7095 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Catherine Haden
  2. https://www.luc.edu/childrensmemory/haden.shtml
  3. Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Loyola University Chicago
  1. Diana Acosta
  2. Doctoral Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Loyola University Chicago
  1. Natalie Bortoli
  2. V.P. Programming and Experience Development
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Chicago Children's Museum
  1. Tsivia Cohen
  2. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsivia-cohen-56555b15/
  3. AVP Play & Learning Initiatives
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Chicago Children's Museum
  1. Kim Koin
  2. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimkoin/
  3. Director of Art and Tinkering Lab Studios
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Chicago Children's Museum
  1. Lauren Pagano
  2. Doctoral Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Loyola University Chicago
  1. Naomi Polinsky
  2. Graduate Student
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Loyola University Chicago
  1. Graciela Solis
  2. Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Loyola University Chicago
  1. David Uttal
  2. http://groups.psych.northwestern.edu/uttal/
  3. Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Northwestern University
Presenters’
Choice

Collaborative Research: Making Space for Story-Based Tinkering to Scaffold Ea...

NSF Awards: 1906839, 1906808, 1906940

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades K-6

With the temporary closure of the physical space of Chicago Children’s Museum due to COVID-19, we moved swiftly and successfully to adapt our Research in Service to Practice project to study informal educational practices that can engender story-based tinkering at home. We are studying practices that support 5- to 8 year old children and their parents’ deeper engagement in engineering design and spatial thinking during tinkering that will eventually inform the development of story-based tinkering programming when the museum reopens. Our presentation will describe the ways we are creating video invitations that encourage families to engage in storytelling during tinkering at home. We will also illustrate the ways in which we are researching ideas about story-based tinkering practices and their impacts via Zoom.    

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (55 posts)
  • Icon for: Stephen Uzzo

    Stephen Uzzo

    Facilitator
    Chief Scientist
    May 11, 2021 | 08:58 a.m.

    Catherine and Team – Getting families involved in storytelling in engineering activities seems like a great way to leverage the stay-at-home problem and can maybe create some stickiness and persistence after the initial activity. Wondering if you have followed up with any of the users of these video clips to see what they have done after the initial activity, and whether they have generalized some of the ideas into problems solving outside of the activities? Also, whether you have analyzed the narratives created through these stories to see the effects on how they talk about problem solving? Great work!

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 11, 2021 | 01:54 p.m.

    Hi Stephen! We currently have four projects in which we are varying story and engineering. We have followed up with most families after two weeks. One thing we have seen in a few families is their continued use of the project they make (we are exploring that in the follow-ups). At the moment, we have looked at what families are saying directly after the project. Lauren (one of our graduate students) can share some of those early trends.

     

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
  • Icon for: Lauren Pagano

    Lauren Pagano

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 11, 2021 | 02:27 p.m.

    Hello Stephen! As Graciela mentioned, we are following up with families two weeks after their tinkering sessions. The follow-up (for Here to There ramp participants) includes a transfer of knowledge task that asks children questions about slopes, speed, and distance. We are still analyzing this data and are looking forward to seeing what children remember over time and whether they generalize their knowledge to other contexts!

    We have already been able to examine what some families talked about during and immediately after tinkering. Preliminary findings suggest that families who identify problems, test, and redesign their projects during tinkering talk more about engineering afterwards! In regard to storytelling, we have seen that families who create higher quality narratives (i.e., talk more about agents, settings, events, and themes) after tinkering also talk more about engineering.

    Moving forward, we plan to explore how the different kinds of storytelling prompts and tinkering activities depicted in our video may foster narrative construction and engineering learning!

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
    Kim Koin
  • Icon for: Stephen Uzzo

    Stephen Uzzo

    Facilitator
    Chief Scientist
    May 13, 2021 | 07:58 a.m.

    Thanks Lauren. This work seems like a really good opportunity to surface and build dialog about misconceptions too. I know parents and teachers struggle with that all the time. And how to guide discourse around misconceptions to help them reason about them and be open to changing their thinking. Wondering if you have thought about this in your work.

  • Icon for: Tsivia Cohen

    Tsivia Cohen

    Co-Presenter
    AVP Play & Learning Initiatives
    May 13, 2021 | 10:42 a.m.

    Hi Stephen. Thanks for this great question.  One of the shifts in our Tinkering Lab (where this collaborative research was located before the pandemic) has been to refine our programmatic challenges from "make something" to "make something that does something"  By adding testing stations (ramps, fans, wind tunnels) to the environment, we provide an opportunity for children to try what they have made and often to iterate based on what happened.  The focus on functionality also offers opportunities for visitors to question their assumptions based on evidence.  In an earlier study we have looked at the impact of our facilitators modeling these questioning strategies during orientations as families enter the exhibit.  Our approach to home-based programming builds on the success of these museum-based strategies while tying the evidence supplied by testing solutions to a problem in the context of a story.

     
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    Diana Acosta
  • Icon for: Billy Spitzer

    Billy Spitzer

    Facilitator
    PI
    May 11, 2021 | 09:14 a.m.

    Catherine, I was so intrigued by your work on the intersection between story-telling and tinkering as a way to both explore and promote engineering thinking among your learners. I thought the "home video" approach was a great adaptation to COVID-19, and potentially has some advantages for increasing access and facilitating the research. I was wondering what kind of scaffolding is used (or could be used) to help construct the stories, and how the story structure reinforces the engineering concepts?

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 11, 2021 | 02:10 p.m.

    Hi Billy, Thanks so much for your kind comment! The videos families watch vary in both the amount of story information and engineering information families are given. We are currently exploring that intersection across projects. For example, in the Here to There project (video clips that include ramps) we invite families to design a 6 foot ramp to get something important of their choice from one place to another. The stories revolve around the questions, “What is that important thing that needs to get from here to there? And why?”, as well as how to engineer the ramp to advance the story and the tinkering activity. 

     
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    Kim Koin
  • Icon for: Billy Spitzer

    Billy Spitzer

    Facilitator
    PI
    May 12, 2021 | 09:58 a.m.

    Thanks Graciela. I think the framing question and context can be so important. It reminds me of the work that the Exploratorium did some years ago on "juicy questions" that prompt deeper engagement with interactive science exhibits. (See https://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/how-exploratorium/juicy-questions)

     
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    Diana Acosta
    Tsivia Cohen
    Graciela Solis
    Catherine Haden
  • Icon for: Kemi Jona

    Kemi Jona

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 11, 2021 | 10:02 a.m.

    Amazing pivot due to COVID!  I love this project!  The insights about how this can work - and indeed thrive - at home, with accessible materials, and with deep parent/caregiver/family co-design and participation is inspiring!  So many lessons for both formal and informal learning institutions, libraries, clubs, camps, and so many more!

     
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    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 11, 2021 | 02:14 p.m.

    Thanks Kemi! This pivot has been a true collaboration between researchers and our museum partners. We see the potential to demonstrate how the same activity can work in the home and in the museum (something we will study systematically), but it's also interesting to think how these may work in other settings. 

  • Icon for: Michael Briscoe

    Michael Briscoe

    Informal Educator
    May 11, 2021 | 10:40 a.m.

    I want to echo the excitement and congratulations from the previous posters and build from Billy Spitzer's questions. I am very interested to learn more about the structure of the stories (and what cultural-responsive characteristics) help build this co-design learning environment. Is there a website or publication that we should keep an eye on as you publish findings from this great work? Thanks for sharing this successful innovation!

     
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    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 11, 2021 | 02:17 p.m.

    Hi Michael, thanks so much for the excitement! We are in the analyses process at the moment, but we can let you know about publications as they become available. I think that Diana can speak specifically to your question about cultural-responsive characteristics and perhaps share some early observations.

  • Icon for: Diana Acosta

    Diana Acosta

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 11, 2021 | 04:45 p.m.

    Hi Michael, thank you for your interest in our project! In order to be inclusive and accessible to all families, the story prompts are open-ended enough that families really get to use their own creativity to build their story. We have even seen that families will use their prior knowledge and experiences when creating their stories and tinkering projects!

    In addition, some of the videos that families watch that introduce the activity are available in Spanish and English. These families also meet with a bilingual researcher. This has allowed us to reach more diverse families, and the families also have the liberty to create their stories in whichever language they feel most comfortable with.

     
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    Michael Briscoe
    Tsivia Cohen
    Kim Koin
  • Icon for: Monika Mayer

    Monika Mayer

    Education Consultant / External Evaluator
    May 11, 2021 | 02:17 p.m.

    Catherine and Team,

    Thanks for sharing insights about families engaging in tinkering and storytelling at home. Play is a primary mode of learning for young children and incorporating imaginative and creative play through storytelling is a great way to explore and promote engineering. I am interested to learn more about your findings from the project. 

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 12, 2021 | 04:48 p.m.

    Hi Monkia! Thanks so much for your comment! I just watched your video as well. Lauren summarized a few preliminary findings above and we have a few recent publications you may want to check out:

    Pagano, L. C., Haden, C. A., and Uttal, D. H. (2020). Museum program design supports parent–child engineering talk during tinkering and reminiscing. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 200:104944. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104944

    Acosta, D. I. Polinsky, N.J. Haden, C. A., and Uttal, D. H. (2021) Whether and How Knowledge Moderates Linkages between Parent–Child Conversations and Children’s Reflections about Tinkering in a Children’s Museum, Journal of Cognition and Development, 22:2, 226-245, DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2020.1871350

     

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
  • Icon for: Monika Mayer

    Monika Mayer

    Education Consultant / External Evaluator
    May 18, 2021 | 06:22 p.m.

    Thanks so much for sharing those publications. I am looking forward to reading them.

     

  • Icon for: Liandra Larsen

    Liandra Larsen

    Graduate Student
    May 11, 2021 | 03:05 p.m.

    I love this so much!!! You could see through the home videos how much fun this was for families, especially while at home. Really awesome work. 

     
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    Graciela Solis
    Naomi Polinsky
  • Icon for: Kim Koin

    Kim Koin

    Co-Presenter
    Director of Art and Tinkering Lab Studios
    May 11, 2021 | 03:23 p.m.

    Thank you, Liandra! I love working with children- you get some great, concrete responses to the activities- from exclamations ("Yay!"), when a test is a success, to groans and buoying themselves up when a test does not go as planned. Both responses show how invested they are in their tinkering work! 

     
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    Liandra Larsen
  • Icon for: Liandra Larsen

    Liandra Larsen

    Graduate Student
    May 11, 2021 | 03:34 p.m.

    Definitely! And I think our projects have some connections to each other - adapting to the circumstances and creating a meaningful experience for students and families. Keep up the great work!!!

  • Icon for: Julie Robinson

    Julie Robinson

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 11, 2021 | 03:23 p.m.

    I really love this integration of storytelling and engineering - I think it not only enhances the interdisciplinary nature of engineering but also increases relevance and culturally-responsive practices to make engineering accessible to all learners. 

     
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    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 12, 2021 | 04:50 p.m.

    Thanks so much for this comment Julie! A lot of effort has been put in by our museum partners and the research team to think about activities and prompts that are culturally relevant and fun! 

  • Icon for: Caitlin Martin

    Caitlin Martin

    Researcher
    May 11, 2021 | 03:49 p.m.

    The museum-researcher-familly collaboration is so amazing in this video -- a way to inspire learning activities at a time when families are looking for quality opportunities and generating such interesting data captured at home by parents and other caregivers. I'm interested in how families got to know that these activities were available, if families shared videos publicly with each other, and how you recruited participation for research.  

    I invite you to check out our video we have in the showcase -- which also invites parents as the data documenters, sharing a learning moments over the course of a few weeks at the end of the 2019-20 school year when most schools were closed. Many parents talked about appreciating hands-on, innovative, and engaging things to do with their children.

     
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    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Naomi Polinsky

    Naomi Polinsky

    Co-Presenter
    Graduate Student
    May 11, 2021 | 06:38 p.m.

    Hi Caitlin, thank you so much for your interest in our project! That is a great question about how families learned about the activities. Many of these families had participated in research we had conducted through our university-museum partnership prior to the COVID-19 pandemic so we contacted them about the activity, other families learned about the activity from social media postings, and some learned about the activity through community organizations with whom we shared the opportunity. We are of course open to other ideas on how to spread the word about this opportunity more widely! 

    I am excited to watch your video and see the incredible your team is doing! 

  • Erica Yoon

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 12, 2021 | 01:28 p.m.

    Thanks so much for sharing this important work! The Here to There ramp project reminded me of a study by Chen & Klahr (1999) that used a ramp to teach control of variables strategy (CVS) (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-01445-005), and made me wonder if the storytelling approach can enhance learning and/or increasing the use of some specific scientific thinking strategies like CVS? Thanks again for sharing, looking forward to learning more about your future findings from this line of work :)

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Naomi Polinsky

    Naomi Polinsky

    Co-Presenter
    Graduate Student
    May 12, 2021 | 04:53 p.m.

    Hi Erica! Thanks for sharing the study! That's a great question. We are hoping that by making the conflict more meaningful, the story will in fact increase specific scientific strategies. One very preliminary finding that we are seeing, is that families use more scientific practices when they are given time prior to engineering to really plan and discuss their story! But again, this is only preliminary.

     
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    Tsivia Cohen
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 12, 2021 | 04:55 p.m.

    Thanks for the paper Erica! It's very interesting to consider how these tasks relate to that work by perhaps exploring how older children and their parents engage in testing. 

  • Icon for: Toby Baker

    Toby Baker

    Researcher
    May 12, 2021 | 02:37 p.m.

    Thank you for story-based learning! This is a great way to become at-home engineers! I love the family engagement and using materials that are accessible. And toys are perfect for including all ages and increasing a positive outcome! This encourages creating and building! I also love the family activity! Parents are much more involved in their child's learning now. 

  • Icon for: Natalie Bortoli

    Natalie Bortoli

    Co-Presenter
    V.P. Programming and Experience Development
    May 13, 2021 | 03:59 p.m.

    Thank you, Toby! It's great to hear your perspective as a K-12 teacher. Yes, the invitation for children to select and use their own toys or items found at home not only made the project accessible in a home-based environment, it also helped to give children the opportunity to become decision-makers about the characters and objects with which they wanted to engage and include in their story. The family engagement, as you noted, was an important part of the experience in this virtual platform, and it emulated what we often see in our museum's Tinkering Lab and other exhibits: children and their adults sharing a learning experience together. Thanks again!

  • Icon for: Leigh Peake

    Leigh Peake

    Informal Educator
    May 12, 2021 | 03:18 p.m.

    Have been following your work for a while now and am not one bit surprised by the thoughtful, creative way you approached this moment. A real testament to the quality of the researcher-practitioner partnership! Your video made me think about the range of ways parents intersect with informal learning and whether there are ways to support parents to move around in that range. Maybe we, collectively as informal educators, haven't envisioned or supported a broad enough range. Your video inspires me, at least, to do so!

     
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    Naomi Polinsky
  • Icon for: Catherine Haden

    Catherine Haden

    Lead Presenter
    Professor
    May 12, 2021 | 06:44 p.m.

    Thanks for your thoughts, Leigh! We have been delighted at the response from parents and children - how much they enjoy and take time (upwards of an hour in some cases) to engage in these activities at home, and to learn more about how these experiences get discussed by families subsequent to the experience (in our current project, reconnecting with families via Zoom a couple weeks after the tinkering activity)

     
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    Sasha Palmquist
    Leigh Peake
  • Icon for: Dario Cvencek

    Dario Cvencek

    Researcher
    May 18, 2021 | 01:49 a.m.

    Very interesting work! In addition to looking into how much families talk during tinkering (and the quality of that talk), have you noticed any trends in parents versus children within a family? One of the challenges that parents faced during the pandemic was that they had to "become teachers" on a short notice, and I would suspect that your rich video data can probably speak to what some successful examples of that look like (or what learning processes might be involved). Have you noticed anything in the narratives in that regard?

  • Icon for: Bradley Morris

    Bradley Morris

    Researcher
    May 12, 2021 | 03:44 p.m.

    What a wonderful, fun, and creative project! Using storytelling as a support for family engagement is such a great idea and you have implemented it brilliantly in your project. The in-home activities are a clever and thoughtful adaptation to the pandemic. I was wondering if you were looking at the effects of storytelling on persistence, particularly after failure?

    Excellent work! 

  • Icon for: Catherine Haden

    Catherine Haden

    Lead Presenter
    Professor
    May 12, 2021 | 06:35 p.m.

    Hi Brad! We are interested in how the story can support iterating one's initial design. One place to look at this, as you suggest, is when a test of the design happens. We do plan to look at whether families who choose to iterate their design (a measure of persistence in the engineering design process) are referencing their story when trying to design what to alter and change. 

     
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    Bradley Morris
    Sasha Palmquist
  • Icon for: Nickolay Hristov

    Nickolay Hristov

    Facilitator
    Senior Scientist, Director, Associate Professor
    May 12, 2021 | 05:02 p.m.

    As pointed out in earlier comments your pivot from programming at the museum to at-home is a brilliant tactic to not only weather the pandemic but to also get some non-traditional insight into different learning environments and child-parent interaction. Story and narrative get a lot of attention nowadays for anything from the stringing of basic events to elaborate plots and characters as exemplified by The Moth and Story Collider events and their associated educational programs.

    Since stories are a very human, shared experience and operate in different vernaculars, it would be helpful to clarify in what context or framework you use stories and their elements. Beyond beginning, middle and end, plot and character development, there is also the distinction between sequence, narrative, anecdote and true story, documenting and communicating a point of change or transformation with consequences. I read your proposal summary as well and it was not any more clear how you define and use, individually or collectively, the elements of story (I did notice Lauren’s comment above and the brief reference to “plot twists” in the video presentation).

    Open-ended usage of otherwise strictly defined terminology is sometimes an intentional strategy to motivate thinking and conversations and I recognize that this could be the case here. A couple of examples, however, could be very helpful to engage the community in the conversation even further. Since you are still collecting ideas for the upcoming museum programs these might be helpful exchanges beyond the well-deserved praises for the clever idea and structure of the project. There is no lack of enthusiasm and the rest of your presentation is just lovely!

     
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    Graciela Solis
  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 13, 2021 | 12:36 p.m.

     

    Hi Nickolay! In the coding I am currently working on I am exploring how the prompts families are given relate to whether and how young children and their caregivers create their own engineering rich stories as they build. Across our projects there are differing levels of story information families are given related to the basic story structure Catherine mentioned (character: self or other, problem/conflict, setting). For instance, in Here to there (i.e., ramps example in our video) they are given a basic story problem/conflict (sending something here to there) and the families get to be inserted in their own story by deciding what they are sending and to whom. The conversations/story during the activity then focus on what they want to send and why. I consider these engineering stories because the child maintains the conflict and is relieved and happy when there is a safe resolution.

    In our Teeny Tiny playground activity (the video introduction example) project the story elements are focused on what the child and caregiver imagine a character would want built and they have more room to create an external conflict. Here we are finding that families will name their characters and children will discuss character preferences but not necessarily bring up any conflict.  Finally, in a project we are just starting to explore (under the bed) children are discussing the different aspects of the story because it has less engineering qualities and parents (perhaps because they are unsure on how to navigate the task) are having to refocus their child on the engineering elements. In this project, we are finding that families create their character and come up with a problem/conflict and we find that children are taking a lot of time to give their character personal characteristics and engage in the problem/conflict. So overall, across projects, we’re seeing that differences in story information in the prompt are related to differences in who brings up aspects of both the engineering and story aspects as families are building. But of course, this is something I am still coding and exploring! I find the conversation of what makes story and narrative study similar/different very important so thanks for asking us about this.

     

  • Icon for: Catherine Haden

    Catherine Haden

    Lead Presenter
    Professor
    May 13, 2021 | 02:37 p.m.

    Thank you for this opportunity to talk more about stories!   

    Narratives and stories are culturally determined ways of communicating lived or imagined experiences (Bruner, 1996). These forms of oral discourse capture ever-changing human knowledge and provide us with a window into how individuals make sense of their experience. We aim to harness to power of stories for constructing new understandings of science and engineering in ways that make  learning stick (e.g., Roediger & McDaniel, 2014).

    In conceptualizing story and its role in learning we draw on work by Bruner, Mandler, Dalhstrom, Klassen, and others who describe how stories can offer a natural causal organization that can aid understanding of the relations between ideas and events (e.g., story schema). Although the definition of stories varies across different theories, the essential elements include characters (real, imagined, the self), problems, actions to solve problems, and outcomes/impacts. In addition to these, evaluations and expressions of emotions in stories are from our perspective crucial in helping learners construct learning that is memorable and usable over time. 

    Graciela, Lauren and Diana can share some of the stories families have been telling in our work.

  • Icon for: Diana Acosta

    Diana Acosta

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 13, 2021 | 02:44 p.m.

    Thank you all for a wonderful discussion!

    In one of the activities featured in our video, families are invited to make a hat that will fit the child’s head. Some families have received a story prompt along with the activity (the hat is for a party of their choosing) while others have not. For families who receive the story prompt, the stories created during tinkering include several narrative elements, such as the type of party being held (e.g., a birthday or Christmas party), who the party is for (e.g., the target child or their best friend), who is invited to the party (e.g., immediate and extended family members, even household pets!), and where the party will take place (e.g., in their backyard, in the North Pole!).

    We have also built in a complication into this activity, with families also having to make sure that the child’s hat doesn’t fall off when jumping up and down. Early observations suggest that this complication leads to more engagement in the engineering practices of testing and redesigning, as families often find out that their hat requires some modifications! 

  • Icon for: Nickolay Hristov

    Nickolay Hristov

    Facilitator
    Senior Scientist, Director, Associate Professor
    May 14, 2021 | 10:55 p.m.

    Thank you Graciela, Catherine and Diana! The examples, references and your detailed commentary have been most helpful for me to understand your work better and that is one of the main reasons why I value these discussions - they clarify and enhance the presentations. I am eager to look further into the literature that you suggest.

    If interested, check out the proceedings from the Science through Narrative symposium at the 2018 conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, published in Integrative and Comparative Biology, Vol 58, Issue 6, for an even broader interpretation of story and narrative that I found helpful. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion!

     
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    Cristine Legare
  • Icon for: Barbara Rogoff

    Barbara Rogoff

    Researcher
    May 18, 2021 | 02:40 a.m.

    Hi Graciela and Catherine and David!  What a cool project!  I can see how it combines all of your interests and expertise in a really cool way.  And I can see why you visited our video on "Learning with Purpose as a Strength for Learning" and how it connects.  

    In your story settings, it seems that you create a purpose for building and exploring.  In our video we emphasize having a purpose that benefits a larger group -- would you say that your stories create that too?  Maybe if the children see the toys as animate, then they are benefitting an imaginary group?  Hmm.  

    Best regards,  Barbara

  • Icon for: Jennifer Kidd

    Jennifer Kidd

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2021 | 05:29 p.m.

    First off, shout out to my hometown folk! I grew up in Chicago, attended UIC! Natalie and I were discussing your research on my project page. I was curious about your research using the video footage. Like you, I have hours of Zoom footage. I did a case study of one team's approach to building flower-inspired robots over the course of about 10 hours of Zoom sessions. I am hoping to do more analysis, but I've found video-analysis to be very time consuming. I'm curious what strategies you are using to analyze your data. Are you using any specific software?

  • Icon for: Lauren Pagano

    Lauren Pagano

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 14, 2021 | 01:19 p.m.

    Hi Jennifer! I loved your video, and I definitely see overlaps between our work! We analyze most of our data by transcribing family's conversations and then coding what they talk about. For this process, we typically use CLAN transcription and coding software. We also code video interactions using Noldus Observer. But as you've suggested, this detailed video analysis can be a time consuming process! Over the past year, we've started doing "blitz coding" of the videos before we begin detailed analyses. There are some behaviors--such as testing or mentioning characters--that are easier to notice and code. Atlas and NVivo are two programs that are great for this kind of quick data analysis. What software or methods have you used so far to examine your data? Our team is always excited to hear about new approaches to analysis!

  • Icon for: Jennifer Kidd

    Jennifer Kidd

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 14, 2021 | 01:27 p.m.

    Hi Lauren, Thanks for your response. We are newbies at video analysis. We use nVivo to analyze our reflections and focus groups, but the videos I analyzed last summer I did by hand. I was looking for an easier, quicker process. I like this idea of blitz coding. Is that your own term and protocol?

  • Icon for: Valerie Fitton-Kane

    Valerie Fitton-Kane

    Vice President, Development, Partnerships, & Strategy
    May 13, 2021 | 05:49 p.m.

    Great idea -- the org I represent, Challenger Center, also uses narrative and role-play to get students engaged in STEM. Where do you see your research leading after this project?

  • Icon for: Diana Acosta

    Diana Acosta

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 17, 2021 | 02:49 p.m.

    Hi Valerie, great question! Next steps involve using what we are learning from this project to create and adapt programming in Tinkering Lab, the tinkering exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum. We hope to introduce opportunities for story-based tinkering in this space that will support children’s engineering learning and spatial thinking.

    I watched your video and it is so great to see that narratives and role-play allow students from underrepresented groups to engage in STEM. Such great work!

  • Icon for: Pendred Noyce

    Pendred Noyce

    Founder and Executive Director
    May 16, 2021 | 08:00 a.m.

    I have found the discussion of science and narrative very instructive. I can see how having the families construct the narrative together adds relevance and immediacy. At Tumblehome, we have tried using more elaborated stories and novels written by authors knowledgeable about science, and are working now to build narrative and activities around one another in our project about COVID and data. Please come take a look!

  • Icon for: Diana Acosta

    Diana Acosta

    Co-Presenter
    Doctoral Student
    May 17, 2021 | 03:19 p.m.

    Hi Pendred, thank you for your comment and for inviting us to view your video! I am excited to learn more about the use of narratives in your work. Heading to your video now!

  • Icon for: Ying Wu

    Ying Wu

    Researcher
    May 16, 2021 | 06:56 p.m.

    Intriguing project.  Do you primarily analyze video data that families film themselves, or do you collect and analyze other data before and after the story/tinkering event?

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 17, 2021 | 03:00 p.m.

    Hi Ying! Thanks so much for the comment! We analyze video data we collect via a zoom call (the tinkering and an interview after). We then touch base with them around two weeks after to ask questions about what they remember. We are examining those follow-up interviews now! I am excited to pop over to your video and see the work you're doing.

  • Icon for: Sue Allen

    Sue Allen

    Researcher
    May 17, 2021 | 01:29 p.m.

    Such a great project and a wonderful team with many years of deep collaboration under their belts - it really shows!

    I really appreciated the specifics about the story prompts and how much difference they can make if they're phrased to encourage engineering aspects rather than only character-development. I vaguely recall that the folks at Tufts found a related challenge some years back - the kids tended to make "magical" engineering designs. e.g. decorate a shoe-box and say it's a time machine that can solve the engineering problem. It raised some really interesting questions about the nature of the stories, the prompts, and also the materials used, such that the combination hits a sweet spot of something that affords engaging iterations.

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 18, 2021 | 07:16 p.m.

    Thanks so much for the kind words Sue Allen! I will look up that Tufts study and see what I find.

  • Icon for: Cristine Legare

    Cristine Legare

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 17, 2021 | 05:49 p.m.

    Terrific project! How are you coding tinkering behavior? Does it overlap with systematic exploration, troubleshooting, or resolute behavior?

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 18, 2021 | 07:15 p.m.

    Hi Cristine! We are currently coding engineering behaviors (e.g., planning, testing, iterating and goal). I am familiar with your work (I worked on the explain explore grant with Maureen) so I will say that in some ways troubleshooting and iterating are intimately related if not the same thing. We do have someone who has looked at persistence.I believe that paper is going to be published soon. If it is I will send it along. 

  • Icon for: Andrew Meltzoff

    Andrew Meltzoff

    Researcher
    May 18, 2021 | 05:36 p.m.

    The combination of tinkering at home, parental scaffolding, and the joy on the children's faces is fascinating. One doesn't always see the curiosity and 'ah-ha, I did it!' emotional reaction in more formal educational settings (as found in western classrooms). The emotions involved in learning and development are very important and under-studied. Your great video captures these moments.

    Beautiful work!

     

  • Icon for: Catherine Haden

    Catherine Haden

    Lead Presenter
    Professor
    May 18, 2021 | 06:09 p.m.

    Andy, Thank you! We see these moments in the museum, and were so pleased to be able to capture them at home via Zoom. One thing we did to increase the naturalness was have the researcher turn their video off while families were tinkering (assuring the family she would still be there, but just didn't want to distract them). What we see is very genuine! And we think what we are learning will be helpful as we transition back to observations in the museum, hopefully in the Fall. 

     

  • Icon for: Graciela Solis

    Graciela Solis

    Co-Presenter
    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    May 18, 2021 | 07:17 p.m.

    Thanks so much Dr. Melzoff! The payoff for children inner Here to There projects is one of the nicest things we are seeing!

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.