Skills of Practices - Class brainstorming on 12/04/18

Making Observations

• Make observations
• Describe what you see/hear/feel/smell/taste
• Identify parts of a system
• Identifying variables
• Quantifying stuff/data (assigning numbers to observations)
• Comparing/contrasting observations
• Similarities of things
• Differences of things
• Communicating observations
• Discussing observations
• Organizing/Categorizing observations
• Changing perspectives
• Changing scale/proportion/speed/timescale you are observing
• Using a third party
• Using multiple senses
• Finding patterns
• Making connections
• Using prior knowledge
• Connect to real world
• Using tools to enhance observations
• Making sure that observations are relevant
• Change scale/proportion/quantity/speed of the object (investigations?)

Asking Questions

• Ask questions
• Asking non-testable questions (fact-based, opinion etc)
• Asking testable questions
• Turning a non-testable questions into question
• Asking questions about functions
• Asking questions about patterns
• Making sure that questions are relevant
• Asking why things act the way they do
• Asking what I can do to go further
• Asking what other resources can I use
• Asking goal-oriented questions
• Asking questions to test a model
• Asking what happens to the system when a variable is changed
• What if questions?
• Cause and effect questions?
• Analyzing data data to ask a question?
• Asking evidence-driven questions
• Asking observation-drive questions

Planning and Carrying out Investigations

• Identify something testable
• Make a claim
• Using prior knowledge
• Forming a hypothesis
• Anticipating outcome (making a prediction)
• Identify variables relevant to investigation
• Isolating variables
• Manipulating variable
• Collecting data
• Identifying function and stability
• Think about real world applications
• Iteration
• Asking questions and refining
• Evaluate materials resources and time
• Constraints and criteria
• Identify problem or challenge
• Planning an investigation that addresses a problem or challenge
• Recruit assistance/assistants
• Determine type of data to collect (Qualitative or quantitative)
• Using senses
• Carrying out investigation with precision
• Carrying out investigation as planned
• Not being biased (scientific objectivity)

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

• Organizing data
• Identify patterns
• Identify data type and source
• Determine data collection method
• Identify and interpret variables
• Generate and analyze graphs
• Drawing conclusions
• Assessing prior predictions  
• Have you answered the testable question?
• Identify cause and effect
• Identify outliers/anomalies and what to do with them
• Filtering data for what is relevant
• Comprehension and understanding data
• Ensure accuracy of data identify errors
• Identify usefulness and purpose
• Understand scale of data
• Looking at data from different perspectives

Developing and Using Models

• Making  predictions
• Using prior knowledge
• Using patterns
• Identifying patterns
• Based on variables
• Cause and effect
• Identifying subsystems within model
• Connecting to real life or previously known models
• Determining model type (Physical vs mental)
• Test model
• Building model
• Combining model
• Making a mental model into a physical model
• Represent your mental model somehow (math, diagram, physical)
• Comparing models
• Apply model to abstract concepts
• Determine functionality of model
• Manipulating variables and controlling variables
• Improving models
• Explain evidence that supports or does not support a model
• Explaining the limits of a model
• Justify a prediction based on patterns in evidence
• Use a model to make a prediction

Heartbeat Drum and Mind Ball Responses

Heartbeat Drum --

The Heartbeat Drum can be super fun to facilitate. I have only had the chance to facilitate it a few times but I always find it interesting to see how people interact with it. Recently I was facilitating with a family where the boy figured out it was his heartbeat and wanted to try controlling it. He did jumping jacks and ran in place a bit to make it go faster. Then he took deep breaths to try to slow it down. Facilitating his sister was totally different. The drum didn't want to read her heartbeat so the facilitation strategy I used was more about sustaining engagement and encouraging her to be patient. Eventually it worked!

Mind Ball --

I've always found Mind Ball fascinating but somewhat difficult to facilitate. It is such a high level topic that I have struggled to not just explain it. I think focusing on the inquiry that is provides people is a great way to facilitate this exhibit. Once people get into it and the competition that it presents, they become intrigued with how it works. I try to lead them to notice things like the waves on the screen and discuss guesses for what they might be.

Mindball and Light Table - Danielle Tisdale

Magnetiles - Stephanie
Magnetiles is a fun exhibit to facilitate. I usually don't get to facilitate it when it's crowded, but when it's calmer, I get to interact with guests over there more. Most of the time, I ask the guests what they are building, what each part of the project is, and how they got their ideas. There was a little girl who told me she was building a tiny MOXI for fairies and showed me how it had different floors that could be swapped out for different floors with other exhibits. The kids are so creative with the magnetiles that most of the time that it seems to me that they tend to move themselves along the facilitation pathways themselves with very little help from me. 

Mindball - Juliana
I've found that at Mindball, it's mostly adults who ask me how it works, while the kids tend to be satisfied by just playing the game. Most adults accept that it measures brain waves, but some will get disappointed when I tell them I don't know the actual specifics of how it works mechanically. 
At Mindball I try to not give people answers on how to win the game, unless they ask me specifically if it is better to concentrate on the ball or if it is better to try to relax. I usually facilitate by asking guests about different strategies they use to win. Most kids tell me that you win by concentrating really hard or by pressing the button, some have told me that it registers your facial expressions and you can win that way. 

Light Table and Toy X-rays

Light Table
This exhibit like the Keva Planks allows guests the explore engineering and design. Stephanie suggested encouraging guests to work with shapes to create other shapes. The magne-tiles are versatile, they can be used to build or in the cilydiscope. I start be seeing what the guest is interested in and using the light table accordingly. If they have shown an interest in a part of the table I start there and introduce the other parts as we go.

Toy X-rays
At the X-rays I have found that the best way to bring quests attention is to show them the sheets while they are playing with the toys. I usually start by asking them what they think is inside, then asking what they see inside the picture. I think that having the sheets on the light table is a good way of drawing people's attention, but there's simply not enough room on the table to facilitate both of the magne-tiles and the x-rays on the same table. Angela has suggested a light on the wall that allows quests to view several sheets without interfering with the light table and magne-tiles.

Notes on facilitation - heartbeat drum and telescopes -Sam S.

Heartbeat drum - Danielle

At the heartbeat drum, I've had success and frustrations in facilitation. Some of the greatest challenges have been in leading inquiry that follows the process of picking up a heartbeat from the metal rings into creating the drumbeat. It's very non-intuitive that the metal rings are picking up your heartbeat, since the hands aren't a classic place to feel a heartbeat, like the chest or throat. Most young guests also don't have the experience of using similar technology on a cardio machine in a gym, for example. I've often had trouble in finding the right prompt in bringing them to understand that the metal rings actually do something. A few prompts that have had some success:

- "What happens when you take your hands off?"
- "Is yours beating at the same speed as (friend on the other side)? Why not?"
- "What does the number on the drum mean? Is it changing or staying the same?"
- "What does the drum sound like? What does it remind you of?"
- Optimizing practice: after they've discovered it's their heartbeat, ask them what they can do to change their heartbeat, both to make it go up and go down. 

I feel that there aren't a very wide range of practices to expand into, so most facilitation at the heartbeat drum will consist of maximizing engagement and optimizing practices, specifically focusing on the ways to change heart rate, as well as the mechanism of the drum reading one's pulse. This is one of the few exhibits throughout MOXI that can incorporate biology -- it may be possible to incorporate an investigation into the concept of electrical currents in the body.


Telescopes - Kevin

I agree that facilitation at the telescopes is most effective when one focuses on changing singular variables. I've also had success in opening inquiry into any scope by asking guests to first identify differences that jump out to them between scopes. When they switch from the telescope to the infrared viewer, for example, they may immediately say that the colors are different. By allowing guests to identify differences on their own, and constraining observations in that way, it allows for more focused facilitation afterwards. I've found that once they identify a main difference (this one has funny colors, this one has red letters and numbers, etc), then you can investigate what that difference in particular means, how it changes, what they can control about it. This dovetails nicely with your distinction between seeing and observing. This strategy can also work well in comparing between the scope vision and their own vision. By condensing their observations into comparisons they can verbalize, then you can begin to maximize engagement by pushing them into identifying the reasons why these differences exist.

- Sam S.

Mindball and Color Mixing Response - Kevin

Mindball

My biggest challenge on mind ball is navigating the question, “How does this work?”  I usually point out the hardware like wires from the headrest and how they lead to a machine inside the table.  I’ll tell guests that mind ball is measuring some kind of brain activity related to relaxing and ask them to try different methods to make the ball move.  I suggest things like meditating or deep breathing.  It seems like this is dissatisfying to guests because they want a more concrete answer.  Sometimes they’ll respond by saying, “Yeah but how does it work?”  

I like Juliana’s idea of having guests develop a theory.  This is what I try to do, but I think that making it explicit will help me avoid skirting around a direct explanation.  I am going to use this as a way to frame my interactions with guests.  When they ask how it works, I’ll respond by saying that the challenge is for them to develop their own theory and that I can help them with that.  First, they need to start with a question, like how does it work, and a possible answer like it’s measuring how relaxed I am.  Then I’ll prompt them to come up with ways to test their theory.  I am realizing that I usually end up hemming and hawing at this exhibit, which is probably where the guests' dissatisfaction comes from.  Having a go-to challenge in my back pocket will be comforting because the expectations of what a guest is supposed to do will be clear.  “The challenge at this exhibit is for you to develop a theory of how this machine works. The most successful theory will probably end up winning more games.”

Color mixing wheel

My best interactions at this exhibit have resulted from when I do the Light Program Cart nearby.  Towards the end of the demonstration, I like showing the guests how I can make a rainbow with the red, yellow, and blue clear plastic wands.  I ask them if they know the colors of a rainbow, and then what colors am I missing when I hold the three wands up.  Then we are able to add orange and green by blending the colors.  This is fairly straightforward but usually gets a positive response.  This directly leads to me pointing out the color mixing wheel.  I show them that I can do the same thing when I look through the wand at the big wheel.  Then I challenge them to figure out what the spinning colors are by working backward.  I point out the big blue circle and hold up the yellow wand to show that it makes green.  “Which smaller spinning circle is also yellow?”  

All my questions are geared to get kids to engage in argument based on evidence.  I try to provide small sentence frames in my questions and by modeling.  I know that circle is yellow because know that yellow and blue make green… etc”  I also challenge them to make colors once they have figured out what the colors are.  “What will you do to make that red circle turn orange?  How do you know that will work?”

X-rays and Donor Wall- Juliana

X-Rays

One of the biggest challenges with facilitating the X-rays is getting people to acknowledge that they are there in the first place. Since many young guests simply play with the toys without noticing that the x-rays are there, one of the ways Angela suggested to help maximize the engagement of those guests was to already have the x-rays out on the light table. When I have facilitated the x-rays in the past, I try to find the x-ray of the toy that a child is already playing with and lay it out on the table. Next, asking guests what they see and if the image looks familiar is a great way to maximize engagement at the higher engagement levels. I have noticed that this simple question definitely helps them start to make connections and maximize their engagement with this exhibit. I also like the suggestion of using VTS, asking guests what more they can find within the x-ray. I will definitely try this strategy next time I am facilitating the x-rays.

One time I was over by the light table, observing kids play with the magnetiles and the toys from the x-rays. An adult came up to me and told me that the turtle wasn’t working (wasn’t turning on or doing anything when she pressed the buttons). I told her that it is actually part of the x-ray exhibit, and brought out the x-ray of the turtle to show her. She was fascinated by being able to see all of the inside parts of the toy, and called her daughter over to show her. This interaction, while very brief, helped the guests to make connections, and encouraged them to identify different parts of the toy.

Donor Wall

As Sophia mentioned in her presentation, a guest’s engagement at the Donor Wall increases when there is more than one person participating. So the other day when I saw a young boy, maybe 5 years old, playing with the Donor Wall by himself, I went up to join him. We were taking turns turning the knobs and watching the balls go down the wall. Then I showed him how you can hit the circles to make them light up, which he became very excited about. He could barely reach even the lowest circles, so he would get a running start to jump up and was eventually able to reach them. This simple challenge of trying to light up the circle encouraged the boy to stay at the exhibit longer and therefore expanded his engagement. 

Another technique I used in order to optimize his engagement was asking him how the balls get all the way to the top of the wall. He was very curious about this, so I helped him figure it out by turning the wheel for a him a few times so he could observe from a few steps away. He noticed that the balls disappeared at a certain point while the wheel was turning. It took him a few tries to figure out that the balls were not just magically appearing at the top, but that they were being sucked up through a long tube on the side of the wall, which he was very excited to eventually find.