In this paper we compare pre-COVID-19 and post-2021 Tactile Mental Cutting Test assessment data from blind or low-vision participants including scores and test duration between 2019 and 2022. Results show a statistically significant difference in how long it took participants to complete the TMCT between the two timeframes.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
David SearleDaniel KaneNatalie ShaheenWade Goodridge
resourceresearchMuseum and Science Center Exhibits
The purpose of this paper is to explore results from a qualitative study of how high school aged BLV youth used spatial language during a virtual engineering experience administered by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Findings from this study can provide recommendations to enhance language in curricula that better reflects BLV students' content and may ultimately encourage more BLV students to pursue careers in STEM fields.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Gary TimkoNatalie ShaheenWade GoodridgeTheresa GreenDaniel Kane
resourceresearchMuseum and Science Center Exhibits
This paper explores data collected from BLV participants who completed a TMCT test at National Federation of the Blind (NFB) sponsored summer programs for BLV youth, blindness training centers, and state and national NFB conventions. Raw scores from each TMCT participant were analyzed and ranked into high, medium, and low performing groups to help identify main characteristics of each group.
Tinkering experiences in informal learning spaces can engage families in engineering practices and support learning (Pagano et al., 2020). Further, reflections after informal learning experiences can reveal and extend children’s memory and learning (Pagano et al., 2019), but reflections vary by age, culture, setting, program, and other factors (Fivush et al., 2006). We examined how the conversational structure and engineering content of families’ reflections vary across multiple museum visits and across different types of tinkering programs (e.g., open-ended vs. function-focused).
Tinkering activities designed for parents and children can foster spatial thinking, which benefits spatial skill development (Ramey et al., 2020). During tinkering activities, families may be challenged to use tools and materials to solve open-ended problems (Bevan, 2017). The problems specified by different tinkering challenges can highlight intrinsic or extrinsic spatial information (Chatterjee, 2008; Mix et al., 2018). In this project we asked, how does the spatial information highlighted by a tinkering challenge affect the quality of families’ spatial thinking?
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Naomi PolinskyElena FiegenKaitlyn HurkaCatherine HadenDavid Uttal
The tinkering process of making, testing, and iteratively redesigning projects can teach children about engineering concepts (Marcus et al., 2021; NGSS, 2013), but there is variability in how tinkering programs are designed. Storytelling may make children’s learning experiences personally meaningful and narratively organized, thereby supporting memory (Bruner, 1996). We designed multiple story-based tinkering programs and examined how the types of story characters and goals introduced in the tinkering programs would relate to the content of families’ talk in post-tinkering reflections.
In this project, we asked whether storytelling during tinkering might support children’s engagement in STEM and how that may differ across boys and girls. According to Bruner (1996), stories can help children to organize experiences by adding coherence, increasing understanding, and facilitating learning. We observed associations between story and STEM in two contexts: home and museum exhibit.
Given the important role of autonomy support in children’s motivation and learning, this study asked whether parents’ use of autonomy supportive language (vs. controlling language) was associated with children’s engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a bi-directional manner during an at-home tinkering activity.
This poster from the 2023 ASTC conference provides and overview of research from the NSF funded Designing Our Tomorrow project. This research study examined storytelling approaches used by caregivers and educators to communicate to other caregiver and educators that the engineering practices exercised at DOT exhibits are usefully relevant to problem-solving in their day-to-day lives and within their communities.
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