Since 1999, the Australian Museum has provided a designated play/learning space for young children aged 0–5 years. A recent redevelopment and redesign of the museum provided a valuable opportunity for a team of museum staff and university researchers to consult with young children about their experiences and expectations about this play space and the museum generally. This article reports the processes of consultation; methods used to consult with children; issues identified by the children involved; and the ways in which children's perspectives influenced the design of the new Kidspace. In
Stereoscopic 3D images, although going back to the mid-nineteenth century, are becoming pervasive in cinema, the Web, electronic games, television, graphic simulations, personal photography, and the entertainment and education ecologies. The use of stereo 3D goes beyond a technology vogue to the creation of effective experiences that are more naturally engaging for audiences by conveying real physical depth perception and the illusions of tangibility and tactility. This paper claims that because museums are all about compelling, memorable, and visceral experiences, 3D will become an
This article describes how after-school programs can nurture young scientists and boost the country's scientific literacy. It makes a case for integrating science into high-quality afterschool programs.
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The After-School CorporationLucy FriedmanJane Quinn
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This poster session showcases ten examples of expertise development in everyday domains of personal relevance and consequence to learners. The collection of cases highlighted in the posters stem from ethnographic research studies investigating learning from socio-cultural-historical perspectives. In each poster, authors describe their ethnographic project, explicate a case of expertise development, and detail the specific learning processes, practices, and pathways associated with that expertise development. Implications for understanding personally relevant and consequential learning for the
This article seeks to sharpen current conceptualizations of interests and engaged participation, and to derive lessons for the design of interest-driven science learning environments (formal and informal). The empirical basis of the research is a set of ethnographic records of two communities of amateur astronomers, as well as the details of astronomers' instantiations of the hobby. Hobbies are paradigmatic examples of interest-driven practices and thus they offer an excellent window into truly interest-related phenomena and processes. The analysis and data collection followed a grounded
This article adds to sociocultural theories of learning by investigating knowing and learning in the hobby of model rocketry. Hobbies are paradigmatic of interest-based, long-term pursuits and studying the tailored practices the rocketeers craft for themselves sheds further light on the relationship between the nature of practices and the learning processes that emerge in their enactment. My window into this issue is the core problem of determining the stability of model rockets, across phases of design, construction, and flying. Using ethnographic and experimental data, I catalog the various
Millions of children visit virtual worlds every day. In such virtual play spaces as Habbo Hotel, Toontown, and Whyville, kids chat with friends from school, meet new people, construct avatars, and earn and spend virtual currency. In Connected Play, Yasmin Kafai and Deborah Fields investigate what happens when kids play in virtual worlds, how this matters for their offline lives, and what this means for the design of educational opportunities in digital worlds. Play is fundamentally important for kids’ development, but, Kafai and Fields argue, to understand play in virtual worlds, we need to
This report summarizes the content and shares ideas coming out of a convening organized in September, 2013 by the Alliance and The Henry Ford. Essays by educators, students, researchers and reformers explore how leaders from the worlds of education and museums can work together to integrate the nation’s assets into a Vibrant Learning Grid. Produced with the support of the Robert and Toni Bader Foundation.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Center for the Future of MuseumsElizabeth Merritt
Grounded in the informal science education experiences of our partners around the country, Every Hour Counts developed this resource guide to profile promising strategies to advance informal STEM learning. The guide features: (1) Core elements of the national Frontiers in Urban Science Exploration (FUSE) strategy. (2) Overview of the The After-School Corporation's FUSE strategy and lessons learned in working to bring ISE to scale. (3) Profiles of city and county-wide initiatives, through the lens of a few key strategies to build after-school systems: advocacy, brokering relationships, building
This paper reviews a wide range of literature applicable to understanding why and how hobbyists learn. Of particular importance appear to be theories such as situated learning and communities of practice, but insights from the cognitive sciences related to expertise, motivation and interest also emerged as important. The boundaries between formal and informal education continue to breakdown, making the need to understand and address the needs of learners of all ages, across multiple settings and situations more important than ever. Learning is becoming increasingly “on-demand”, mediated by
Hundreds of millions of youth and adults visit science centers across the world. Although science centers have long asserted that these visits play a critical role in supporting the science learning of the public, robust and unequivocal evidence is limited. The International Science Centre Impact Study (ISCIS), a consortium of 17 science centers in 13 countries under the direction of John H. Falk Research, was designed to empirically determine whether experiences at science centres correlated with a range of critical public science and technology literacy outcomes. Because of the complex and
Increasing evidence suggests that individuals develop their understanding of science concepts in and out of school, using varied community resources and networks. Thus in contrast to historic research approaches that focus exclusively on single organizations and/or educational events, the current paper presents exploratory research in which we utilized specific community ecology analytical tools and approaches to describe and analyze the UK science education community as a whole. Data suggest that overall the UK science education community is highly interconnected and collaborative within