The National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) will host webinars [...]

This past October the Association of Science-Technology Centers held its 31st successful Annual Conference [...]

Environmental Educator
Howard County Public Schools / Robinson Nature Center

The new site is the culmination of several years of work by the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education [...]

Indigenous populations are often underrepresented in STEM careers, and in the US and Russia, there is currently a focus [...]

This is a group designed to showcase evaluation reports that have been completed by graduate students enrolled in the Museology Graduate Program, University of Washington in Seattle WA. Since 2009, the Program has included a specific option, or course of study, for students to first take a quarter-long "Introduction to Audience Research & Evaluation" class, then continue on to a possible 5 additional quarters of "real world" evaluation directed fieldwork. These directed fieldwork quarters are designed with the intent for students to work in teams, collaboratively with local "client" sites to design, implement and report on identified areas of evaluation interest. Since our inception in 2009, this collaborative approach has trained over 50 students who have participated in all 5 academic quarters of the coursework, and have produced 37 evaluation studies, within 10 different museum sites in the Seattle Area. Students who participate in this coursework and directed fieldwork, are introduced to knowledge and skills involved in the research & evaluation process, in addition to becoming advocates for evaluation within museums, and the value of evidenced-based practice. Some of our graduates become interested in Research & Evaluation as a primary career path, some are interested in ways they can incorporate evaluation into their work within other areas of the museum field, all begin to understand the value of evaluation within informal learning settings and how its use helps make museums richer learning environments and more relevant to the audiences they serve. This line coursework and directed fieldwork was developed through a partnership with the UW Museology Graduate Program and the Woodland Park Zoo, initially funded (2008-2011) by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. It is now a self sustained, and integral part of the Museology Graduate Program.

This group will be used for the meeting on assessing the outcomes of informal science learning experiences taking place on December 9th and 10th, 2013 in Palo Alto, CA. The goals of this meeting are to: 1) provide an opportunity for researchers and assessment developers to learn about each other's measures; 2) review the theoretical underpinnings and psychometric properties of measure under development and in use; 3) consider the utility of existing measures for the field including the possibility of using any as "common measures"; and 4) plan next steps for sharing what we learn with the field. This group will be a place for sharing meeting materials as well as documenting and disseminating conversations prior, during, and after the meeting. To learn more about the projects at the meeting, group members can click on the blue Visit Forum button and then choose a project topic title.

This group is to document activities related to the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) convening on Broader Impacts & informal science education (ISE) taking place on November 19th and 20th, 2013, at the Four Points Sheraton in Washington, DC. Materials for the convening are available in the Group Documents section at the bottom of this page. Reading assignments related to small group conversations are available in the Forum. This convening is part of a larger CAISE initiative to help support and advance the efforts of STEM researchers and STEM-based professionals charged with education, outreach, engagement and communication who are working with, or seeking to work with, informal science education institutions, programs, projects, individuals and/or strategies. CAISE's theory of action is that by creating and thoughtfully organizing a rich repository of exemplary and searchable ISE project descriptions, evaluations and related learning research, investigators and their staffs will have a useful and accessible resource for developing broader impacts plans, partnerships, activities and proposals.