This resource presents a list of categories of “imaginative ways of thinking” as well as word clouds illustrating the huge range of ways imagination is described in literature at the intersections of imagination and STEM. This resource reflects results from a comprehensive review of 137 pieces of literature addressing the intersections of imagination and STEM.
The Springfield Science Museum will increase participation in informal science learning by making its educational programs and learning spaces more accessible and inclusive. Museum staff will undergo Disability Inclusion and Universal Design training to redesign and enhance a core multi-use learning space and principle STEM program that can remove physical, cognitive, and social barriers to learning. External evaluators will measure access needs and learning outcomes before and after project upgrades in order to track progress and develop a scalable model of inclusive practice for all the museum’s science programming. The result will be an improved educational experience for visitors of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Katie Merrill
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will partner with North Carolina State University to improve the evaluation skills of informal science education providers. The project team will create a community of practice for 54 science museums across North Carolina by implementing a series of regional professional development workshops. The workshops will be designed to create a shared sense of purpose for programming and evaluation, build capacity among science museum educators to evaluate their programs, and establish a set of common metrics and methodologies for the evaluation of informal science learning across the state. The project will produce a practitioner's guide that will describe the collaborative process, lessons learned, and ways other informal science organizations can use identified evaluation goals and metrics.
The Discovery Museums will develop and implement a continuous improvement process to improve the impact of its STEM programming by strengthening staff skills in using evaluation data. The project will begin with a series of training sessions for learning programs staff based on feedback from youth regarding the quality of the museum's program delivery and an assessment of staff competencies in positive youth development. Participating staff will benefit from a deeper understanding of data and the ability to build ongoing evaluation and positive youth development practices into their program presentations in a way that supports Social-Emotional Learning outcomes. The project will potentially result in a process and set of tools to quantify the impact of STEM programming that can be shared with other informal learning organizations.
This project aims to formally define what a sense of belonging means in the science & natural history museum context as a way to measure inclusivity efforts. We think that most of the experiences that make up a museum visit have a relatively neutral effect on visitor sense of belonging. However, visitors may experience moments that make them feel distinctly positive or negative, and these moments that matter may influence a visitor’s STEM engagement, interest, and/or identity.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
The ChemAttitudes project recieved supplemental funding to create materials for train-the-trainer workshops in order to inoculate the chemistry outreach community with members who have the knowledge and resources to train others on strategies for stimulating interest, sense of relevance, and feelings of self-efficacy that were tested in the earlier work of the project. The project team recruited participants from minority serving professional organizations as a strategy for broadening participation. Can it work? Did it work?
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This poster presents findings from a study comparing the engagement, learning, and value between virtual and physical versions of the Mystery Skulls exhibit, which were designed to elicit productive struggle. Findings showed that there were no significant differences between the two versions in terms of what participants learned and valued from the exhibit, but participants who used the virtual version had longer use times than those engaged in the physical exhibit. This poster was presented to museum professionals at the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) at a virtual
This poster shares a final version of the Productive Struggle Framework, presented to research and evaluation professionals at the Visitor Studies Association (VSA) conference in 2021. The Framework, which was created using a design-based research approach, shares strategies for designing experiences that foster productive struggle.
This guide describes the project team’s approach in designing exhibits intended to elicit “productive struggle,” which we define as an experience with three elements: 1) a learner encounters a disruptive task, phenomena, or idea and shifts into a state of disequilibrium (which might be experienced as emotions like confusion, frustration, surprise, or unease); 2) the learner is supported to persist through disequilibrium using emotional or behavioral resources (e.g., motivation, self-efficacy, problem-solving, trying again); and 3) the learner achieves an emotionally productive resolution tied
How can we use a telenovela to help Latinx parents see themselves as role models in their young children’s science learning? Using an innovative, culturally relevant, meaningful, and authentic media program – a telenovela – to promote caregivers’ confidence, ability to support their children’s everyday science learning, and awareness of science career paths. Latinx children make 25% of the U.S. population but represent only 7% of the STEM workforce as adults. This project aims to change the narrative around Latinx family engagement with rich science learning that draws on home culture and
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
What do you think?
How do you connect with youth audiences?
What assumptions do you have about how identity relates to exhibit engagement?
How do factors that shape your identity impact your life? Has this shifted over time?