Professional Development for Museum Educators: Unpinning the Underpinnings

Bevan, Bronwyn; Xanthoudaki, Maria

doi:10.1179/jme.2008.33.2.107

Cited by 20 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This may be because, "in lieu of any other model of practice, educators may be transferring the organization and management practices of the school system straight into the museum environment" (Tran and King 2007, p. 134). Learning to teach in a way that differs from your own experience as a learner is challenging (e.g., Hammerness et al 2005;Lortie 1975), which may explain why a traditional, transition model of teaching has been observed in ISE professionals (Bevan and Xanthoudaki 2008;Tal and Morag 2007). These similarities between classroom teachers' practices and informal science educators' practices may suggest that we will observe less diversity among the formal and informal planetarium educator communities.…”

Section: Informal Science Educators: Goals and Professional Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is unclear whether ISE professionals' goals and beliefs reflect the remaining goals: engaging audiences in scientific reasoning, supporting their understanding of science as a way of knowing, appreciating how scientists communicate in the context of their work, and promoting audience interest in identifying as scientists. However, Bevan and Xanthoudaki (2008) report that science museums are shifting from developing visitors' understanding of science towards a focus on supporting visitors' engagement with science, which moves towards helping audiences identify with the scientific enterprise.…”

Section: Informal Science Educators: Goals and Professional Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…And yet, limited research has focused on the informal science education (ISE) professionals themselves (Falk and Dierking 2002;Bailey 2006;Bevan and Xanthoudaki 2008). Using a learning science framework on frontline ISE practitioners may help us understand their role as agents in the learning environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Informal Science Educators' Pedagogical Choices and Goals for Learners: The Case of Planetarium Professionals

Plummer¹,

Small

2013

Astronomy Education Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study extends our understanding of the goals, beliefs, and pedagogical choices made by planetarium professionals. Interviews were conducted with planetarium professionals (N ¼ 36) to assess their goals for audiences and beliefs about the design of the learning environment. Classification of participants, according to a six-facet framework on effective learning environment design, suggests a range of perspectives on the design of the learning environment that primarily include learner-centered, motivationally-oriented, socioculturallycentered, and physically-oriented perspectives. Results also point to the importance of considering increased opportunities for professionalism in the field of planetarium education.Recent changes to the planetarium field suggest that now is a critical time to understand planetarium professionals' beliefs and attitudes towards their practice. The planetarium field is in a state of evolution with fulldome technology replacing traditional optical-mechanical projection systems. As

show abstract

Section: Informal Science Educators: Goals and Professional Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Informal Science Educators: Goals and Professional Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Informal Science Educators' Pedagogical Choices and Goals for Learners: The Case of Planetarium Professionals

Plummer¹,

Small

2013

Astronomy Education Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another perspective highlights the challenge of making good judgments about what content to present, how, and to whom, which is often called Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) [38]. Other researchers [3,7] have stressed the need for effective professional development in museums, especially the need for reflection (on one's own performance, or the performance of others). Therefore, in approaching redesigning our mobile interpretation support tool so that it would support novices, we decided to focus our design process considering Grenier's variables, PCK, and reflection.…”

Section: Context: Adapting a Support Tool For Emerging Youth Professimentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This paper reports on how these 2 different methods affected the ideas and designs produced by teen non-experts. The three themes/topics used in both ATPD and ASPD were derived from our literature review, covering the variables (context and audience, which we combined, and content) identified by Grenier [17], and the need for a feature that supports reflection for professional development [3,7].…”

Section: Accelerated Participatory Design Sessionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing for youth interpreter professional development

Pazmino¹,

Slattery²,

Lyons³

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Informal science institutions (ISIs) are beginning to adopt mobile technology to support interpreters (docents), but not much is known about how to design these supports. One approach to designing technology for new scenarios is participatory design (PD), where end-users are involved as experts in the task domain who can help envision the application of technology. However, in our context end-users are often youth interpreters who are emerging professionals. This poses a challenge because traditional PD methods trust that the users can represent the task domain. Novice professionals may not yet fully understand the task domain, but eliciting their needs and visions is still important for producing a tool they will find useful. A design approach is needed that captures the requirements for supporting expert task execution as an underlying structure for the tool, while nonetheless eliciting and respecting the special needs of novices. We developed and applied two different framing strategies (one technological, one sociotechnological) to traditional PD methods to help youth non-expert interpreters generate task-relevant design ideas. We report results from using these strategies in an exploratory fashion and discuss opportunities for future research on PD methods that can address the needs of youth as emerging professionals.

show abstract

Challenging Beliefs, Practices, and Content: How Museum Educators Change

Allen

Crowley

2013

Science Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Educators in informal settings can be a key part of the learning experience, yet they are often poorly supported as professionals. This study followed the professional development of museum educators who participated in iterative implementation of a new school trip program focused on climate change. The learner‐centered pedagogy, inquiry format, and controversial content of this program all presented challenges to the educators’ existing models of learning and teaching in the museum. We offer four case studies that explore how part‐time museum docents engaged in reflective practice through iterative implementation and how their approaches to learning and teaching in the museum changed, or failed to change. Findings have implications for addressing the challenge of effective professional development for informal educators, particularly in content areas that may be scientifically challenging or socially controversial.

show abstract

Professional Development for Museum Educators: Unpinning the Underpinnings

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Informal Science Educators' Pedagogical Choices and Goals for Learners: The Case of Planetarium Professionals

Informal Science Educators' Pedagogical Choices and Goals for Learners: The Case of Planetarium Professionals

Designing for youth interpreter professional development

Challenging Beliefs, Practices, and Content: How Museum Educators Change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About