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.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will amplify its partnership with Hart Magnet School, a Title 1 elementary school in urban Stamford, Connecticut, by increasing exposure and access to the arts for first-fifth graders, their families, and educators. A new program model, leveraging the museum's artist exhibitions, will focus on technology and an inquiry-based approach to science. Students, educators, and families will be encouraged to see and think in new ways through on-site STEAM tours at the museum, artist-led workshops at Hart, teacher professional development, and afterschool family activities. Outside evaluators will work with the project team to develop goals and associated metrics to measure how the model of museum-school partnership can enhance student achievement, engage families more deeply in their child's school experience and community, and contribute to teacher professional development. The evaluator will also train museum staff on best practices for program assessment.
The Massachusetts Audubon Society will develop, pilot, and implement an evaluation framework for nature-based STEM programming that serves K-12 students visiting its network of nature centers and museums. Working with an external consultant, the society will develop the framework comprised of a logic model and theory of change for fieldtrips, and develop a toolkit of evaluation data collection methodology suitable to various child development stages. The project team will design and conduct three professional development training seminars to help Massachusetts Audubon school educators develop a working understanding of the new evaluation framework for school programs and gain the skills necessary to support protocol implementation. This project will result in the development and adoption of a universal protocol to guide the collection, management, and reporting of education program evaluation data across the 19 nature centers and museums in the Massachusetts Audubon system.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kris Scopinich
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
As science communication programs grow worldwide, effective evaluation and assessment metrics lag. While there is no consensus on evaluation protocols specifically for science communication training, there is agreement on elements of effective training: listening, empathy, and knowing your audience — core tenets of improvisation. We designed an evaluation protocol, tested over three years, based on validated and newly developed scales for an improvisation-based communication training at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Initial results suggest that ‘knowing your audience’ should
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christine O’ConnellMerryn McKinnonJordan Labouff
With funding from the NASA Science Activation program, the Space Science Institute (SSI) launched NASA@ My Library in 2016. The vision of NASA@ My Library was to help public libraries and state library agencies increase NASA and STEM learning opportunities for library patrons throughout the U.S., including those in geographic areas and populations currently underserved in STEM education. SSI worked closely with its partners, including the American Library Association (ALA), Cornerstones of Science (CoS), the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), and the Pacific Science Center’s Portal to the
IMPACT NC is a collaboration between the North Carolina science centers and museums and NC State University (NCSU) to build and foster a Community of Practice (CoP) for collective evaluation among the 54 partner organizations across the state of North Carolina. Funded by IMLS Museum Leadership Grant (MG-70-19-0019-19).
The goals of IMPACT NC are:
Identification of a set of shared goals for informal science education across the state.
Development of metrics to assess these goals.
Enhanced capacity of the Community of Practice of science museums to conduct evaluation centered on these collective evaluation goals and metrics.
Improved cohesion among science museums and other partners in NC (e.g. university collaborators, non-profit organizations) as they collectively work toward shared goals.
Development of a system for reporting program outcomes using shared metrics that is integrated into annual reporting or grant proposal processes across NC, thereby informing decision making.
NASA@ My Library is made possible through the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate as part of its Science Activation program. The project is led by the National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL) at the Space Science Institute (SSI) in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), and Education Development Center (EDC). From 2016-2020, 78 public libraries (75 partner libraries and 3 pilot libraries), 18 State Library Agencies, 6 Portal to the Public Network sites, and 30 NASA-funded scientists participated in the project. More than 225,000 library patrons were reached through their efforts.
In 2021-2022, public libraries, universities, and state library agencies will participate in the project to increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities in their communities, with an emphasis on reaching audiences underrepresented in STEM education and professions.
This article describes a collaborative research project designed to learn about teacher identity in relation to teacher learning experiences that centered informal science education places and approaches. This article is relevant for people who do research on teacher learning, design teacher learning experiences, especially in informal science settings and evaluators of such programs. This article will allow relevant audiences to think about the implications of teachers' social identities in relation to thier students and in relation to how they adapt and use informal science material
The pilot test for Changemakers: Advancing Community Science Literacy was a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory that identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits, and a collaborative effort to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change.
The evaluation was underaken with instruments developed for multiple research projects to support cross-project comparative analysis.
This instrumemts presented
The pilot test of a capacity building program integrating strategic discourse & community change theory identified a new path for advancing community STEM literacies. The results of experiment established partnerships with locally based non-profits working to address environmental justice and social disparities in areas threatened by climate change identified five recommendations to reset the role of ISLC’s as more relevant to the communities: 1) Allocate Time to Build Relationships; 2) Develop a Shared Definition of Resilience; 3) Situate Community Aspirations as Context for STEM Learning; 4)