Monday, May 6, 2019
Capstone Project - Stephanie
Bring MOXI to Secondary Classrooms
Stephanie Mapes
Capstone Project
Aim:
To get high school level science classes to have field trips at MOXI through Next Generation Science Standard applications to our exhibits.
Process:
Part 1 - Interview high school science teachers with questions about what would motivate them to bring their students to MOXI. Have sample for them to review.
Part 2 - Collect input from Sparks about challenges and questions at exhibits. Develop problems that connect with NGSS.
Part 3 - Create database of questions, challenges, and prompts organized via topic and California State Standard.
Part 4 - Build a prototype for teachers to review and provide a survey for them to give feedback.
Final Product:
The ideal final product of this project would be a tab on the MOXI website for secondary teacher resources. There they would be able to find the questions and prompts based on the topics and standards they have covered and generate a pdf worksheet for their students to complete during their time on the floor at MOXI.
Capstone Project Proposal / Sophia Rowen
Sophia Rowen
Capstone Project Proposal
Hands-on activity: Make your own Mobile
I would like to develop and implement a new maker program cart activity. I had the idea of doing a hands-on mobile making activity in which guests can use different materials and look at different sources of inspiration to build their own mobile. This activity would be nice to have set up on the roof or a space in which we can hang the mobiles after completing them to see how they hang and react with the wind and look compared to other mobiles. I want to emphasize things like scale, balance, center of mass, natural forces like wind and gravity, natural materials, and sound. I had the idea of changing the materials we use according to the season. (I know California doesn’t really have seasons) In the summer we could use majority shells, in the fall we can use leaves and twigs, in the winter we can work with paper snowflakes, in the spring we can work with flowers.
Before I get started on developing the mobile activity, I am going to evaluate the current maker program carts. Rockets are starting up again with a new facilitation guide and I will plan on interviewing and giving out surveys to our guests that engage with the rockets activity. By evaluating our current maker program cart activity I will know where we need to improve, change, or take away.
Resources
2. https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_art_lesson01_activity1
3. Maker Program Carts: Facilitation toolkit
a. Rockets, Boats
4. Past Mobiles activity in Exploration Lab
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Capstone project - Destiny
For my capstone I plan on observing, surveying and evaluating the volunteer program. I plan on sending out anonymous surveys to the past volunteers asking them about their time as a volunteer, what they would change or add and why they moved on from MOXI. I will also interview or survey the current volunteers about their expeditions and reality of their time on the floor. I will also ask about their training process. Lastly, I plan on surveying the on boarding volunteers later this month during their training about their expectation and desires for their time on the floor. I will also get a last bit of data after the newer summer volunteers have had time on the floor so that we can compare their original expectations to their reality.
The plan of my project is to evaluate MOXI’s volunteers to gather data and opinions for the coming Teen Volunteer Program. This will help the development of the program to better suit it to the needs and wants of the teens that will be joining in the fall.
The plan of my project is to evaluate MOXI’s volunteers to gather data and opinions for the coming Teen Volunteer Program. This will help the development of the program to better suit it to the needs and wants of the teens that will be joining in the fall.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
MoPOP Evaluation
http://www.informalscience.org/sites/default/files/MoPOP_Full%20Evaluation%20Report_Final.pdf
I was interested in this study because I got to visit the MoPOP two years ago, during a very small after hours event, and it was a great experience.
The goal of this study was to find out what visitors think of pop culture and the MoPOP and to see how those perceptions changed after a visit to the museum. Their secondary goal was to find out who the main MoPOP visitors are and to find out their level of satisfaction from their experience.
Their method of evaluation was to visitors entering and exiting the museum pre and post-visit facilitated questionnaires. The questionnaires were given to every third person that entered the museum and any guest who exited the museum. The questionnaires were not given to the same audiences so their data from the pre and post-visit questionnaires do not directly correlate.
The questionnaires had both open and closed-ended questions, for both questionnaires a facilitator would ask a number of open-ended questions and give the guests a map. The pre-visit questionnaire had the guest create a personal meaning map and the post-visit questionnaire had the guest place stickers on a poster board of a map of the museum to mark what areas they visited.
They found that most of their guests are white, female, between the ages of 18-35, are in adult groups, from out of state, and have not been to the MoPOP before. The most common way that visitors heard of MoPOP was through word of mouth. The majority of their guests were experience seekers, citing "something to do" as their main reason for visiting the museum.
I was interested in this study because I got to visit the MoPOP two years ago, during a very small after hours event, and it was a great experience.
The goal of this study was to find out what visitors think of pop culture and the MoPOP and to see how those perceptions changed after a visit to the museum. Their secondary goal was to find out who the main MoPOP visitors are and to find out their level of satisfaction from their experience.
Their method of evaluation was to visitors entering and exiting the museum pre and post-visit facilitated questionnaires. The questionnaires were given to every third person that entered the museum and any guest who exited the museum. The questionnaires were not given to the same audiences so their data from the pre and post-visit questionnaires do not directly correlate.
The questionnaires had both open and closed-ended questions, for both questionnaires a facilitator would ask a number of open-ended questions and give the guests a map. The pre-visit questionnaire had the guest create a personal meaning map and the post-visit questionnaire had the guest place stickers on a poster board of a map of the museum to mark what areas they visited.
They found that most of their guests are white, female, between the ages of 18-35, are in adult groups, from out of state, and have not been to the MoPOP before. The most common way that visitors heard of MoPOP was through word of mouth. The majority of their guests were experience seekers, citing "something to do" as their main reason for visiting the museum.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Review of Summative Evaluation: Climate Change and Resiliency
Objective
The researchers from RK&A were tasked to find if the programs funded by the NOAA at the Science Museum of Virginia had been successful in achieving the goals set by the museum for each program. the programs included a video, event, program, and lecture series.
Methods
RK&A observed each of the programs and interviewed 52 participants and 5 staff members.
Conclusions
RK&a found that the programs did have the intended effect of the participants. The video was very good at outlining complex topics and the event did a stellar job at raising awareness. The lecture series was successful in delivering data forward presentations, but some of the lectures were more academic than general guests could understand.
RK&A noted that the series could work to lessen the feeling of hopelessness often associated with climate change discussion.
The researchers from RK&A were tasked to find if the programs funded by the NOAA at the Science Museum of Virginia had been successful in achieving the goals set by the museum for each program. the programs included a video, event, program, and lecture series.
Methods
RK&A observed each of the programs and interviewed 52 participants and 5 staff members.
Conclusions
RK&a found that the programs did have the intended effect of the participants. The video was very good at outlining complex topics and the event did a stellar job at raising awareness. The lecture series was successful in delivering data forward presentations, but some of the lectures were more academic than general guests could understand.
RK&A noted that the series could work to lessen the feeling of hopelessness often associated with climate change discussion.
Summative Evaluation of Design Build Fly / Sophia Rowen
Rowen, Sophia
4/29/19
Summative Evaluation of Design Build Fly
Prepared for Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas
By RK&A [impact planning, evaluation, audience research]
http://www.informalscience.org/summative-evaluation-design-build-fly-exhibition-and-program-series
http://www.informalscience.org/sites/default/files/2018_RKA_ExplorationPlace_DesignBuildFly_Summative_final.pdf
http://www.informalscience.org/summative-evaluation-design-build-fly-exhibition-and-program-series
http://www.informalscience.org/sites/default/files/2018_RKA_ExplorationPlace_DesignBuildFly_Summative_final.pdf
Goals
The goal of the summative evaluation was to determine the successes and challenges of the Design Build Fly exhibition and programs as compared to Exploration Place’s intentions. The objectives of the summative evaluation were to:
1. Understand visitor’s motivations for visiting the exhibition and participating programs
2. Identify how visitors are using the exhibition space overall and what programs they participate in
3. Explore what meaning visitors make from their experience and to what extent visitors’ meaning-making aligns with the exhibitions and programs intended outcomes
Methods
Two methods were employed: timing and tracking observations and in-depth interviews between March and May 2018. Timing and tracking observations consisted of seeing which components visitors use, for how long, and how visitors behave. They randomly selected visitors who entered the exhibition and used the method of imagining a line that the visitor would cross. The observations were unobtrusive. The in-depth interviews were open-ended and encouraged interviewees to express their opinions, understandings, and meanings. Participants in this evaluation were asked what the most enjoyable aspect of the exhibition was, the least enjoyable aspect, the confusing aspects (note: they have signage), what ideas they took away about exhibition, what processes they took away, and if they had a desire to learn about careers in STEM.
Findings
They included visitor background characteristics, gallery contexts (what components of the exhibit were down or unavailable during observation), time spent, where visitors entered the exhibition, total number of stops throughout exhibition, stops and time spent by section, behaviors, social behaviors (conversing aloud, pointing).
They found that the exhibition and programs measured up against the intended outcomes they had for visitors. They found from the interviews that one of their intended outcomes (visitors from Wichita feeling pride in how the aviation industry has shaped their family members’ lives) was not met. They found that a lot of their visitors were not Wichita residents so meeting this achievement was limited. They learned that perhaps bolstering visits to the Wichita stories component of the ground floor could help drive up feelings of pride.
Something interesting
They conducted another set of interviews strictly with adolescents that had attended the Aviation if Awesome family event (this event allowed them to interact with the same exhibition that was being evaluated). They asked them what their motivations for attending the event was and categorized them into five categories: something fun, interest in aviation and industry, school invitation, someone else wanted to come, and an interest in Design Build Fly (exhibition).
They have different audience outcomes based on different audiences. For example, they categorized their audiences into 1. Children on school field trips (3rd-8thgrade), 2. Families (casual walk-in visitors), 3. Out-of-school time adolescents, 4. Aviation professionals (current and retired). This reminded me of our age specific learning outcomes in the curriculum we have in the Innovation Workshop.
This evaluation can be compared to staff at MOXI interviewing guests as they exit and observing guests on a weekend in a specific track. One cool thing that RK&A did was they developed an observation/reflection guide and trained their staff to use it to conduct their own formative evaluation of the programs in Exploration Place.
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