Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits

Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits PDF Author: Joshua P Gutwill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315427958
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
This brief volume describes an innovative activity that can be used by museum professionals to foster two key inquiry skills—asking a good question and articulating discoveries. A hybrid between a research report and a how-to manual, it describes the development, evaluation, and results of Juicy Question, a collaborative activity designed to foster group inquiry among families or school field trips. The authors demonstrate how the activity changed the behavior of museum visitors and taught them important inquiry skills for use in other informal education settings. Sponsored by the Exploratorium, San Francisco.

Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits

Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits PDF Author: Joshua P Gutwill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315427958
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Get Book Here

Book Description
This brief volume describes an innovative activity that can be used by museum professionals to foster two key inquiry skills—asking a good question and articulating discoveries. A hybrid between a research report and a how-to manual, it describes the development, evaluation, and results of Juicy Question, a collaborative activity designed to foster group inquiry among families or school field trips. The authors demonstrate how the activity changed the behavior of museum visitors and taught them important inquiry skills for use in other informal education settings. Sponsored by the Exploratorium, San Francisco.

Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement

Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement PDF Author: Thomas Humphrey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131542827X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
A must for exhibit developers, researchers, educators, and other museum professionals looking for ways to engage visitors more deeply with interactive science exhibits, this book documents the exploration and findings of the Exploratorium’s Active Prolonged Engagement project, funded by the National Science Foundation. Both a significant contribution to visitor research and a nuts-and-bolts guide to exhibit development, Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement includes 15 APE Tales (exhibit recipes with photos, drawings, and detailed construction specifications); discussions of setting explicit goals for visitors’ exhibit experiences; research and evaluation methods and results; and lessons learned for building constructivist-style exhibits.

Learning Science in Informal Environments

Learning Science in Informal Environments PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309141133
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines-research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.

Cognitive Development in Informal Learning Institutions: Collaborations Advancing Research and Practice

Cognitive Development in Informal Learning Institutions: Collaborations Advancing Research and Practice PDF Author: Janet Boseovski
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889744639
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description


Cognitive Development in Museum Settings

Cognitive Development in Museum Settings PDF Author: David M. Sobel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317358457
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Researchers in cognitive development are gaining new insights into the ways in which children learn about the world. At the same time, there has been increased recognition of the important role that visits to informal learning institutions plays in supporting learning. Research and practice pursuits typically unfold independently and often with different goals and methods, making it difficult to make meaningful connections between laboratory research in cognitive development and practices in informal education. Recently, groundbreaking partnerships between researchers and practitioners have resulted in innovative strategies for linking findings in cognitive development together with goals critical to museum practitioners, such as exhibit evaluation and design. Cognitive Development in Museum Settings offers an account of ways in which researchers in cognitive development partner with museum practitioners. Each chapter describes a partnership between academic researchers and museum practitioners and details their collaboration, the important research that has resulted from their partnership, and the benefits and challenges of maintaining their relationship. This approach illustrates cutting-edge developmental science, but also considers how researcher-practitioner interactions affect research outcomes and provide insight to questions common to practitioners. In addition, each set of researchers and practitioners discusses issues brought up by the partnership by posing questions concerning research-practice partnerships and research evidence, considering whether and how cognitive development research conducted in museum settings aligns with larger disciplinary interests in that field, and examining to what extent museum practitioners benefit from applying research on the development of cognitive processes to their educational practices.

Informal STEM Learning at Home and in Community Spaces

Informal STEM Learning at Home and in Community Spaces PDF Author: Bradley Morris
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2832546641
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Children in Western countries spend only about 20% of their waking time in school (Meltzoff et al., 2009). Leveraging the 80% of time that they spend outside of school can provide children with opportunities to engage in meaningful, authentic STEM learning experiences with family members, other caregivers, and children. STEM learning and readiness go beyond acquiring content knowledge to include interest, engagement, and motivation for STEM learning as well as the formation of a STEM identity. To date, there has been a dearth of research focusing on children’s informal STEM experiences when compared to formal, school-based STEM learning experiences. This Research Topic focuses attention on the authentic, everyday experiences of children and how these experiences provide opportunities for STEM learning, engagement, and identity. In addition, these papers will explore how these everyday experiences can be leveraged and augmented to promote STEM learning and engagement through culturally-relevant design and implementation.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School Learning

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School Learning PDF Author: Kylie Peppler
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 148338523X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 2280

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Book Description
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School Learning documents what the best research has revealed about out-of-school learning: what facilitates or hampers it; where it takes place most effectively; how we can encourage it to develop talents and strengthen communities; and why it matters. Key features include: Approximately 260 articles organized A-to-Z in 2 volumes available in a choice of electronic or print formats. Signed articles, specially commissioned for this work and authored by key figures in the field, conclude with Cross References and Further Readings to guide students to the next step in a research journey. Reader’s Guide groups related articles within broad, thematic areas to make it easy for readers to spot additional relevant articles at a glance. Detailed Index, the Reader’s Guide, and Cross References combine for search-and-browse in the electronic version. Resource Guide points to classic books, journals, and web sites, including those of key associations.

Intentional Practice for Museums

Intentional Practice for Museums PDF Author: Randi Korn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153810637X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Intentional practice is an impact-driven way of thinking and working that places a museum’s raison d’être—achieving impact—at the center of its work. A prerequisite to achieving impact is articulating the kind of impact the museum would like to achieve. An impact statement embodies three essential ideas: staff members’ passions for their work, the museum’s distinct qualities, and notions of what is relevant to audiences. The statement, as well as other work generated from intentional practice, becomes part of an Impact Framework that serves as a guidepost for all subsequent work, as any and all museum work should focus on achieving its intended impact. If the museum chooses work that moves it away from its central purpose, it is wasting resources—dollars and staff time. Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact first explains how the idea of intentional practice grew from a confluence of political concerns, observations of museum in the marketplace, and the increasingly-deafening call for museums to be accountable. The book presents and deconstructs the Cycle of Intentional Practice, which includes four quadrants with actions and corresponding questions situated around the centerpiece—impact. In no particular order: The Plan quadrant asks “What impact do you want to achieve?”; The Evaluate quadrant asks “In what ways have you achieved impact?”; The Reflect quadrant asks “What have you learned? What can you do better?”; and, The Align quadrant asks “How do we align our actions to achieve impact?” The Cycle is symbolic, too, as impact-driven work is ongoing, and museums that choose to pursue impact through intentional practice will benefit—as will their audiences; both will continually learn, albeit through very different means. Intended for intentionally-minded museum professionals, the book also describes the seven principles of intentional practice and provides basic intentional-practice strategies, exercises, and facilitation questions so they can begin facilitating impact-driven workshops at their museums.

Museums and the Challenge of Change

Museums and the Challenge of Change PDF Author: Graham Black
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000336735
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Museums and the Challenge of Change explores the profound challenges facing museums and charts ways forward that are grounded in partnership with audiences and communities on-site, online, and in wider society. Facing new generations with growing needs and desires, growing population diversity, and a digital revolution, the museum sector knows it must change – but it has been slow to respond. Drawing on the expertise and voices of practitioners from within and beyond the sector, Black calls for a change of mind-set and radical evolution (transformation over time, learning from the process, rather than a ‘big bang’ approach). Internally, a participative environment supports social interaction through active engagement with collections and content – and Black includes an initial typology of participative exhibits, both traditional and digital. Externally, the museum works in partnership with local communities and other agencies to make a real difference, in response to societal challenges. Black considers what this means for the management and structure of the museum, emphasising that it is not possible to separate the development of a participative experience from the ways in which the museum is organised. Museums and the Challenge of Change is highly practical and focused on initiatives that museums can implement swiftly and cheaply, making a real impact on user engagement. The book will thus be essential reading for museum practitioners and students of museum studies around the globe.

The Museum Experience Revisited

The Museum Experience Revisited PDF Author: John H Falk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315417839
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit when it was first published in 1992, The Museum Experience revolutionized the way museum professionals understand their constituents. Falk and Dierking have updated this essential reference, incorporating advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years. Written in clear, non-technical style, The Museum Experience Revisited paints a thorough picture of why people go to museums, what they do there, how they learn, and what museum practitioners can do to enhance these experiences.