Conner Prairie Indicators and Observation Protocol

At the Conner Prairie Interactive History Park, visitors to the Create.Connect exhibition can use “make and test” activities developed in collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota. As one part of the evaluation of this exhibition, the team identified five indicators that suggest learning and that the activities should promote. The team did not expect the presence of these behaviors to guarantee that learning was occurring, but the activities were designed to promote learning through these behaviors and their absence would signal problems. These indicators are an example of one way a team quickly evaluated an exhibition that included making activities. This tool was discussed at the Crowdsourcing the Continuum session at the 2014 ASTC Conference.