronic gaming, etc,) usually have professional conferences in isolation from each other with little sharing of information and research findings. Despite the rapid blurring of boundaries between various media types in the marketplace, researchers and practitioners remain within traditional silos. This conference will bring together 80 media practitioners and researchers for a two-day national conference in order to consolidate and synthesize the research-based theories presented in a pre-conference publication. A series of 3 post-web conferences will build on the momentum generated during the initial conference and generate broader participation within the science learning media community. Rockman et al will evaluate the conference and post conference web community.
Digital image processing offers several possible new approaches to the teaching of a variety of mathematical concepts at the middle-school and high-school levels. There is reason to believe that this approach will be successful in reaching some "at-risk" students that other approaches miss. Since digital images can be made to reflect almost any aspect of the real world, some students may have an easier time taking an interest in them than they might with artificial figures or images resulting from other graphics- oriented approaches. Using computer-based tools such as image processing operators, curve-fitting operators, shape analysis operators, and graphical synthesis, students may explore a world of mathematical concepts starting from the psychologically "safe" territory of their own physical and cultural environments. There is reason to hope that this approach will be particularly successful with students from diverse backgrounds, girls and members of minority groups, because the imagery used in experiments can easily be tailored to individual tastes. The work of the project consists of creating detailed designs of the learning modules, implementing them on microcomputers, and evaluating their effectiveness in a variety of ways, using trials with students at Rainier Beach High School, which is an urban public high school having an ethnically diverse student body and a Macintosh computer laboratory.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Steven TanimotoMichele LeBrasseurJames King
Many informal science and mathematics education projects employ multiple media, assuming that educational benefits will extend beyond those of a single medium. However, this assumption has not been tested empirically in a comprehensive way. This research uses Cyberchase (a multiple-media, informal mathematics project for 8- to 11-year-olds) to investigate synergy among multiple media components and how they interact to yield cumulative educational outcomes. Research questions: (1) How does mathematics learning from multiple media differ from learning from a single medium? (2) What outcomes derive from engagement with different types of media and what types of synergy occur? (3) How can reliable research methods be developed to assess contributions of individual media and their interactions? (4) How can informal education projects capitalize on the strengths of each medium? (5) How can media components be designed and employed to best complement each other? The research has four phases: (1) Preparatory - Recruit participants nationally with parental consent. Finalize methods and measures. (2) Naturalistic - Track naturalistic use of various Cyberchase media among 600-800 third and fourth graders. Assess mathematical problem solving and attitudes toward math. (3) Experimental - Establish causality by assigning a subset of the participants (N = 300-400) to several experimental conditions that are exposed to different combinations of Cyberchase media. Measure change in attitudes and problem solving from pretest to posttest. (4) Analysis - Employ appropriate regression and model fitting analyses to analyze the naturalistic and experimental data, and to synthesize the two. Because of the paucity of relevant existing research, this research will shed light on the educational impact of Cyberchase and on the design and assessment of multiple-media approaches to informal STEM education overall. It will advance our theoretical understanding of children's informal mathematics learning - specifically, how children learn from various media, what strengths each medium brings to bear, and what synergy might exist among media - and inform the best practice design and evaluation of future informal projects that use multiple media.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Shalom FischRichard LeshVincent MelfiSandra CrespoSandra Sheppard
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This award will support two years of work to plan and implement a national conference of approximately 30 participants representing the major research-based natural history museums in America to consider best practices for enhancing museum visitor understanding of evolution. Evolution is the central paradigm of the life sciences, and natural history museums are of fundamental importance to an understanding of the paradigm of evolution. Despite this fact, recent surveys indicate that the majority of the American public, including visitors to natural history museums, neither understands nor believes in evolutionary theory. The three-day conference to be held at the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2003 will be preceded by a pre-conference planning workshop in 2002 and a synthesis of literature and practices pertinent to the understanding of evolution in museums. The conference will bring together chief scientists, directors of education and exhibits, and directors of research and collections as participants in a program professionally facilitated by informal science education experts. Findings and outcomes of the conference will constitute 'best practices' for the field and will be published in the professional literature and disseminated via the Florida Museum website. With more than 10,000,000 visitors to natural history museums per year, once implemented in museum exhibitions and programs the results of this conference will have a broad impact on science literacy in America for years to come.
The Museum of Science in Boston is conducting a workshop/symposium that will focus on the question of how best to address the issue of enhancing public understanding of major, on-going research efforts. The workshop will begin a critical discussion among researchers and some of the most prominent practitioners of informal public education in the areas of science, engineering and technology. The discussion will explore possible directions that might be taken in regard to disseminating information about research to the public and in increasing the public's understanding of the role and possible implications of this research. Issues to be examined include: The scope and aspects of research upon which to focus; The present obstacles to public understanding; The advantages and disadvantages of different approaches for disseminating information; Costs and time frames of different approaches; How to encourage and implement collaboration and networking among institutions that have the goal of increasing public understanding. The general goal of the workshop is twofold: to provide feedback that will inform the creation of new programs to address the issue of enhancing public understanding of research and to share ideas among institutions that have a common purpose.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David Ellis
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) requests support to conduct the second conference on museum learning, "In Principle, In Practice," following their successful NSF-funded conference of a decade ago entitled "Public Institutions for Personal Learning: Establishing a Long-term Research Agenda." The goals of the conference and two related publications are to advance shared knowledge within the field about current research concerning learning in and from museums, to promote effective practice, to identify and disseminate research-based best practices for developing evaluation frameworks and to enhance the infrastructure for research and education. The four components of the project include: 1) a special supplement of the journal "Science Education," 2) a two-day national conference, 3) a post-conference white paper on informal science learning, and 4) a post-conference book on research-based understandings of learning from museums.
Abstract: The Liberty Science Center will organize a one-day symposium linked to the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) International Conference and Trade show in September 2008. The symposium will focus on the greater potential of gian screen experiences to connect society with science, building on the GSTA's symposium "Giant Screen Films and Lifelong Learning held in 1999. The program will bring together science and education experts with filmakers to stimulate and enhance more effective approaches to science learning in future giant screen films. Symposium results will be disseminated through publication and the internet, as well prepared for submission to peer-reviewed journals. An industry-specific listserv focused on lifelong learning will be created to serve as a new community-building tool for exchange among producers, distributors and exhibitors. Emlyn Koster (Liberty Science Center) and Mary Nucci (Rutgers University) will serve as aymposium chair/PI and symposium manager/Co-PI, respectively; in partnership with GSCA staff, they will be responsible for symposium management, evaluation, and dissemination of results.
The Conference on Cyberlearning Tools for STEM (CyTSE) brings together scientists, cyberlearning developers, educational researchers, STEM educators (formal and informal), curriculum developers and other stakeholders that contribute to the agenda on K-12 STEM cyberlearning and workforce preparation. Collaborators include Northwestern University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and the WGBH Educational Foundation. This informative meeting will be held as a NSTA pre-conference workshop. The conference plan includes keynote presentations by prominent cyberinfrastructure and cyberlearning professionals, an expert panel on cyberlearning and the future of STEM education, hands-on demonstrations of cyberlearning tools for participants, and interactive poster sessions. Potential tracks for the poster sessions include emerging technologies, design and development, technical challenges and solutions, implementation and integration, and research and evaluation. The second day of the conference will include teacher professional development workshops, as well as in-depth design focus groups, developer integration and interoperability workshops, and a session emphasizing the development of a cyberlearning research agenda. Additional deliverables include a video overview of the conference (for those unable to attend), a white paper proposing a cyberlearning research agenda, and an evaluation study to measure the impact of the conference on participants. A series of post-conference webinars will be hosted by WGBH's Teachers' Domain and publicized on their Facebook, Classroom 2.0, and Science Ning sites to encourage ongoing collaboration. It is anticipated that this two-day conference will bridge gaps between the stakeholder communities and expose important trends and issues that will contribute to a comprehensive research agenda.
The goal of this project is to facilitate a conference (5/17-19/2010) between a representative delegation of science center personnel led by the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and three Chinese organizations (CTSM, BSTCC, BSTEC) on the merits of informal science education for STEM education of the public and youth. [The three Chinese organizations are: China Science and Technology Museum (CSTM); Beijing Science and Technology Consulting Center (BSTCC), and Beijing Science and Technology Exchange Center with Foreign Countries (BSTEC).] The three-day conference in Beijing, China will include 16 US participants. Presentations from both sides will be made followed by discussions providing a basis for comparisons and contrasts. The total number of participants at the conference is estimated to be 200. China has recently decided to put considerable effort into informal science education, suggesting that science learning begins with "hands on" activities. The basis for this conclusion is derived from significant findings of research on cognitive aspects of childhood education. Since the US has considerable interest in this subject as well, this conference is timely. China is providing housing, meals and in-country transportation ($130,000) while NSF is providing US participants with airfare to China and logistical expenses. A detailed final report from the US participants will provide a mechanism for dissemination of the conference results.