Multi-Site Case Studies About Zoo and Aquarium Visitors’ Perceptions of the STEM Learning Ecology

This chapter describes inquiry and learning in science and arts-based informal settings. Informal institutions, generally museums, galleries, zoos, and science centers, are designed to be interactive spaces that foster self-directed explorations and learning of different arts, exhibits, specimens, and materials on display. Observations, dialogues, and questioning approaches are generally used to facilitate inquiry-based learning in informal settings. In arts-based settings, the emphasis is on advancing visual literacy, and in science-based settings inquiry is used both as a pedagogical approach and as modeling scientific practice. In both kinds of settings, teacher learning and professional development is used to help teachers understand the process of inquiry and facilitate inquiry-based learning with students both in the classroom and in informal institutions. The challenge and the value of inquiry-based learning in informal settings is that conversations and trajectories can go in unexpected ways. It is important to continue to research inquiry and learning in informal settings, for example studying the kinds of questions and prompts that support productive conversation, the role of digital technologies in supporting learning, and, importantly, considering the sociocultural aspects of inquiry. Inquiry in informal settings supports diverse ways of accessing science and art.

The world we live in is more complex than ever. We can now transfer money through mobile payment apps such as Venmo, budget through online services such as Mint, and invest in the stock market through free-trading apps like Robinhood. As a result, teenagers and young adults can easily spend and accumulate debt without ever seeing paper money change hands. Without these physical barriers to spending and the vast subscription services and online shopping opportunities, people are more susceptible to losing control of their personal finances. Due to new financial technology and globalization, personal finance has become increasingly complicated in the United States and throughout the world. This paper reviews the literature on the current state of financial literacy in the United States, including the efforts to improve financial education. This paper will also discuss how financial literacy is measured in the existing literature and consider whether financial education improves adult financial literacy or personal finance outcomes. Finally, this paper will outline a few proposals for future research. learning.

Children spend most of their time in out-of-school settings. As a result, informal learning settings can play a significant role in children’s learning development. Museums and science centers are informal settings that are intentionally designed to promote learning and interest development. Learning in these settings is highly participant structured. Participants’ interaction with each other and exhibits can direct their learning and understanding of the presented topics. Also, studies show that these settings are where children begin to develop competencies, skills, knowledge and problem-solving processes that support participation in STEM-related careers. For example, many engineering exhibits have been designed for children to promote their engineering skills and practices as well as their understanding of engineering careers. One engineering practice is troubleshooting; trouble-shooting is a practice used in many aspects of engineering work, including design, analysis and programming. We situate this study in the engineering design literature as the task that our participants engaged in was an engineering design task. The research literature suggests that expert engineers engage in diagnostic troubleshooting which includes focusing on problematic areas of the potential solutions, defining the cause of a problem, and proposing ways of fixing it. However, beginning designers tend to be unfocused and uncritical when looking at the performance of their prototype which would lead to a poor and flawed design. In this study, we focused on children’s engagement in troubleshooting throughout an engineering design activity. Previous studies have referred to children as natural engineers who take similar engineering process as experts. Hence, in this study, we examined ways children engage in troubleshooting and compared them with what previous studies showed about the ways expert and beginner engineers troubleshoot their designs. To do so, we asked 7-11 years old children with their caregivers to design a pneumatic ball run using pneumatic pistons in 30 minutes. The video data of 10 cases were then analyzed using an a priori codebook. We found that the children were mostly engaged in troubleshooting after testing the whole or segments of the ball run. Troubleshooting was observed very often due to the immediate feedback they received (i.e., falling the ball means a problem). In addition, while examples of children acting like beginner engineers were observed, most of the cases were involved in diagnostic troubleshooting.

Background Informal science learning environments, such as science centres, provide unique opportunities for students to engage in conceptual understanding through interactive and multimodal experiences. However, without structured support, student engagement may remain superficial in those environments. To help students engage in activities in science centres, such support can be provided through metacognitive regulation activities that play important roles in promoting deeper learning. Although these internal processes are difficult to observe, eye‐tracking technologies and metacognitive‐focused worksheets (MoWs) may offer promising ways to externalise and analyse students' self‐regulatory strategies in real‐world settings. Objectives This study aimed to explore how MoWs in combination with mobile eye‐tracking technology support and monitor metacognitive engagement and conceptual understanding of 7th grade students during collaborative learning in science centres. The study focused on three scientific topics: work and energy, mirrors and light absorption and the solar system and beyond. Methods Using a multiple case study design, data were collected from 72 seventh grade students participating in peer‐to‐peer collaborative learning sessions at two different science centres. Data sources included recordings from eye‐tracking sessions, video observations and student‐generated responses on MoWs. A multimodal data triangulation approach was used to identify metacognitive behaviours aligned with the orientation, planning, monitoring and evaluating phases. Coding schemes were developed and refined through iterative analysis of gaze data, verbal discourse and behavioural indicators. Results The findings suggest that MoWs can support students in these specific settings to activate prior knowledge, plan in real time and collaboratively monitor and evaluate their own learning. Monitoring was the most frequently observed metacognitive behaviour, followed by orienting and evaluating. Eye‐tracking data revealed shared patterns of visual attention, gaze synchronisation and strategic information processing during collaboration. Students' correct use of scientific concepts also varied across subjects. The highest accuracy was observed in the solar system and beyond unit , while the highest misunderstandings were found to be related to mirrors and light absorption . Implications This study demonstrates the value of integrating MoWs and eye‐tracking technology as learning and analytical tools to support and analyse students' metacognitive regulation in informal learning settings. The findings provide practical insights for designing structured yet flexible learning activities that encourage deeper cognitive engagement and promote conceptual understanding in science education. The study also attempts to make a methodological contribution to the field by proposing a gaze‐based framework for assessing metacognitive processes in authentic, collaborative learning environments.

Self-regulation with respect to informal learning

* Abbreviations: NAM — : National Academy of Medicine NHES — : National Health Education Standards Only 12% of American adults have proficient health literacy, defined as a set of skills needed to effectively function in the health care system.1 This is troubling given that health literacy is a stronger predictor of health than age, income, employment status, educational level, or race.2 A growing body of research also shows that low health literacy is associated with worse child health outcomes,3 higher health care costs, and elevated mortality rates.1 Although Americans are increasingly expected to be knowledgeable consumers of health care, it is clear that many individuals lack the core health literacy skills needed to understand their health insurance.4 This inadequate understanding of health care information creates challenges beyond the selection of a health insurance plan or payment calculations. Poor health literacy, including health numeracy, extends into one’s ability to seek care at an appropriate time, navigate through the health system, and share in important medical decisions. In this Perspective, we describe national efforts to combat low health literacy rates and argue that they fail to adequately prepare children and adolescents to be health-literate adults. We then propose several steps for educators, health care providers, and policymakers to improve health literacy among children and adolescents in the United States. The US Department of Health and Human Services, the National Academy of Medicine … Address correspondence to Tyler N.A. Winkelman, MD, MSc, University of Michigan, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, North Campus Research Center, 2800 Plymouth Rd, Building 14, Room G100-20, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2800. E-mail: tywink{at}med.umich.edu

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Assessing Technological Literacy in the United States Abstract The challenges to developing tools and techniques for assessment of technological literacy are presented in a panel format, with each panelist above providing a 4 minute summary of his written contribution shown below, followed by an audience questions and discussion. Three distinct sections of this overview provide: a summary of a recently issued NAE report on assessing the technological literacy of K-12 students, K-12 teachers, and the general US population, a case study of assessment of a well established technological literacy course at Hope College, and summary of 12 technological literacy course formats, student learning styles, and assessment and evaluation tools, taken from a 2005 NSF-sponsored faculty workshop on teaching technological literacy. Taken collectively, these pieces identify the current situation for, and future challenges to, achievement of widespread assessment for technological literacy undergraduate instruction. I. Assessment of Technological Literacy: A National Academies Perspective. (Greg Pearson National Academy of Engineering) The idea that all Americans, and U.S. school children in particular, should know something about the nature, history, and role of technology1 is not new. Over the last several decades, curriculum developers, university scholars, engineering and scientific professional associations, museums, government agencies, foundations, industry groups, and others have invested considerable time and money in a range of efforts intended to encourage greater “technological literacy.” The majority of these initiatives have taken place within an educational system that for the most part does not recognize technology as an area of academic content in its own right. In the last five years, several separate but related initiatives have seemed to elevate the prospects that both the policy-making and education communities in the United States will begin to view the study of technology as an important issue. The National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for example, funded the development of a set of content standards for the study of technology (ITEA, 2000). During this same period, one of the largest professional engineering societies in the world, IEEE, convened engineering and education school deans with the goal of beginning a dialogue between the two camps about technological literacy and its implications for how teachers are educated. In 2002, the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council published Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology,2 a report that argues for greater technological literacy for all citizens1. The report proposed a model of technological literacy that has three dimensions: knowledge, capability, and ways of thinking and acting. Unfortunately, as Technically Speaking points out, none of these efforts—past or present—has been informed in any meaningful way by knowledge of what Americans actually know about technology. Although the best guess of experts with an interest in the issue is that the level is lower than we would wish, the truth is that no one knows.

Conventional approaches to vocational education and training (VET) globally are inadequate to meet either present or future needs. They are based on assumptions about VET being inferior to academic education and that only those who cannot get into academic education would pursue vocational learning. They assume that formal vocational learning is the only or main form of vocational learning and that formal VET graduates will transition into formal sector jobs concentrated largely around metals, motors and manufacturing. None of this is true. In Africa, most people are working and learning in informal settings. Many have a powerful vocational impulse. Even many of the poorest are using digital technologies for their learning. Moreover, a focus on skills to produce more is pushing us further and further beyond the boundaries for the safe operating of this planet. In response, this book focuses on social skills ecosystems in which a range of actors come together to negotiate skills needs, including in informal and rural settings and in the production of skills for the maintenance and replenishing of the natural resource nexus. This focus highlights the complexity of interactions in local and horizontal relationships between actor-citizens in a place and the often top-down and disabling actions of states trying to do development to subject-recipients.

We narrate a qualitative descriptive study on the translation of the pedagogical model of primary school seamless science inquiry learning (SSIL), originally with the mandatory requirement of 1:1 (one-mobile-device-per-student) and 24 × 7 (24 h a day, 7 days a week) setting, to a more scalable and sustainable model that fits the conditions of typical schools in Singapore and elsewhere. Seamless learning as a hybrid learning model refers to a continuous, holistic learning process across learning contexts, such as formal and informal learning settings, individual and collaborative learning, and learning in both the physical and digital realms. We discuss the adaptation of the SSIL model which remove the constraint of the requirement of one device per student and its implementation in three schools over the duration of two academic years. Through a process of scaffolding by the researchers, as manifested by five pedagogical design principles known as C2FIP (Connectivity, socio-Constructivist learning, Formative assessment, leveraging resources in Informal settings, Personalised learning), primary science teachers were empowered to design good SSIL lesson plans that adhered to techno-pedagogical design principles. Data analysis showed teacher growth in designing and implementing SSIL lessons and evidence of student learning.KeywordsSeamless learningDesign principlesDiffusion of innovationsScience inquiry learning

It is often assumed that because the current generation of students is more technologically competent than previous generations, they would prefer to use technology for both formal and informal learning. The results of a series of empirical studies indicated that students in formal settings preferred face-to-face contact with their instructors and used Web 2.0 tools for communication and to complete specific class assignments; in their personal lives, these technologies were used for communication, music and video downloads, and online gaming. Although students did not use social networking in their classes, the use of these tools may provide educators with an alternative to course management systems. Results from a community sample indicated a preference towards using the Internet for information gathering, and even though respondents reported that the incorporation of social networking sites in informal education settings would be nice, it was not expected. Overall, both student and community participants utilized technology that was familiar to them. Thus, assuming technological competence in our students and implementing various technological applications in the classroom may be counterproductive if guidance and training are not provided.

There are pedagogical shifts in learning where self-educated are being encouraged to be active in their own learning. Educational research increasingly recognizes the fact that a significant amount of learning is happening in the informal settings. Furthermore, due to the proliferation of varieties of products, consumers need to be educated with relevant information of the products in the informal settings. Cultural background, health reasons and religious inclinations are considered influencing factors to the decision on whether to consume or not. As such, relevant information such as ingredients of the food products may provide strong inclination on the decision to purchase. Thus, consumers may benefit from mobile learning in informal setting (e.g., scanning codes to obtain further information of the ingredient of the product). Thus, the main objective of this study is to design Halal-Checker Mobile Application by using agile user centered design. Agile user centered design is the integration of User-Centered Design and agile methods. The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technique and agile approach adapted are Contextual Design Model, User Personas and extreme programming. The results shown in this study are, (i) contextual design model and user personas and (ii) development of Halal-checker mobile application prototype using extreme programming. Future work may involve including more HCI techniques and agile approaches together in the agile user centered design methodology to improve the quality of the digital mobile artifacts.

All-­day schools serving children from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. four times a week are still uncommon in Switzerland. In trying to implement an all-­day school schedule, teachers and social workers are requested to cooperate professionally during the day. A current study looks at the multi-­professional cooperation in order to clarify responsibilities and expectations. The results are based on interviews with two teachers and two social workers that were analysed by using hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. It becomes evident that the parental absence is used to legitimate the own profession. Informal learning settings, where the stakeholders need to act and think together beyond their traditional roles and where lines of responsibility are not as well-­demarcated as in formal learning settings, the potential for conflict among the stakeholders is the greatest.

Images clockwise from top: The annual trial garden at Colorado State University (source: Gayle Volk); the corn and maize seed collection at the USDA gene bank in Ames, IA (source: Devin Dotson, U.S. Botanic Garden); and Tunisian wild carrot (Daucus aureus). Source: Colin Khoury. Like a good first date, the “match” that Moreau and her team create could be a step toward a beautiful, lifelong relationship with the natural world. A 2017 Pew Research poll showed that most Americans see science and technology centers as reliable sources of science information (https://pewrsr.ch/2pfmGmJ). Botanical gardens, then, serve as important points of contact between scientists and researchers and the general public. Public outreach was just one of the drivers that encouraged another botanical garden researcher, Ari Novy, to team up with Moreau back in 2015. The pair was looking for a way to marry two worlds: horticulture and agriculture. As Moreau puts it, “A lot of people in agriculture started out in horticulture—people see the fields as quite different…but it's all growing plants.” Novy, an ASA, CSSA, and SSSA member and Director/CEO of the San Diego Botanic Garden, was a key player in finding funding for the Societies and the American Public Garden Association (APGA) to collaborate. Novy brought together researchers and other professionals from both organizations with funding from the USDA-NIFA. The team created a symposium with two primary goals to highlight plant diversity, particularly through crop wild relatives, and to focus on public engagement with emphasis on agriculture education. More than 100 horticulturists, botanical gardens researchers, agriculture scientists, land managers, conservation NGOs, and public outreach professionals gathered for the symposium in Des Moines, IA in April 2019, titled “Celebrating Crop Diversity: Connecting Agriculture, Public Gardens, and Science.” The three-day event was jam-packed with activities designed to foster connections between researchers and individuals who may not realize how closely their work is connected. “You're meeting people who are all working along a supply chain that have rarely met,” Moreau says. “They're coming together, and they might never even have seen themselves as a part of this larger supply chain.” Moreau passionately describes the way that botanical gardens can conserve valuable biodiversity by collecting and maintaining seeds and growing plants in living collections while breeders and agricultural researchers can test the wild relatives in conjunction with modern crops to develop valuable traits like drought and salinity tolerance, disease and pest resistance, and increased nutrition. The organizers kept the conference small in order to increase networking and connections. “We really imagined a two- or three-day event where the community really coalesced and got to know one another,” Novy says. “That just doesn't happen the same way with 500 or 1,000 people.” The conference featured keynote speakers like Marie Haga, the Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and Gary Nabhan, a nature writer, activist, and ethnobotanist. The group took field trips to the Iowa State University Seed Science Center, the Reiman Gardens, and the USDA-ARS North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, part of the National Plant Germplasm System, and one of the largest gene banks in the United States. “There's a lot of people that dabble in crop wild relatives, but there's not a lot of cohesion and connection,” Moreau says. “As a topic, it lends itself very well to agricultural researchers and botanical gardens because there's gaps in terms of having those plants backed up in living collections and seed collections, yet it informs so closely the breeding and agricultural areas.” The symposium was more than just a valuable learning experience: Novy and Moreau collaborated again as guest editors of a special section in the November–December 2019 issue of Crop Science featuring more than 10 articles presented at and inspired by the conference. The special section includes one key article that lays out the future course of action between botanical gardens and agricultural researchers. Top row, l to r: courtesy of Gayle Volk, Davie Hansen, and Beiquan Mou. Center image (apples) courtesy of David Hansen. Images on the bottom row (corn and wheat) courtesy of David Hansen. Both Novy and Moreau emphasize that they wanted this symposium to be more than just a yearly meeting—they want long-term action to come from their collaboration. One of the key outcomes of the symposium was the development of a “Road Map” outlining the steps that both the agriculture and botanic garden communities want to take—in concert with land managers, educators, and others interested in native plant diversity—to increase conservation efforts and awareness of North America's biodiversity, particularly crop wild relatives. The five key priorities, as laid out in the article, “Road Map for the Conservation, Use, and Public Engagement around North America's Crop Wild Relatives” (https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2019.05.0309), are highlighted in the box above. Colin Khoury, a CSSA member and USDA-ARS researcher at the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Colorado, was one of the authors of the article. He says it summarizes collective feedback from individuals carefully selected by the authors who represent as many groups as possible that may be interested in native plant conservation and biodiversity in an effort to represent the needs and interests of the people and organizations who attended the symposium and who will be instrumental in carrying out the priorities within the Road Map. Khoury, in his day-to-day research, is heavily involved in the collection and conservation of that genetic diversity. Several common crops have wild relatives native to North America, including chile peppers, squashes and pumpkins, sunflowers, and corn. “We work to try and figure out who the species are, where they live, how well we have them conserved right now, and what we should do about it to fill in the gaps,” Khoury says. Filling in the gaps is not just about collecting a sample or two of a wild species in one area, but includes sampling populations across various regions to conserve a wide range of genetic diversity. Currently, the Wild Chile Botanical Area near Tuscon, AZ is, as Khoury puts it, “one of the only reserves in the United States with explicit prioritization of the conservation of a crop wild relative.” It's this fact that led Khoury to emphasize the importance of education related to crop wild relatives, particularly with land managers. “Increasingly we've been trying to understand their conservation in their natural habitats,” Khoury says. “That is, how many of their populations occur in protected areas like national parks or forests? Do the people who manage those areas know about them or just think they're weeds? My work is not just about the seed bank anymore, it's about talking with other folks like the Forest Service to see if we can think about these species and their conservation in a more integrated sort of way.” Once these plants are conserved both in their natural habitats and as part of gene and seed banks, the next step is to characterize their potentially useful traits so that plant breeders can advance agronomic goals. Crop wild relatives have evolved under trying circumstances—they were not bred to thrive in fields tended by farmers. It is their very lack of breeding that makes them so valuable as genetic resources for breeders looking for heat, drought, or salt tolerance, among other useful traits. “We need more action to add value to these plants—growing them, trying to figure out how drought tolerant they are, and characterizing them for other important traits of the future” Khoury mentions. These characteristics, ideally, will be logged in databases like the USDA's Genetic Resources Information Network (GRIN Global), making that information accessible to plant breeders as they move forward in crossing wild relatives with their associated domesticated crops. In short, that's the ultimate goal of the conference and the Road Map: to inspire agricultural researchers, botanical gardeners, land managers, and other stakeholders to collaborate in efforts to advance conservation of plant diversity to maintain valuable potential lines of research for plant breeders. The “match” made between individuals and the natural world, fostered by talented matchmakers in public outreach at botanical gardens, will hopefully inspire the next generation of agricultural researchers, plant breeders, and conservationists. Read more articles inspired by and presented at the April 2019 symposium in the November–December 2019 issue of Crop Science: https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/cs/tocs/59/6.

Stereotypes tend to pervade the debates on Chinese parents’ expectation of their children’s academic achievement and if or how they value play. Yet little is known about the relationship between play and concept formation, as well as how play and conceptual learning are set up through specific activity settings in Chinese families. Vygotsky’s (1966) concept of play is the creation of an imaginary situation. From this point of view, children’s engagement in play may largely be directed towards a process of abstraction and generalization of the meaning, which is in the essence of concept formation (Vygotsky, 1987a, 1987b). This study is aimed at investigating the links between play and young children’s concept formation in Chinese families. This study adopted an in-depth qualitative case study following the dialectical-interactive approach within the cultural-historical paradigm. Four parents and two children (a boy and a girl) participated from two families (with only one child in each) in Mainland China. The children were around three years at the beginning of this study. The two participating families were recruited through educators in a public kindergarten, and were intentionally selected considering their similar socio-economic status. The data were collected over two main observation periods (3.5 months and 3 months with an interval of 10 months) through digital video observations of children’s participation in everyday family activities (especial family play), videoed parent interviews and parents’ participated filming of the activities they are valued. The analysis of data has been carried out by means of three main levels of interpretations, namely, common sense interpretation, situated practice interpretation, and interpretation on a thematic level (Hedegaard, 2008c) in order to get rich and comprehensive understanding of children’s everyday family practices in relation to play and learning within Chinese cultural context. This thesis is conducted in the format of a thesis by publication. The important study results are reported through the four publications. Overall, the study finds that the shared imaginary situation between parents and a child in family collective play provides the conditions for the child’s concept formation. The shared sustained imaginary situation created through family collective play shows its importance in a child’s motive orientation towards parents’ valued conceptual learning (Publication 1), in the child’s potential conscious awareness of certain scientific phenomenon (Publication 2), in mediating the child’s conceptual thinking through sharable pretend signs (Publication 3) and in fostering the child’s exploration of the ideal descriptions of certain conceptual rules (Publication 4). The findings indicate that children’s family collective play is in relation to their concept formation in Chinese families. In this study it has been demonstrated that play has its role in creating the potential (or ZPD) of a child’s concept formation. A new conception of children’s imaginative play and its role in their concept formation has been synthesized, which provides extended understanding of Vygotsky’s concept of play. Methodologically, this study is evident in how meaningful the cultural-historical approach can frame the study to investigate a child’s process and mechanism of concept formation during family play. In addition, this study provides the local knowledge in relation to the links between play and learning in informal settings, which pedagogically contributes to how play can be understood and utilized in informal settings in early childhood education.

Impact of Health Literacy on Eye Health Disparities