The Exploratorium comes together with the Education Development Center, Inverness Research, TERC, the University of Colorado - Boulder, and the University of Washington to form a Research+Practice (R+P) Collaboratory. The Collaboratory seeks to address and reframe the gap between research and practice in K-12 STEM education. This gap persists despite decades of work by many leading organizations, associations, and individuals. Attempts to close the gap have generally focused on creating resources and mechanisms that first explain or illustrate "what research says" and then invite educators to access and integrate findings into practice. Recently, however, attention has turned to the ways in which the medical sciences are addressing the gap between research and clinical practice through the developing field of "translational research." In medicine, the strategy has been to shift the focus from adoption to adaptation of research into practice. Implicit in the notion of adaptation is a bi-directional process of cultural exchange in which both researchers and practitioners come to understand how the knowledge products of each field can strengthen the professional activities in the other. Along these lines, the R+P Collaboratory is working with leading professional associations and STEM improvement efforts to leverage their existing knowledge and experience and to build sustainable strategies for closing the gap. The R+P Collaboratory is developing an online 'Go-To' Resource Center website that houses the resources collected, created, and curated by the Collaboratory. The Resource Center also has significant 'Take-Out' features, with all materials meta-tagged so that they can be automatically uploaded, reformatted, and integrated into the existing communication and professional development mechanisms (e.g., newsletters, digests, conferences, and websites) of a dozen leading professional associations within a Professional Association Partner Network. In light of new and emerging standards in the STEM disciplines, the Collaboratory is focusing its work on four salient and timely bodies of research: (a) STEM Practices, (b) Formative Assessment, (c) Cyberlearning, and (d) Learning as a Cross-Setting Phenomenon. Special emphasis is being placed on research and practice that focuses on the learning of children and youth from communities historically underrepresented in STEM fields.
The objective of this project is to extend the concept of crowdsourcing in citizen science to the interaction design of the organization as well as to data collection. Distributed technologies offer new opportunities for conducting scientific research on a larger scale than ever before by enabling distributed collaboration. Virtual organizations that use distributed technologies in scientific organizations have primarily focused on how dedicated, professional scientists collaborate and communicate. More recently a rapidly increasing number of citizen science virtual organizations are being formed. Citizen scientists participate in scientific endeavors and typically lack formal credentials, do not hold professional positions in scientific institutions, and bring diversity of knowledge and expertise to projects and challenges. They participate in scientific endeavors related to their personal scientific interests and create new challenges for the design of virtual organizations. In terms of intellectual merit, the project will make three specific contributions: a new interaction design for collecting biodiversity data within a nature park, a model for crowdsourcing the design of an social computing approach to citizen science, and an analysis of the impact of crowdsourcing the design on motivating participation in collecting biodiversity data. Interactive tabletop computers will be placed in two nature parks so that the design of the citizen science environment can be embedded in a park experience and engage the public in understanding more about their parks, in data collection, and develop a personal commitment to environmental sustainability issues. In terms of broader impacts, the project provides three types of impact: research training by including graduate students, broad public dissemination to enhance scientific understanding of biodiversity, and benefits to society through association with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) and Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mary Lou MaherTom YehJennifer Preece
With this 3-year project, TERC and the Museum of Science (MoS) Boston are studying how family and school visitors integrate iPod Touch versions of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP), Signing Science Dictionary (SSD), and Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) into their museum experience and the impact of dictionary use. This report focuses on school visitors. Each dictionary includes more than 700 standards-based science or mathematics terms. The SSP (funded in part by grants from the Shapiro Family Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education, Grant #H327A080040) is intended for children ages 5
With this 3-year project, TERC and the Museum of Science (MoS) Boston are studying how family and school visitors integrate iPod Touch versions of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP), Signing Science Dictionary (SSD), and Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) into their museum experience and the impact of dictionary use. This report focuses on family visitors. Each dictionary includes more than 700 standards-based science or mathematics terms. The SSP (funded in part by grants from the Shapiro Family Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education, Grant #H327A080040) is intended for children ages 5
With this project, TERC and the Museum of Science (MoS) Boston are studying how family and school visitors integrate iPod Touch versions of the Signing Science Pictionary (SSP), Signing Science Dictionary (SSD), and Signing Math Dictionary (SMD) into their museum experience and the impact of dictionary use. This report focuses on a sub-study involving family visitors to the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). Prior to this sub-study, TERC and the MoS conducted a primary study that examined use of the dictionaries at the MoS. Findings from this study showed the following: (1) Visitors
This report details the summative evaluation of the Flight of the Butterflies IMAX film. Four focus with a total of 39 participants took part. They watched the film in either 2D or 3D. The St. Louis Science Center, where the film was presented in large 2D format, hosted two focus groups with adults (n=19). The Maryland Science Center (MSC) in Baltimore, which showed the film in 3D format, hosted one focus group with adults (n=8) and another with middle school age students (n=12). All participants were recruited through the science center membership lists. The focus group began with initial
The report is of the treatment of the Flight of the Butterflies IMAX film. 42 individuals participated in four focus groups in two cities and were asked to read the film treatment in advance and were shown a two and a half minute video clip. Participants then completed a four-page questionnaire with open and closed-ended questions, and engaged in an hour-long discussion of the treatment. Survey and focus group questions were designed to elicit audience perspectives on the appeal and scientific content of the script, including discussion of the film concept, use of the large format medium
Individuals are at an increased risk to drop out of the STEM pipeline if they are female or Latino, and during certain periods including high school. Families are a potential untapped resource of support for high school students. Based on the expectancy-value model, we examined if a variety of parental behaviors predicted students’ ability self-concepts in and value they placed on biology, chemistry, and physics. Self-report surveys were collected from 988 9th grade Latino boys, Latina girls, Caucasian boys, and Caucasian girls. The findings suggest that, as early as the beginning of high
The goal of the study was to identify current issues for navigating and finding relevant information; evaluate the look and feel of the website in relation to its main purpose; assess the clarity of language to its audience; determine next steps for improvement. We addressed these goals through an expert review based on a 100+ point usability assessment framework on both desktop and mobile as of 12/4/2014 and informal feedback from 3 novice users ( age range 22-27 years).
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brigham Young UniversityUniversity of MarylandJes KoepflerNidhi JalwalVictor Yocco
Intuitive Company researchers and evaluators assessed four components of the DUST Alternate Reality Game for potential reusability: 1) QTE Environment during Collapse, 2) Brain/Health Scanner Mobile App, 3) Microbe Web App, 4) Star Map Web App. We assessed reusability based on five variables (facilitation, user identification, digital access, player type, and timing) along a continuum of informal to formal learning contexts, from museums to after school programs to formal classroom settings. Our assessment revealed that the: 1. QTE Environment during the Collapse is most replayable in its
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Brigham Young University, University of MarylandJes KoepflerNidhi JalwalVictor Yocco
Summative evaluations of museum exhibitions are generally conducted with the aims of measuring whether an exhibition met its goals, identifying areas for improvement, and assessing impact. In many cases, evaluation studies also serve to advance the field by providing lessons for funders, policy makers, or practitioners beyond the project. This report includes details from summative evaluations that included recommendations, particularly those that might be useful for lessons learned and suggestions for improvements to the exhibitions that were evaluated. Using a bottom-up method of review, the
The aim of this study was to explore 22 Web site evaluation reports, or sections of larger evaluation reports centering on a Web site, to identify, define, and provide examples of the range of evaluation focus areas to inform the design of Web site evaluation studies. The sample included a group of reports contributed to the Informalscience.org online database. Prior to this study, staff members at the Science Museum of Minnesota organized and coded the database of evaluation reports as part of the Building Informal Science Education (BISE) project funded by the National Science Foundation