John:

Not doing teacher-like programs have nothing to do with the lack of
structure, planning, or classroom environment.  What it does mean is that
the programs or classes do not contain worksheets, lectures, and non-real
things.  For example, if you ran a museum class where the kids/adults
came in and they listened to a talk about cells, looked at pictures of
cells, and then colored in the cells....that is what the teacher-like
description is talking about.

An example of a non-teacher like class would be the participants came in
and looked at cells under the microscope, prepared their own slides,
looked at plants that grow in different climates, disected them, and
looked at them under a microscope, then went into the
exhibitis/herbarium/field and looked at the different plants.

In both cases the teacher has a structure, goals, activities, and some
lecture.  Now you may be saying that the second type class is what
happens in the schools....not true.  98% of science instruction in
schools is textbook based and teacher lecture.  If you know of a teacher
who does a lot of hands-on--they are REALLY exceptional people.)  The
other is that schools cannot provide real stuff.  The lab I described has
problems, not all students want to do and and they distract the
others, there is only 40 minutes, no field trips, it is hard for the
teacher to produce enough plants for the 200 students that will travel
through the class in one week.

My master's thesis surveyed adult people on this attitude.  If you ask
them if they would attend a science lecture at a school (any level) or museum
they would readily do so at a museum (around 78%)....but less than 20% said
they would at a school.  If you take away the word lecture and say a
science program 98% of the people said they would go.

With all the promotion and hype of hands-ons in school, it has not
worked.  My personal belief is that it will never work.  That is where
museums come in.  They can provide real stuff...for example you can show
people a dino bone or a real oil painting rather than a picture of one.  If
you have people in a museum class and you show them a picture of a dino
bone or a painting, I can bet they will never return.

Also look at studies of the demographics of people who hang out at
museums.  I once wondered why so many adults came to our girl scout
overnights.  We surveyed them for one year and found that 40% of the
adults (mostly women) had advance degrees from college.  My original
hypothesis was that they were women who never learned science and were
coming to the event to learn secretely.  I was wrong.  They were people
who enjoyed science and wanted to share that experience with their girls.
They are also well educated interested in doing learing things in their
spare time.  You really have to do something interesting to bring them
back for another class and it has to be something that they cannot do in
a regular classroom, like touching a dino bone, holding a rapture, asking
questions from an expert,
watching a well produced play, or making a candle from a piece of string.

This is way to long and I could write a book.  Let me know if you have
more questions.


Betsy


On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, John B. Bunch wrote:

> Query:  In a recent discussion, a person told me that those who
> start and/or work in Children's Museums have a strong aversion
> to doing things that are "teacher-like."  I was surprised by
> this because most of the research on learning indicates that
> there are conditions under which a didactic approach is optimum
> and then conditions that call for a more learner-directed range
> of experiences.
>         Questions:  How can a site hope to accomplish anything
> educational without some amount of planned instructional
> encounters?  How can a youth museum hope to be competitive for
> grants and other external funding without framing proposals in
> education language?
>         Maybe I am being misled about how adamant some folks
> are to eschew being teacher-like...  Can this start a
> thoughtful discussion on pedagogy/cognitive
> psychology/attitudes/(even anti-intellectualism, maybe?)/ &c.
> in these sites?
> John Bunch
> University of Virginia
>
>
>
>

Betsy Price, Project Manager            A joint project sponsored by:
The Natural History of Genes            Eccles Institute of Human Genetics
UMNH                                    Utah Museum of Natural History
University of Utah                      University of Utah Medical School
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

801-581-6286
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