The "Successful scaffolding strategies in urban museums: Research and practice on mediated scientific conversations with families and museum educators" project seeks to simultaneously advance existing research on learning in informal settings, and to improve museum educator practice in mediating understanding with families in an urban museum. This collaboration between the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) in Tampa, Florida, and the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) will focus on three research questions: 1. What are several underlying characteristics of successful and unsuccessful strategies for scaffolding understanding of collaborative groups while interacting and talking at life science based exhibits?; 2. How can such identified strategies for scaffolding understanding of collaborative groups be best translated to inform teaching practices in museums, using teacher research as the focus?; 3. Can these scaffolding strategies be disseminated beyond MOSI in a published and replicable model for other informal learning centers? This project is designed to identify, practice and disseminate successful scaffolding strategies, studying, first, how they are used by families visiting MOSI without mediators, and, second, with museum educators. They then will collaborate with museum educator researchers (MERs) to analyze digital audio/video and other data, carefully abstracting new scaffolding tools. This is followed by practice and reflection and broader dissemination with the goal of understanding essential aspects of successful and unsuccessful scaffolding. A "teacher research model" will be used for museum educator professional development. By intertwining demonstrated and effective scaffolding research and practice with populations typically left out of informal education research, the anticipated strategic impact will be in: * Advancing current understanding of a new area of informal learning research centering on scaffolding practices; * Redefining scaffolded teaching practice with museum educator researchers; * Creating a model for conducting collaborative research with families, youth and schools typically not included in museum research and evaluation; * Contributing to overall research on collaborative sense-making conversations in museums; and * Increasing the ability of museum educators who interact with the public, their supervisors and trainers to promote self-directed learning. Once the researched strategies and methodologies for identifying those strategies are documented, future researchers can efficiently add to the body of understandings. This project will have broad implications for all informal learning, no matter the location.
The New Ecological Paradigm for Children is modeled after the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) and the New Ecological Paradigm-Revised (NEP-Revised) for adults. The survey contains 10 questions assessing three subscales that contribute to one’s “environmental world view” including “rights of nature,” “eco-crisis,” and “human exceptionalism.”
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Constantinos C. ManoliBruce JohnsonRiley E. Dunlap
This study was conducted as a part of the formative evaluation of the NISE Network forum Energy Challenges, Nanotech Solutions? The purpose of the forum was to bring members of the public together to discuss how they would suggest that NSF distribute funding among three different energy-related research topics: nanotechnology-dependent energy, existing alternative energy, and conservation & energy efficiency. During 2008, all five NISE Network Forum Team institutions (Exploratorium, Museum of Science, Museum of Life and Science, Science Museum of Minnesota, and Oregon Museum of Science and
This study was conducted as part of the formative evaluation of the NISE Network forum Privacy. Civil Liberties. Nanotechnology. The purpose of the forum was to bring members of the public together to discuss whether nanotechnology applications that could impact privacy should be used. During the course of the forum, participants learned about nanotechnology from expert speakers, learned about the societal and ethical implications of nanotechnology through the play Let Alone, had a chance to ask questions of the experts, participated in a small group discussion where they talked about the pros
The 2010 Delivery and Reach study documented the delivery of nano education activities at NISE Network partner institutions and estimated the public reach of those activities. Surveys used in this study are included in the appendix of this report.
The Review of NISE Network Evaluation Findings: Years 1-5 seeks to investigate the work of the NISE Network since its inception in 2005 and provide an overarching summary of NISE Net Public Impacts evaluation efforts to the NISE Network and the broader ISE field.
This article summarizes key findings of the American Association of University Women (AAUW)'s research report, "Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics" (2010). The report profiles research that demonstrates how social and environmental factors—including stereotypes, cultural beliefs, and implicit bias—act as barriers to girls’ and women’s full participation in these fields. This article provides a brief explanation of their findings and recommends what science centers and museums can do to promote girls' participation in science and math. The full report is
University of New Mexico (UNM) and Arizona State University (ASU) created a paved 3-km walking trail along the south rim of the Grand Canyon in partnership with the National Park Service. The "Trail of Time" is marked as a time line corresponding to Earth history, along with interpretive wayside exhibits. This place-based geoscience exhibition using Grand Canyon as an immersive environment is designed to help visitors gain an understanding of the magnitude of geologic time, as well as key processes and events in the geologic evolution of the region.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Karl KarlstromLaura CrosseySteven SemkenRebecca Mathews Frus
This project will develop a comprehensive Space Weather Outreach program to reach students, educators, and other members of the public, and share with them the discoveries from this scientific discipline. The Space Science Institute will capitalize on its prior successes and the success of other education programs to develop a comprehensive and integrated program that has the following five components: (1) the Space Weather Center website that includes online educational games; (2) Small Exhibits for Libraries, Shopping Malls, and Science Centers; (3) After-School Programs; (4) Professional Development Workshops for Educators, and (5) an innovative Evaluation and Education Research project. Its overarching goal is to inspire, engage, and educate a broad spectrum of the public and make strategic and innovative connections between informal and K-12 education communities. Partners include UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; the American Library Association; Macerich: a mall developer with nationwide impact; and the Math, Engineering, Science Achievement program. The project brings together a creative collaboration between exhibit designers, graphic artists, formal/informal educators, and research scientists. The project spans a full spectrum of science communication strategies (formal, informal, and public outreach). The evaluation part of the project will examine how well the project elements work together and a pilot research study will explore the efficacy of online digital games for communicating complex space weather content. Results will be published and the findings presented at professional meetings and online. The three-year project is expected to impact well over two million people, including exhibit and website visitors and outreach visitors at various venues such as libraries and malls.
This statement of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) affirms the significance of cultural competence in evaluation. It also informs the public of AEA’s expectations concerning cultural competence in the conduct of evaluation.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
American Evaluation AssociationMelvin HallCindy CrustoKatrina BledsoeJenny JonesKaren KirkhartKatherine TibbettsElizabeth Whitmore
The Dimensions of Success observation tool, or DoS, pinpoints twelve indicators of STEM program quality in out-of-school time. It was developed and studied with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) by the Program in Education, Afterschool and Resiliency (PEAR), along with partners at Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Project Liftoff. In 2014, a technical report was released, describing the tool and its psychometric properties (http://www.pearweb.org/research/pdfs/DoSTechReport_092314_final.pdf). The DoS observation tool focuses on understanding the quality of a STEM activity in an out-of-school time learning environment and includes an explanation of each dimension and its key indicators, as well as a 4-level rubric with descriptions of increasing quality. Today, over 700 people have been trained to use the DoS tool, and over 12 state networks have adopted DoS to measure the quality of their afterschool STEM programming.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Program in Education, AfterschoolDr. Ashima ShahDrew Gitomer