Our project focuses on iterative improvements to a cardboard-focused maker exhibition to engage more families in engineering practices.
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.
Middle Ground, funded by the National Science Foundation, was an outdoor public installation developed by the Exploratorium and located in San Francisco’s Civic Center. This installation focused on the social science of how people think about others, particularly the cognitive basis for biases, judgements, and stereotypes, as well as more pro-social behavior and ways of connecting with others. Garibay Group conducted a summative evaluation to assess project outcomes.
This paper, published in Curator, reports on project findings related to visitors’ emotional experiences and characteristics when engaging with productive struggle exhibits.
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
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
Programming includes
Neighborhood Walks led by teams of scientists/engineers and artists
Community Workshops, Local Artist Projects, and Youth Mentorship focused on neighborhood and citywide water issues
Intergenerational participation, from seniors and adult learners to young adults, teens, and middle schoolers
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This poster describes a newly funded collaborative project (9/2021) to engage Planet Word visitors in language science research.
Engage visitors in domain of science often overlooked in the public imagination (language arts -> language science enthusiasts!)
Diversify participants who contribute data to studies
Provide training in research & science communication to a diverse group of students across a range of institutions, including MSIs, broadening participation in STEM
Lower barrier to entry for other language
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Charlotte VaughnDeanna GagnePatrick PlummerYi Ting Huang
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?
The Developing Guidelines for Designing Challenging and Rewarding Interactive Science Exhibits project is a Research in Service to Practice grant running from 10/1/2016-9/30/2021. We have used a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach to refine a framework about exhibit design practices that support learners through the emotional aspects of “productive struggle” as we built three science museum exhibits.
This poster was presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting.
This poster presented at the 2021 NSF AISL Awardee Meeting describes the goals of a five-year CAREER AISL project that brings together researchers, educators, designers, and facilitators to investigate how families exercise their agency in museum settings, and how science center exhibits can give families greater authority as STEM learners.
The project involves 1) research studies exploring how family groups express agency through their perceptions and actions at a range of STEM exhibits; and 2) a collaborative working group made up of staff across departments at the New York Hall of
This is the summative evaluation report for the “Understanding the Physics of Collaborative Design and Play,” a collaboration between researchers and children’s museum practitioners to design and build a physics-based children’s museum exhibit to provide opportunities for children and their caregivers to tinker with play related to the STEM concepts of momentum, mass, velocity, friction, and balance in the context of informal learning related to skateboarding. The exhibit, “The Science of Skateboarding” at the Iowa Children’s Museum, was designed and fabricated as a result of this grant.
In
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Deb DunkhaseKristen MissallBenjamin DeVane