ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** Eric, Check out Ed Rodley's case study on ExhibitFiles and the remedial and summative evaluation of Star Wars. The Engineering Design Labs that are part of that traveling exhibit are the next generation of workbench and APE exhibits. These labs have multiple stations at which visitors design and test their designs of magnetically levitated trains and robots. The team at MOS prototyped these thoroughly, working out exhibit label text and sequence--there are pictures of this in the evaluation report.. In the remedial and summative we have focused observations. Checkout the descriptions of how they handled naming parts on labels, placing parts for easy access, and provided multiple stations for simultaneous design and conversation. The mag lev train exhibit offered the opportunity to move to successively t harder challenges as the moved through the three stations in the lab as a whole. This sequence was highly informed by that first stage in an inquiry learning process "Learn the materials and parts." The observations in the APE remedial and summative and those for Star Wars are parallel and have useful categories to consider in design. They are based on Deborah Perry's theory. The consider physical, social, emotional, and cognitive engagement at each exhibit as well as design feature that appear to support each aspect. Star Wars evaluations are on ExhibitFiles and the APE studies are on Informalscience.orgi Also, MOS was building on the experience of workbench and APE, but also their own experience in Investigate! Remember that cool solar cars that could be designed to race? Hope these help and for anecdotes, please call or email! These were fascinating to study and also to look at universal design features that MOS was using. Best Regards, Carey Carey Tisdal 314-496-9097 Tisdal Consulting ________________________________ From: Eric Siegel <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Sat, April 2, 2011 6:59:31 AM Subject: workbench-style activities ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions. ***************************************************************************** Hello, all: I am looking for research on workbench/lunch counter type activities, where visitors gather at a table of "loose parts" and engage with them. We are curious about facilitation, operational aspects, visitor engagement, duration of participation, oh, and [can of worms alert] "learning" too. Also different degrees of open ended-ness, from a table full of zoobs to an earthquake table to a circuit building table... I know about the APE report, and the PIE activities/web site, both of which are very useful (anyone not familiar with either of these, I recommend checking them out at the explo site). Any other actual research would be greatly appreciated. Also, if people have particularly cool versions of these types of activities, or anecdotes about successes/failures I'd be glad to know about them. Thanks! Eric Siegel *********************************************************************** For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org. Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org. The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html. To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the message SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to [log in to unmask] *********************************************************************** For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org. Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org. The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html. To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the message SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to [log in to unmask]