Framing and Scaffolding Learners in Science Museums: Views From a Research Practice Partnership

• In Event: Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships for Developing and Assessing Informal STEM Learning Experiences

Abstract

Objective: We investigate the following question: How can research-practice partnerships (RPPs) support authentic engagement of families with open-source computational science in a science museum?

Theoretical Background: While research on families interacting with science exhibits has revealed the complexity of these interactions (Dierking and Falk, 1994; Falk & Deirking, 2000; Andre, Durksen, and Volman, 2017), design-based researchers suggest that learning in such settings can be supported through careful design of the learning environment (e.g., scaffolding and new forms of human computer interactions) (Horn, 2018), as well as facilitation within and across settings (Anderson et al., 2000). Our recent work on public computing (Author, 2017; Author et al., 2019) expands the call for supporting authenticity in visitors’ engagement with computational science in informal spaces. We positioned public computing as a new form of open-ended learning environments in which visitors can directly access, modify and create complex and authentic scientific work, originally authored by scientists and professionals, through interacting with open source computing platforms (rather than using block-based languages), alongside archived and live facilitation (Author, 2017). In this poster, we seek to identify how a multi-year RPP has been supporting infrastructuring (Penuel, 2019) around a public computing exhibit that we have designed as a permanent installation in a Canadian science museum. Infrastructuring involves “creating conditions that support educators in making innovations into working infrastructures for organizing learning activities” (Penuel, 2019, pp 2).

Methods, Data & Analysis: Over a period of six months, we collected the following forms of data: a) field notes of researchers who participated as both facilitators and observers of visitors’ interactions, b) video recordings of visitors’ and facilitators’ (both the museum staff and researchers’) interactions with the visualization, code and other elements of the exhibit, and c) interviews with facilitators (museum staff) about their experiences with the exhibit. Visitor interactions ranged in length from a few minutes to over half an hour. These video clips, along with statements concerning the designed blocks from field notes, were coded inductively using thematic analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994) and constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

Results and Significance: Our analysis reveals two key elements of our experience of infrastructuring: 1) Reframing “who” the learners are through facilitation - e.g., a baby (~ 1 year old) was reframed as a “programmer” through facilitators' encouragement, and subsequently, the baby’s gestures and verbalizations were interpretively translated by the parents into computer code; and 2) how to scaffold visitors’ interactions with the code and their reasoning about the relevant phenomenon through designing material supports (physical blocks) for computational action. Both these forms of infrastructuring arose out of the RPP: for example, after observing visitor interactions over a year, the museum staff (exhibit designers and facilitators) proposed the design of physical blocks that would embody written explanations of key programming commands, which our research team then developed further in partnership with them. Our findings suggest that by focusing on infrastructuring, we may be able to re-position visitors productively in relationship to public computing in science museums.

Authors

• Pratim Sengupta, University of Calgary

• Basak Helvaci Ozacar, University of Calgary

• Stephanie Hladik, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Marie-Claire Shanahan, University of Calgary