Move2Learn: Engaging Preschool Scientists through Embodiment and Technology

作为NSF推进非正式STEM学习计划的一部分，Science Learning+是美国和英国基金会之间的合作伙伴关系。Science Learning+颁发奖励，以采取变革性的步骤，告知、改进和推进非正式STEM学习经验和环境的知识库、实践和设计。SL+的长期目标是扩大对STEM的参与，并更好地了解、加强和协调STEM参与和终身学习。这是一个科学学习+规划项目，将制定一项研究计划，以调查如何将体现认知的原则应用于非正式学习环境的设计，以支持幼儿(2-6岁)参与和理解科学主题和概念。虽然认知与身体在物理世界中的交互作用是相互交织在一起的这一点已经得到了很好的证实，但将这些想法应用于有效学习环境设计的准确方法仍在不断涌现。本项目的主要目标是试验各种体验式认知活动和物理学习配置，以了解什么条件最适合早期学习者的非正式学习环境。在规划拨款期间，该项目将确定更多的实践者/研究合作伙伴，并将为一系列研究制定研究计划，这些研究将由美国和英国的多个非正式学习从业者和认知科学家团队实施，并将作为第二阶段研究提交。本规划期的主要活动包括组织一系列研讨会，将非正式学习教育者和具身认知研究人员聚集在一起，参与深入讨论和设计实验，为研究问题、方案和测量工具的开发和改进提供信息。这些讨论将通过对幼儿与草河互动的观察而得到启发，草河是一个展示原型，其中嵌入了具身认知的原则。规划期将由一个由来自美国和英国的非正式学习从业者和认知科学家组成的合作团队领导。该小组还将监督制定非正式STEM研究新模式的计划，在该模式中，多个组织的实践者/研究团队调查对非正式学习实践和研究具有重要意义的主题，这些主题有可能产生一个强大的研究主体，为非正式学习空间的设计提供信息。

As part of NSF's Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, Science Learning+ is a partnership among US and UK foundations. Science Learning+ makes grant awards that take transformational steps to inform, improve, and advance the knowledge bases, practices, and design of informal STEM learning experiences and environments. The long-term SL+ goals are to broaden participation in STEM and to better understand, strengthen, and coordinate STEM engagement and lifelong learning. This is a Science Learning+ planning project that will develop a research plan for investigating how applying the principles of embodied cognition to the design of informal learning environments can support young children's (ages 2-6) engagement with, and understanding of, science topics and concepts. While it has been fairly well established that cognition is intertwined with the body's interaction in the physical world, the precise means of applying these ideas to the design of effective learning environments is still emerging. Experimenting with various embodied cognition activities and physical learning configurations to understand what conditions are optimal for informal learning environments for early learners is a major objective of this project.During the planning grant period, the project will identity additional practitioner/research collaborations and will develop research plans for a suite of studies to be enacted by multiple teams of informal learning practitioners and cognitive scientists across the US and UK and that will be submitted as a Phase 2 research. The primary activities of this planning period include organizing a series of workshops that bring together informal learning educators and embodied cognition researchers to engage in deep discussion and design experimentation that will inform the development and refinement of research questions, protocols, and measurement tools. These discussions will be informed by observations of young children as they interact with the River of Grass, an exhibit prototype in which principles of embodied cognition are embedded in its design. The planning period will be led by a collaborative team of informal learning practitioners and cognitive scientists from the US and UK. This group will also oversee plans for the development of a new model for informal STEM research in which a constellation of practitioner/research teams across multiple organizations investigates topics of importance to informal learning practice and research that have the potential to result in a robust body of research that informs the design of informal learning spaces.