Evaluation plan (formative) - Sam S.

My capstone would benefit from several evaluations, both in the formative stage, as well as summative evaluation to inform long-term projects going forward. For now, I’ll focus on formative evaluation:

Evaluating scientist-facilitated interactive trial run

• Review audio/video from scientist-facilitated trial run
• Record what types of questions guests ask, relate to age and group dynamic
• Note common responses and facilitation strategies from scientist, identifying facilitation that leads to inquiry and emphasis on process, and facilitation that is too lecture-y or otherwise unproductive
• Interview scientist after the trial run to determine:
• What was unexpected?
• Where were points of confidence and discomfort?
• Were there technical problems?
• How was the physical setup and location?
• What should be changed for next time?

Evaluating guests

• Determine guests attitudes about MOXI as an institution of science learning
• Determine if guests leave MOXI with a greater understanding of scientific process and increased confidence in science
• Find out guests’ motivations in visiting MOXI relating to learning science or building scientific skills

I want to use these evaluations to determine guests’ perceptions and motivation in MOXI, and to tailor scientists’ outreach motivations to make guests more aware participants in science and to improve scientists’ communication skills. An initial trial run will help me in creating a model to train scientists and to meet guests where they are in terms of science engagement and expectations.

Summer Camp Curriculum Project Proposal

Project Proposal: Develop the curriculum for the five-day Super Messy Science summer camp at MOXI. This curriculum will be used for the first two weeks of camp, the first week with 2^nd and 3^rd graders and the second week with 4^th through 6^th graders. The curriculum will be designed to incorporate a group of diverse learners as well as age ranges 7 to 12. The curriculum will provide a platform for students to develop a strong foundation in acid and base chemistry, states of matter, and other STEAM content. In addition the curriculum will allow campers to further develop skills such as measuring, observation skills, making predictions, and communication skills.

evaluation plan and logic model - Destiny

LOGIC MODEL

Inputs

-volunteers (past present and future)

-Fall Teen Volunteer Program pre-ideas

-sparks

-dos pueblos volunteer fair. 

Activities

-surveys and interviews to gain knowledge on what the teens want from volunteering at MOXI

-go recruit future volunteers at local high schools

-observe volunteers on the floor while they spark

Short term outcomes

-Find the best way to address the needs/wants of the teen volunteers.

-shape the coming programs and activities for volunteers at MOXI based on these findings

- readdress the trainings for the volunteers

Long term outcomes

-understand the wants of high school volunteers.

-shape/ outline future volunteer programs

-better understand the importance of having volunteer sparks.

Evaluation plan:

I plan on surveying the past, present and future volunteers of MOXI. I can gain information of why they decided to volunteer, what they want to get out of their experience, if their needs were met, what they would change and why they left. I hope to send out online surveys through email to past and present volunteers. They would be slightly different because volunteers that have left will have a question asking why they left. I also plan on joining Kevin when he tables at Dos Pueblos as a volunteer fair. I hope to hand out a brief survey at the table to see what prospective students want when they volunteer and why. This would give insight to better understand the need and wants of the volunteer and how we can better shape the new Teen volunteer program that will be starting in the fall. 

Evaluation Plan Rough Draft - Kevin

GOOGLE DOC VERSION

Kevin Spracher

MAPS
Spring 2019

Podcast Evaluation Plan Draft

Project Description:

This evaluation project is intended to help guide the production of a short podcast aimed at visitors who may be identified as facilitators in MOXI.  It is an evaluation of our visitors to better understand them as facilitators in an informal setting. The long-term outcome is the creation of a tool that helps them be more effective facilitators.  The short-term outcomes are to determine what kind of information to present and what aspects should be highlighted to make the podcast a desirable piece of media for this audience.

Evaluation is necessary to make this podcast appealing to listeners. The results of the evaluation will allow us to create a product in response to the documented desires of our audience, rather than what we think they want or need.  It may also help determine whether our audience’s perceptions of a facilitator’s role is skewed from what MOXI believes that role to be. In that case, it may be necessary to include some instruction about why MOXI encourages an open-ended, inquiry-based model of learning.

Through observations and survey, we will identify visitors who act as facilitators in MOXI.  We will look for different types and frequency of facilitating behavior. Short interviews will help draw out what visitors think would make MOXI more engaging and impactful.

Evaluation Objectives:

• Gauge interest in a tool for more effective facilitation.
• Determine if a podcast is an appropriate tool for our audience.
• Identify perceptions of the role of a facilitator at MOXI
• Determine what information is wanted by facilitators in MOXI.
• Areas of the museum/exhibits where facilitation is high and low.

Evaluation Design

This evaluation is intended to better understand MOXI’s audience.  Since the outcome of the project is for facilitators, as described by Falk, we must first identify this subset of visitor.  The outcomes will depend on their responses. Questions will be designed with Falk’s definition of facilitators. (“Visitors who are socially motivated. Their visit is focused on primarily enabling the experience and learning of others in their accompanying social group.”)  The survey will also identify if visitors outwardly want tools to help them facilitate/deepen engagement. The survey will also ask questions that we can use to make correlations about their frequency in visiting, their experience as educators/museum-goers/scientist, how they get to the museum, whether or not they use podcasts, etc.

Methods:

• Google Form Survey of guests during their visit
• Conduct observations of groups on different days and times
• Conduct interviews (with the people I observe?)
• Consider conducting surveys and interviews with a subset of members (i.e. confirmed repeat visitors?)

Proposed Timeline:

Surveys and observations must be spread out over a variety of times and days to ensure a broad sampling of visitors.  Perhaps over a month?

Products:

A summary report detailing the findings of the survey, observations, and interviews.  This should highlight the perceived wants and needs of facilitators, and whether they align with MOXI’s perception of an effective facilitator.

Logic model:

Capstone Project Proposal - kevin

I would like to create a tool for adults to be better facilitators to the kids that they bring.  My original idea was for a short podcast that could be consumed on the way to MOXI - something a parent or caregiver could listen to in the car that would prime them with a few simple things to try.  It might be divided by exhibits with challenges for each exhibit, or by facilitation strategies.

After discussing in MAPS, I wonder if this is the best way to provide this type of information.  For my evaluation, I would like to determine what caregivers already use, need, want, etc in terms of facilitation instruction.  Maybe the podcast will be just one way of distributing the information.  Suggestions for other media like pamphlets, zines, youtube videos were suggested by other MAPS.

Capstone Project Proposal - Juliana

For my capstone project, I hope to design a month of activities in the Innovation Workshop centered around a nature theme. For one of the main activities, I am thinking of having an open-ended “Nature Art” activity, in which visitors can create art out of natural materials, similar to the Fairy House activity. In order to make the activity still relevant to MOXI, I also want to have some examples of engineering in nature as activities on the side stations. Each station will be a different animal that “engineers” in a natural environment. Some ideas that I have for this include beavers, bees, ants, spiders, and birds. These activities may have less of a take home product, but be more about learning about a certain animal and how it designs, builds, and alters the environment.

Capstone proposal - Sam S.

Every day, visitors come into MOXI by the hundreds, and immediately begin acting as scientists. They become motivated by interesting phenomena, create experiments, collaborate, and build consensus. They become surprised and delighted by unexpected results. However, I suspect that many guests leave MOXI not having realized that they just acted as scientists, and possess the skills and curiosity necessary to engage with what they conceive science to be. Many visitors, especially children, do not know any scientists, and have no context with which to connect the fun time they had to the possibility of confidently practicing scientific inquiry in their daily lives.

My goal is to pilot a program at MOXI that partners the museum and its Education staff with local researchers and practicing scientists, with the ultimate result of creating interactive scientific activities at MOXI developed and facilitated by local scientists that relate to their work and research. The intended outcome of this program will be to connect the learning process at MOXI to the daily practice of science by members of the community. This will bolster visitors’ awareness of their own capacity to understand and grapple with science, whether its at MOXI, in school, or in other aspects of their lives.

This project will consist of several phases. First, I will reach out to scientists at UCSB to recruit no more than six interested scientists, willing to commit a small amount of time over the summer and develop an interactive learning tool related to their work. Next, I will conduct an evaluative survey of MOXI guests to determine baseline levels of science engagement and expectations. Then, I will develop a series of correspondences, meetings, and workshops to ensure similar goals in outreach, to design learning activities, and to develop inquiry-based facilitation strategies for scientists. Finally, I will organize and plan a small number (no more than 3) of showcase events for scientists to facilitate their activities. I will conduct another survey to assess if visitor attitudes have changed after meeting scientists and engaging with activities explicitly highlighting the scientific process. I will also interview participating scientists and museum staff to determine outcomes - both successful and in need of improvement.

Such a program would correspond with MOXI’s mission and format of encouraging learning through interaction and inquiry. It would also have the added benefits of creating and strengthening partnerships with the scientific community in the Santa Barbara area, raising MOXI’s profile as a scientific learning institution, and exporting MOXI’s educational model to early career scientists, who are or will be teaching in some capacity. I hope to ultimately build this partnership into a long term, sustainable program that will showcase the work and process of local scientists in an ongoing manner, and will shrink the gap between the MOXI experience, and the tangible and important practice of scientific inquiry in the real world.

I have no idea how to successfully insert a google docs table here, so here's a link to my logic model:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I9Zhh3PRKBj0Jj3nOtBUqF3JJqNSX8rJELK9voa60D0/edit