This poster was created for the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program Primary Investigator (PI) meeting. The research presented here is a summary of the various informal STEM learning opportunities offered as part of the collaboration between university researchers and museum practionners. We were interested in how museums can advance parent-child engagment in STEM-rich tinkering and reflection. The participants were able to take part of a few different activities that allowed for informal reflection and tinkering at the Tinkering Lab, a musuem exhibit that invites families to take
This poster, which was presented in Alexandria, VA at the CAISE AISL PI meeting in February 2019, summarizes the All Together Now project and research goals.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mizuko ItoTiera TanksleyOshin KhachikianAmanda Wortman
Antarctic Dinosaurs: A Giant Screen Film and Outreach Project aims to leverage the popularity and charisma of dinosaurs to draw museum audiences into a captivating educational journey, revealing the history and transformation of Antarctica and the planet’s polar ecosystems, and exploring the forces that continue to shape the continent. In addition to bringing to life a wealth of unfamiliar dinosaurs, amphibians and proto-mammals, this project will journey beyond the bones to reveal a more nuanced, multi-disciplinary interpretation of paleontology and Antarctica’s profound changes.
Centered
This is a poster presented at the 2019 AISL PI meeting, charged with coming up with discussion questions for attendees. Our question is about the next steps for a longitudinal study that is nearing the end of its initial phase.
This poster, which was presented in Alexandria, VA at the CAISE AISL PI meeting in February 2019, summarizes the LabVenture informal learning experience and the research challenge of leveraging a learning ecosystem frame to understand effects this statewide program may have had over its 14+ years at the student, teacher, school, and community levels.
This poster, which was presented in Alexandria, VA at the CAISE AISL PI meeting in February 2019, summarizes the Remake Making professional development program for makerspace facilitation.
The Explore Science: Let’s Do Chemistry project is a design-based research study creating both chemistry hands-on activities and a theoretical framework about strategies that promote increases in public interest, understandings of relevance, and feelings of self-efficacy about chemistry. This poster, which was presented at the 2019 NSF AISL Principal Investigators Meeting, shared the design-based research process for the ChemAttitudes project and asked how we can promote use of project findings and products beyond the life of the grant.
This study focused on narrative reflections families recorded shortly after they visited the Tinkering Lab exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum. They recorded their narrative reflections in a multi-media station called Story Hub. Some families brought the projects they had made in Tinkering Lab with them into Story Hub. We asked if families who had their project with them engaged in more STEM-related talk and associations to prior and future experiences than those who did not.
This study was designed to examine narratives that families recorded shortly after visiting the Tinkering Lab at the Chicago Children’s Museum. We view this work as intersecting with the event memory literature concerning variations in parental reminiscing styles for talking about past events (Fivush, Haden, Reese, 2006). The study also connects with efforts to assess learning in museum settings (Haden, Cohen, Uttal, & Marcus, 2016).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lauren PaganoDanielle NesiDestinee JohnsonDiana AcostaCatherine HadenDavid UttalPerla Gamez
This presentation was a part of a workshop/paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Children's Museums. The presentation includes strategies on how to increase STEM learning through tinkering experiences at museums.
Conversations shortly after hands-on learning experiences can consolidate children’s fleeting patterns of engagement with objects into long-lasting memories. Moreover, conversational reflection can add layers of understanding of events beyond what is available from direct experience with objects alone.
For the past several years, my colleagues and I have partnered with practitioners at Chicago Children’s Museum on projects to build knowledge and a research base for educational practices in museums. One focus of our work together concerns family engagement in conversational reflections about