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Hi William,

I think it is a question of how STEM is to be measured, and there's always room for improvement, and I can take a positive reading towards the proposed changes as well.    

With respect to my comments about accreditation.  There was some consideration for period prior to CILS and after Goéry became director, as I recall, but the effort was abandoned because it proved too complex for potential playoffs,  and easier to partner with existing universities that had existing schools of education.  

Since I'm thinking about educational funding strategies and institutional future directions a lot these days.  I have a few thoughts to share about about how we got into this pickle.

The on-going issue in my view, has been to find appropriate interest and skill matches within the formal community.  Informal learning encompasses so many features of human behavior and social situations in ways that are not normally components of the classroom, and the time durations can be so short and varied, it's nearly impossible to make attributions.  Most visitors typically don't approach informal topics with the same rigor as they might with formal, and there are no tests to act as forcing functions.  Additionally, visitor prior experience levels are all over the educational and cognitive map as it were.  Visitor populations are and will likely remain highly heterogeneous and a random mix of cohorts.  This is likely a good thing.  It's what makes informal so special and also so hard to measure. 

That said while it may be possible to tease data out of the situation, the cost is very high, and the results probably never very clean, or irrefutably compelling.  We as institutions aren't well equipped to undertake such studies, but we know it and feel it from our visitor-ship. These are simpler studies.

From a museum professionals perspective, developing and fostering conducive informal environments also demands a set of skills that run from theatrical and artistic, to scientific, demanding of educational, evaluative and managerial competences, and there aren't really programs that adequately prepare people for such roles.  As such, the museum field tends to be very eclectic in composition and heterogeneous in nature, and as such an art form.

One of the causalities of the current situation may have been prior positioning.  I think science centers as a group sold themselves as agents of educational reformation and change and they may very well play an important role, but establishing a documentable consistent affect nearly impossible, and striving to achieve a documentable effect may in fact compromise their mission.  Years ago we undertook doing a series of Framework exhibits.  They were an entirely forgettable collection of exhibits, which as collections have proven to have little replicable value or lasting utility.  We're not alone in these efforts.

More recently Nanotechnology was envisioned as a means of improving careers choices towards the material and physical sciences by students in K-12, and I suspect it hasn't actually had a long term documentable impact that's provable.   I don't know this for sure, but a lack of data is telling.  Nano has not grab the block buster museum exhibition mantle.   And there are reports that more people in the LA area now know the meaning of homeostasis from visiting Tess.  I wonder if there's a strong correlation with achievement scores in LA schools?

There are good exhibits that emerge over time, and these are useful efforts.   It's impossible to be totally consistent.  Good exhibits usually get copied and refined and improved over decades.   I'd strongly advocate for museums as something other than tools to improve academic achievement they're really vehicles that enrich society as a whole.  

I'd like to see some studies on oddball exhibits that "succeed," failed exhibits that return from history's dust pan, and really cool exhibits never quite made it.  I don't know of any such studies.  Our APE study may have been the closest but it was also very output oriented.

All the Best,


C
On Jun 6, 2013, at 10:45 AM, William Katzman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> Charlie,
> 
> I'm not sure how museum related STEM learning in museums will be measured.  I've met enough evaluators and researchers to be convinced that there is not full agreement on how informal learning should be measured.  Some people like the idea that a single fact is remembered, while others reject that notion, and say we should be measuring questioning or observation skills at exhibits.  Perhaps this is as much a function of what the museum sets as its goals.
> 
> I did find one thing odd in your comments:  the idea that the Exploratorium would be an accredited educational institution.  Has that ever been sought after?  If so I would be surprised.  I know of the related CILS project, but that was in conjunction with universities.  
> 
> -William
> 

Charles Carlson
Senior Scientist | Teacher Institute

http://blogs.exploratorium.edu/whyintercept/
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