While theoretical work and empirical research have examined science policy-informing “dialogue events,” dialogue events that do not seek to inform public policy are under-theorized and under-researched, even though they are common and growing in popularity in the UK. We describe how, from a critical perspective, it may initially appear that such events cannot be justified without returning to the deficit model. But with this paper, we seek to open up a discussion about these non policy-informing events by arguing that there are in fact further ways to understand and frame them. We deliberately
Designers have been moving increasingly closer to the future users of what they design and the next new thing in the changing landscape of design research has become co-designing with your users. But co-designing is actually not new at all, having taken distinctly different paths in the US and in Europe. The evolution in design research from a user-centered approach to co-designing is changing the roles of the designer, the researcher and the person formerly known as the “user”. The implications of this shift for the education of designers and researchers are enormous. The evolution in design
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Elizabeth SandersPieter Jan Stappers
What meaning visitors make from their interactions with science center exhibits— and how they do so — is an issue of enduring interest in the field of learning in informal contexts. In order to explore what resources schoolchildren bring to bear in making meaning, this study used video clips taken during school trips to prompt reflection in stimulated recall interviews. The results indicated that students utilized their existing science understandings to interpret and explain their interactions with exhibits. Such findings provide evidence for the educative value of the experience as well as
In this paper we present a way to study science learning on a discursive level in a teaching activity designed for a museum of natural history. We used here an analysis of practical epistemologies. The method, which allows a description of students' meaning making in socially shared practices, has been used previously to analyze learning in various school practices. The data presented in this study proceeded from a videotaped activity of the educational program for student teachers at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. The activity utilizes a variety of dioramas with preserved
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Swedish Museum of Natural HistoryJesus PiquerasKarim HamzaSusanna Edvall
The concept of engagement across the learning sciences and in museums draws from research on visitor interests, motivations, and behaviors. Such involvement by museum visitors reveals institutional and field expectations about museum efficacy and demonstrated impact. However, engagement is a concept with different uses and interpretations across institutions and fields. If we are going to talk about visitor engagement in museums specifically, it is incumbent on museum educators to understand and address the values that are associated with this idea. What does engagement look like and sound
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Indiana UniversityChildren's Museum of IndianapolisElizabeth WoodBarbara Wolf
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
Frontline museum floor staff people are critical agents in the field's efforts to catalyze greater community engagement and participation at the intersections of science, art, history, and society. Yet, coming from widely disparate backgrounds and often with little formal professional development in place, many museum-based education practices are informed still by classroom-based (transmission or instructionism) models of teaching and learning. Such approaches may limit the reach and impact of our work, particularly with respect to communities that are under-represented in museum audiences
The Delaware Valley Innovation Network (DVIN); a coalition of government, industry and educational institutions, received a three-year $5.1 million federal grant to create a data tool that incorporates economic, research and development, investment and real-time job information to provide a current and accurate picture of the region's life science economy and its assets. The project goal was to expand the talent pool for life sciences companies in southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and northern Delaware. DVIN generated research projects, inventory assessments, cross-disciplinary
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Delaware Valley Innovation NetworkJohn Hall
Poster presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. It describes a project that is designed to engage Hispanic students in grades K-5 in STEM in afterschool programs within community-based organizations (CBOs).
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Patricial and Phillip Frost Museum of ScienceCheryl Juarez
Over the next 10 years, we anticipate that personal, portable, wirelessly-networked technologies will become ubiquitous in the lives of learners — indeed, in many countries, this is already a reality. We see that ready-to-hand access creates the potential for a new phase in the evolution of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), characterized by "seamless learning spaces" and marked by continuity of the learning experience across different scenarios (or environments), and emerging from the availability of one device or more per student ("one-to-one"). One-to-one TEL has the potential to "cross
Although the generic subject of botanical garden history is increasingly well documented, botanical gardens lack a reflective historical commentary on the educational work of their institutions. Apart from individual garden monographs, and the work of Stafleu, Prest, and Spary, few authors have examined the socio-educational history of botanical gardens. Exceptions to this are Gilberthorpe's doctoral thesis, which critiqued changes in British botanical gardens in the 1980s, and Kleinman's doctoral study, The Museum in the Garden, which considered research, display, and education at The
Knowledge and learning exist as byproducts of social processes such as those that take place in communities of practice. We describe two frameworks for understanding and building online knowledge-building communities, or online communities of practice that enhance collective knowledge. First, the C4P framework is described as a way of understanding how knowledge is created and disseminated by participants in a community of practice. Second, we discuss ways in which technology provides added value for learning in these environments using the DDC (Design for Distributed Cognition) framework, and
This article is intended to spark a discussion between two research communities—scholars who study learning and scholars who study educational organizations. A secondary purpose is to encourage researchers to look beyond schools to examine learning in other types of educational organizations. The authors outline a framework to guide research on the relationship between learning and the social contexts afforded by formal organizations. The framework combines elements of cultural historical activity theory, a sociocultural theory of learning, and institutional theory, which is a constructivist