The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will amplify its partnership with Hart Magnet School, a Title 1 elementary school in urban Stamford, Connecticut, by increasing exposure and access to the arts for first-fifth graders, their families, and educators. A new program model, leveraging the museum's artist exhibitions, will focus on technology and an inquiry-based approach to science. Students, educators, and families will be encouraged to see and think in new ways through on-site STEAM tours at the museum, artist-led workshops at Hart, teacher professional development, and afterschool family activities. Outside evaluators will work with the project team to develop goals and associated metrics to measure how the model of museum-school partnership can enhance student achievement, engage families more deeply in their child's school experience and community, and contribute to teacher professional development. The evaluator will also train museum staff on best practices for program assessment.
Sciencenter will develop a touring exhibition, Engineer.Design.Build, to spark interest and build confidence in STEM by providing learning opportunities about the broad impact engineers have on the environment and society. The museum will partner with Cornell University's College of Engineering to develop scientific content which will be reviewed by an advisory board of representatives from the academic, business, and informal science education sectors. Partners from informal learning institutions will provide expertise on the educational content to ensure that it is accessible and engaging for the target audience of 5-11 year olds. Through a combination of focus groups, youth/guest feedback during exhibition development, and experts in girls' engagement in STEM on the advisory board, the museum will ensure that the exhibition and programming are designed to appeal to girls, and accessible to all learners. The project will include front-end, formative, and summative evaluation through observations and mediated interviews, collecting data from youth, families, and school groups.
The Pacific Science Center will develop new evaluation tools to assess the impact of Tinker Tank, a visitor-directed, hands-on design space in which participants are challenged to use their creativity, problem solving, and experience to understand the processes of design, engineering, and science. The project will allow the museum to determine which tools, adapted from both informal learning settings (such as timing and tracking studies, observations, surveys, and focus groups) and formal settings (such as design journals, digital portfolios, and badging),are most suitable for providing meaningful data about the learning and engagement occurring in its makerspace. By adjusting and refining the evaluation tools and methods, the museum will be able to measure learning in its makerspace, determine the extent to which it is achieving the goals and objectives of its Tinker Tank, and guide planning for expansion of making activities into different areas of its exhibition floor.
The Bay Area Discovery Museum will address the need for STEM education by delivering engineering outreach programming to schools and libraries throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The museum's mobile engineering lab, Try It Truck, will introduce the engineering design process to students and teachers in grades K-5 with hands-on activities (both on and off the truck) where they can collaborate, experiment, and design solutions to engineering challenges. The Try It Truck will serve 21,600 children, parents, and educators throughout the Bay Area, with at least 50 percent of all participants coming from underserved communities and Title I schools. The museum will work with an external evaluator to design survey instruments for both formative and summative evaluation, analyze summative evaluation data, and produce a report. Museum staff will share project results with colleagues at national and statewide conferences.
The Children's Museum of the Upstate will expand its STEAM outreach programming to benefit both teachers and students in the Greenville County Schools. The museum will serve 2,000 students through STEAM programs held on-site at their elementary schools, with a focus on curriculum areas where standardized test scores indicate that students are struggling. A new program for preschoolers will be piloted in the school district's six child development centers. The pre-school classes will visit the museum for a field trip that includes free exploration time and a tailored storytime lesson. The museum will also present four teacher workshops reaching 400 educators to assist them in teaching STEAM topics. An independent evaluator will conduct an evaluation of the outreach programming and develop assessment tools to help determine how the curriculum can support student achievement and result in improved standardized test scores.
The Massachusetts Audubon Society will develop, pilot, and implement an evaluation framework for nature-based STEM programming that serves K-12 students visiting its network of nature centers and museums. Working with an external consultant, the society will develop the framework comprised of a logic model and theory of change for fieldtrips, and develop a toolkit of evaluation data collection methodology suitable to various child development stages. The project team will design and conduct three professional development training seminars to help Massachusetts Audubon school educators develop a working understanding of the new evaluation framework for school programs and gain the skills necessary to support protocol implementation. This project will result in the development and adoption of a universal protocol to guide the collection, management, and reporting of education program evaluation data across the 19 nature centers and museums in the Massachusetts Audubon system.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kris Scopinich
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Lawrence Hall of Science will build the capacity of staff from different programmatic departments to systematically evaluate their programs in strategic alignment with the museum's newly revised Theory of Action. Based on best practices in evaluation capacity building, the museum will create a strategic plan for evaluation that provides ongoing opportunities for staff to engage in evaluation practice. To build capacity and foster a culture of continuous improvement, program teams will participate in a variety of activities such as trainings to build knowledge about evaluation; meetings to discuss purpose and methods of evaluation; group inquiry about evaluation measures, outcomes, and data; and conducting evaluation with support from evaluators. Project outcomes for museum staff will include increased knowledge of evaluation design; increased skill in designing and conducting evaluation; ongoing and continuous use of evaluation data to improve decision making and programs; and enthusiasm for evaluation as part of the process of strategic learning.
The Science Center of Iowa will update its 10-year-old gallery, "What on Earth," to tell the story of how Iowa's habitats and animals are connected to each other and to humans. New exhibition components will include touch specimens, interactive elements, and an integrated storyline that connects the living specimens to the broader context of a delicate and changing ecosystem. The project will support the final phase of exhibition update, including the further development of specific content and experiences through an evaluative process, and the fabrication and installation of exhibitions, labels, and graphics. The museum will partner with the Science Museum of Minnesota to conduct a summative evaluation of the new content and experiences geared to a core audience of students in grades 3-5 and their caregivers.
The Science Museum of Minnesota will create a 450-square-foot version of its award-winning "RACE: Are We So Different?" exhibition for distribution to rural areas and communities in Minnesota, and adjacent regions in Iowa, eastern North and South Dakota, and northern Wisconsin. The museum will produce four replicas of the exhibition for museums and partner organizations, and collaborate with community groups to develop supporting programming specific to identified community needs. Programs will include facilitated reflective dialogues for groups of adults and students; a leadership institute with representatives from each host community; an educator guide for secondary school teachers; and a variety of workshops and arts presentations to extend conversations about race and racism. Like the original RACE exhibition, these condensed exhibitions will encourage visitors to explore the science, history, and everyday effects of race and racism through a combination of artifacts, historic and contemporary photography, multimedia components, and interactive activities.
Recent research suggests that emerging adulthood—the stage between adolescence and maturity marked by a lengthy process of identity development—constitutes a window of opportunity for museums to influence adults’ lifelong science learning trajectories. The current study sought to explore the impact of a single museum visit on emerging adults’ science self-efficacy, beliefs about their own abilities to learn or do science. A repeated measures design assessed the science self-efficacy of 244 emerging adults before, immediately after and three months after a science museum visit. Results from
Since the late 2000s, interest in the development and use of shared measures in the informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education (ISE) field has increased. The intent is to build the capacity of evaluators to measure common outcomes of ISE experiences. We begin this chapter with a definition of shared measures, a description of related technical qualities of these measures, and a discussion of benefits and concerns around the use of shared measures. We then review recent conversations and developments around shared measures, including examples of observational
With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Museums for America program, the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (Zoo) undertook a process of improving the interpretive experience of its Wings of the World exhibit, which concluded in summer 2018. The updated exhibition sought to enhance families’ connections to nature and inspire them to become better bird neighbors, in direct alignment with the Zoo’s strategic planning.
In collaboration with the Zoo, the Lifelong Learning Group (LLG) conducted formative and summative evaluation in spring and summer 2018. The