Who Scaffolds the Scaffolders? Parent Mediation of Facilitator-Child Scaffolding Interactions in Museum Exhibits

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: Learning Sciences SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Museums may utilize distributed scaffolds, such as people, tools, and activities, to support learning processes of visitors with different levels of expertise (e.g., families) at the same time. Scaffolds may include parents and museum facilitators as agents of scaffolding who support children’s learning in exhibits. While parent-child scaffolding interactions have been considerably studied, it is not known how parents interact with facilitators, as content experts, to scaffold children’s learning. This study investigated how families employed distributed interpersonal scaffolds, including facilitators, in an exhibit. Three patterns of parent-child-facilitator interactions emerged, indicating that parents may have different approaches to collaborative scaffolding. Understanding the nature of collaborative scaffolding interactions may clarify parents’ and facilitators’ roles in museum learning.

Authors

• Catherine Louise Dornfeld, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Matthew W. Berland, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sadhana Puntambekar, University of Wisconsin