We've created a selection of useful products to help members of NISE Network promote the network within their own institution or with potential collaborators. These materials are updated regularly.
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NISE Network
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Because the NISE Network bridges the cultures of museums and the academic research world, participants from one profession may not always know the lingo of the other. At the same time, a shared vocabulary is essential for educators and researchers who want to truly collaborate on projects such as writing grant proposals. Therefore, we present the NISE Network Glossary of Two Worlds.
The fifth annual Invent It. Build It. event, sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Girl Scouts of the USA, WGBH’s Design Squad Global, the ExxonMobil Foundation, and Techbridge was held at the SWE annual conference in Los Angeles, CA. Participants included a record-breaking 619 middle school girls, plus 300 of their parents/guardians and middle school educators. More than 200 SWE members volunteered at the event to facilitate the activities, act as role models, and work closely with the middle school girls throughout the day. Thirty-two exhibitors provided information about camps
This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Focusing on how youth engaged a summer unit on understanding and modeling the relationship between energy use and the health of the urban environment, we use ethnographic data to discuss how the youth asserted themselves as community science experts in ways that took up and broke down the contradictory roles of being a producer and a critic of
As a part of the strategy to reach the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Science Education and Public Outreach Forum Objective 1.2: Provide resources and opportunities to enable sharing of best practices relevant to SMD education and public outreach (E/PO), the Informal Education Working Group members designed a nationally-distributed online survey to answer the following questions: 1. How, when, where, and for how long do informal educators prefer to receive science, mathematics, engineering, and/or technology content professional development? 2. What are the professional development and
This paper draws on ethnographic data to bring equity to the fore within discussions of tinkering and making. Vossoughi, Escudé, Kong & Hooper argue that equity lies in the how of teaching and learning through specific ways of: designing making environments, using pedagogical language, integrating students’ cultural and intellectual histories, and expanding the meanings and purposes of STEM learning. The authors identify and exemplify emergent equity-oriented design principles within the Tinkering After-School Program—a partnership between the Exploratorium and the Boys and Girls Clubs of San
The field of informal science education has embraced “making” and design activities as a powerful approach to engaging learners. This chapter by Blikstein finds that in order to create disruptive spaces where students can learn STEM, design and build inventive projects, educators . This paper provides theoretical background and concrete cases that illuminate program design and implementation issues related to making.
Petrich, Wilkinson, and Bevan (2013) explore three areas of design principles related to tinkering. The authors share their thinking related to the activity design, environmental design, and facilitation practices involved in creating and supporting rich tinkering experiences for museumgoers. They wrote a chapter on tinkering, which describes how the group initiated, cultivated, and facilitated a making and tinkering space on the floor of a museum. Specifically the chapter outlines principles for the activity design, the tinkering space, and the facilitation practices. The authors conclude by
Vossoughi and Bevan (2014) conducted a literature review of educational research on making and tinkering. They considered what was known about learning opportunities for young people afforded by high-quality tinkering and making experiences. Specifically they reviewed the historical roots of making, the emerging design principles that characterized tinkering and making programs, the pedagogical theories and practices that lead to supportive and collaborative learning environments, as well as the possibilities and tensions associated with equity-oriented teaching and learning.
The Maker Movement has taken the educational field by storm due to its perceived potential as a driver of creativity, excitement, and innovation (Honey & Kanter, 2013; Martinez & Stager, 2013). Making is promoted as advancing entrepreneurship, developing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, and supporting compelling inquiry-based learning experiences for young people. In this paper, we focus on making as an educative inquiry-based practice, and specifically tinkering as a branch of making that emphasizes creative, improvisational problem solving. STEM-rich