Girls met to engage with Through My Window twice each week after school. The afterschool program format provided a freer, less structured atmosphere than a classroom setting. Students extensively debated and investigated the questions and themes posed by the novel, Talk to Me. The meeting space had plenty of space for students to move around, as well as teachers who encouraged the expression of full emotional and intellectual enthusiasm for the story at hand.
Maker Corps is a program delivered by the Maker Education Initiative (Maker Ed) to increase organizational capacity to develop and deliver maker programing. Since its inception in 2013, the program has grown to support over 100 organizations by providing professional development, connections to a community of other maker educators and individualized support. Over time the program elements have changed in response to feedback from participants, collaboration with evaluators and shifts in focus for Maker Ed’s goals. In the spirit of maker education – tinkering, observing, responding, iterating –
The Katonah Museum of Art (KMA) contracted Randi Korn & Associates, Inc. (RK&A) to evaluate its early childhood program, ArteJuntos/ArtTogether (ArteJuntos), ArteJuntos is a bilingual art and culture-based family literacy program that introduces low-income, educationally at-risk preschool children and their families to the KMA. Using works of art in KMA’s exhibitions, the program connects parents and their children (ages 3-5) to activities that support children’s emergent literacies—observation, oral and receptive language, and critical thinking skills.
How did we approach this study?
RK
Children feed alphabet letters to a talking baby dragon, drive a New York City fire truck, paint on a six-foot art wall, and crawl through a challenge course in PlayWorks™ at the Children's Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) in New York. Manhattan’s largest public play and learning center for early childhood marries the skills that children need to succeed in kindergarten with fun stuff that kids love. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded the project through a 2006 Museums for America grant to support the museum as a center of community engagement and lifelong learning. “PlayWorks™ is a joyful place for learning science, math, reading and other things. We incorporate fun and learning into the whole design to create a scaffold of learning. Families come to the museum to supplement preschool experiences,” said Andy S. Ackerman, CMOM’s executive director. The museum also offers parents, sitters, and other care-providers guidance on engaging their children with the exhibit. Based on the concept that children’s learning and personal growth is rooted in play, the 4,000-square-foot space is divided into five learning areas: Language, Math and Physics, Arts and Science, Imagination and Dramatic Play, and Practice Play (for infants and crawlers).