The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of science field trips as educational tools to connect students to classroom concepts. Experiential learning at formal and informal field trip venues increases student interest, knowledge, and motivation. The teacher's role in preplanning, implementation, and reflection often dictates the impact that the field trip will have on students. Science teacher education programs do not traditionally instruct preservice teachers how to plan or coordinate a field trip. Once teachers are empowered and learn how to develop and orchestrate a
The use of mobile devices for informal learning has gained attention over recent years. Museum learning is also regarded as an important research topic in the field of informal learning. This study explored a blended mobile museum learning environment (BMMLE). Moreover, this study applied three blended museum learning modes: (a) the traditional museum visit accompanied by a learning website, (b) paper-based learning sheets used during museum visits accompanied by a learning website, and (c) an interactive mobile learning system used during museum visits accompanied by a learning website (i.e
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Huei-Tse HouSheng-Yi WuPeng-Chun LinYao-Ting SungJhe-Wei LinKuo-En Chang
Classroom tasks should develop a spirit of inquiry and a sense of delight in discovery that will become part of the individual's learning style. Yet in the traditional elementary classroom, the use of worksheets, lectures and basal reading tasks to the exclusion of hands-on, participatory opportunities fails to encourage a child's construction of knowledge. By setting up a problem to be solved, demanding interaction, producing effects from direct actions and allowing variations of approach, cognitive development in children is enhanced. Hands-On Children's Museums encourage contextually
The article discusses the significance of student's participation in a wireless, handheld field trip in the U.S. It is a program that comprises of a mix of podcasts, student multimedia creation, Web research and interviewing, designed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The innovation is vital to students' learning because it will allow them to interact with museum exhibits in a guided yet exploratory way and to increase both the amount of time students spend at exhibits and the depth of engagement with each exhibit. It revealed that in a museum setting, the technology can be used to
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Aliece WellerJohn BickarPaul McGuiness
This article from Daedalus explores the question (framed by an American Association of Museums AAM publication) of how museums can help to nurture an informed citizenry and address the challenges and opportunity of a global society.
The school field trip constitutes an important demographic market for museums. Field trips enlist the energies of teachers and students, schools and museums, and ought to be used to the best of their potential. There is evidence from the literature and from practitioners that museums often struggle to understand the needs of teachers, who make the key decisions in field trip planning and implementation. Museum personnel ponder how to design their programs to serve educational and pedagogical needs most effectively, and how to market the value of their institutions to teachers. This paper
The development and use of the Web by science-technology museums, mass media, and other informal science learning resource centers to enable remote public access to their resources and expand their educational outreach programs has grown enormously over the past decade. Similarly, many "open source" learning and education portals are rapidly growing into major free global lifelong learning resources. At the same time, U.S. student achievement in science in middle and high schools continues to be lag far behind that of students in many developed countries, and many American K-8 science teachers
In 2010, a museum and cultural center, Maison des civilisations et de l'unité réunionnaise, will open on Reunion island, Indian Ocean, in a park of 22 hectares overlooking the ocean. Reunion is a small island, uninhabited when it was colonized by the French in the 17th century, whose society has gone through two centuries of slavery, a century of colonialism and barely sixty years of postcolonial democracy. Colonialism erased the material traces of the lives of slaves, indentured workers and poor settlers who, despite the brutality of colonial order, created a rich, complex, and very diverse
Museums and galleries collect more visitor data today than ever before. But how much of it gives us real insight into visitors motivations, behaviour, experiences and responses? And how much of it simply ticks a box on a funding form? Commissioned by some of the UK’s leading institutions, including Tate, The British Museum, V&A and the Imperial War Museum North, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has tackled this insight deficit head on. In doing so, we have helped these organisations to move beyond the data routinely collected to get to the knowledge they actually need.
The article discusses the efforts of U.S. science museums to act as resources for science teachers in states that have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Topics discussed include professional development activities offered for teachers by museums, the role of Anthony "Bud" Rock and the nonprofit organization he serves as chief executive officer (CEO) of, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, and the impact of teacher development on student achievement.
Despite the potential of augmented reality (AR) in enabling students to construct new understanding, little is known about how the processes and interactions with the multimedia lead to increased learning. This study seeks to explore the affordances of an AR tool on learning that is focused on the science concept of magnets and magnetic fields. Seventy students in grades 5 through 7 participated in the study in a non- AR or AR condition. Findings showed that students in the AR condition interacted with the magnets significantly longer and demonstrated higher amounts of teamwork. In interviews