Science Cafes: Modeling and Assessing a Structured Adult Informal Science Education Program

科学咖啡馆：建模和评估结构化成人非正式科学教育计划

• 批准号: 1611953
• 负责人: Karen Rader
• 金额: $ 28.33万
• 依托单位: Virginia Commonwealth University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-10-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1611953&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Science; Cafes; Modeling; Assessing; Structured

Adult education beyond K-12 and postsecondary levels is very important as this citizenry group is often the policy and decision makers in local communities, as well as for state and federal issues that impact the Nation. Moreover, they are responsible for advising their progeny on a myriad of choices. This project will plan, execute, and promote four annual public lecture events, working with a professional educational evaluation expert to develop an appropriate assessment tool for adult learners in the structured informal learning environment of a science café. These planned events will be used to test and refine an assessment tool for making this work widely available to the community of informal science practitioners and researchers. Further, this project is a pilot for epitomizing the use of science cafés to address the learning needs of unique citizens of Richmond, Virginia. The project is committed to including under-represented citizens including Veterans with disabilities. The evaluation and research efforts will validate the education mechanisms so science cafés can be more effective in the future. As a part of its overall strategy to enhance learning in informal environments, the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program funds research and innovative resources for use in a variety of settings.This project is a collaboration that includes Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Rockman et al (an evaluation firm), Science Pub RVA (Science Pub RVA is a long-running and award-nominated Richmond, VA science café), Carver Community Partnership, East District Family Resource Center, VCU Partnership for People with Disabilities, VCU Department of Rehabilitation Counseling, VCU Medical Center, and a variety of other VCU departments. The investigators will conduct a series of science cafés to determine motivation, interests, and best practices for educating the diverse citizens of Richmond, Virginia. The objective of the research is to rigorously analyze the characteristics of participants and cohesively determine the best practices for the effective learning for each person. Further, rigorous evaluation will determine validity of the best and most effective learning practices enabling the project to derive an adaptable model. The investigators' hypothesis is that the participant's knowledge base is derived from the traditional learning which occurred in the K-12 classroom. Thus, in this work, the investigators hope to add to the participant's knowledge base with STS (Science, Technology, and Society) content and enhance the depth and breadth of knowledge and knowledge acquisition. The research scope will embrace an assessment that is based on the three vertices of a triangle composed of cognition, observation, and interpretation, all of which converge on the nature of science, the relevance of science to everyday life, and decision-making behaviors.

成人教育超过K-12和中学后水平是非常重要的，因为这个公民群体往往是政策和决策者在当地社区，以及为国家和联邦的问题，影响国家。此外，它们还负责为后代提供无数选择方面的建议。该项目将计划，执行和促进四个年度公开讲座活动，与专业教育评估专家合作，在科学咖啡馆的结构化非正式学习环境中为成人学习者开发适当的评估工具。这些计划中的活动将用于测试和完善一个评估工具，使这项工作广泛提供给非正式科学工作者和研究人员。此外，该项目是一个试点，集中使用科学咖啡馆，以解决弗吉尼亚州里士满独特的公民的学习需求。该项目致力于包括残疾退伍军人在内的代表性不足的公民。评估和研究工作将验证教育机制，使科学咖啡馆在未来更加有效。作为加强非正式环境中学习的整体战略的一部分，推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划为各种环境中使用的研究和创新资源提供资金。该项目是一项合作，包括弗吉尼亚联邦大学（VCU），洛克曼等人（一家评估公司），科学出版社RVA（科学酒吧RVA是一个长期运行和获奖提名的里士满，VA科学咖啡馆），卡弗社区合作，东区家庭资源中心，VCU残疾人伙伴关系，VCU康复咨询部，VCU医疗中心，以及其他各种VCU部门。 调查人员将进行一系列的科学咖啡馆，以确定动机，兴趣和教育弗吉尼亚州里士满的不同公民的最佳实践。研究的目的是严格分析参与者的特征，并有凝聚力地确定每个人有效学习的最佳实践。此外，严格的评价将确定最佳和最有效的学习做法的有效性，使项目能够得出一个适应性强的模式。 研究人员的假设是，参与者的知识基础源自K-12课堂上发生的传统学习。因此，在这项工作中，研究者希望增加参与者的知识基础与STS（科学，技术和社会）的内容，并提高知识和知识获取的深度和广度。研究范围将包括基于认知，观察和解释组成的三角形的三个顶点的评估，所有这些都集中在科学的本质，科学与日常生活的相关性和决策行为上。