We are delighted to share Thinkery Connect, our museum-university-community research partnership based in Austin, Texas with you. Our formal partnership is new, but many years in the making. We warmly welcome suggestions for how to most effectively and inclusively apply insights from learning sciences to informal learning environments and how to make research relevant and actionable to educational practitioners. 

Great to see that you are connecting children's learning to science behind the exhibits. What are some of the lessons you have learned about what parents need to support scientific reasoning in children both in the museum and at home? 

Love your design of gallery hub that allows practitioners and researchers the space to work together in the midst of "reality", rather than in a separate or remote lab.  Think you might find some of the observation tools we used in our project useful. You can find them in the Move2 Learn PRISM toolkit through the project page on InformalScience.org 

The Thinkery Connect website is now live: https://thinkeryaustin.org/thinkery-connect/

Hi Christine and Adrienne, what a lovely and important focus on early learners and the community that supports them and also your work creating of a dynamic space for learning and research. I have so many questions as we only have a glimpse of your work. One is how can you convey to parents or caregivers the kind of support that is helpful in child learning (the Habits of Mind you mention)?  Another question is what research methods do you use to evaluate and improve activity design? 

Thanks very much for your comment. We've found that suggestions to parents (via conversation cards, facilitation, and signage) to encourage their children to engage in systematic exploration, persistence, trouble shooting, and explanation are very effective. Often parents don't recognize these as critical STEM process skills or "STEM Habits of Mind", so making these salient is informative. We use a variety of research methods to evaluate and improve design (including conducting pre-post tests using experiments and observational research). We recently published an SRCD monograph that you might find informative: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53485734...

This video does a great job describing some of the opportunities of university researcher-museum partnerships. Can you provide/elaborate on an example of how research findings have informed practice at Thinkery? How has practice guided the research questions you address?

Enjoyed seeing you connect children's learning to science beyond/behind the exhibits. Have you worked with the local schools to supplement their existing curriculum? 

I enjoyed learning more about the Thinkery.  To add on to Kevin's question - have you worked with other local informal education organizations to supplement their existing curriculum? 

Great video! I enjoyed seeing the informal learning connections examining  children's learning to science behind the exhibits. How are the research methods used to evaluate and improve activity design? 

Great to hear how you are building research collaborations at Thinkery and how you've designed your environment to support this goal. Your focus on research that can support your museum practice is very similar to ours at Chicago Children's Museum. We have equipped our Tinkering Lab with video cameras and we also collect data in nearby Story Hub--an exhibit that invites families to reflect on their experiences in the museum.  This was where we started our TALES project looking at Story-Based Tinkering and its impact on STEM learning.  Also where we will continue to test and refine what we've learned working with families at home this last year. I'd love to visit Thinkery at some point (now it's much more possible!) and invite you to visit us in Chicago.

This is great and wonderful that you can have a dedicated space for such work. How do disseminate results and best practices to other museums aside from research papers? You mentioned in earlier comments things like cards and signage have helped. Do you have templates, for instance, that others could use for their spaces?

Terrific question, and something we are working on. We are in the process of developing materials and resources which we will post on the Thinkery Connect website. They will be freely available to caregivers, teachers, researchers, and informal learning practitioners. Other suggestions for dissemination would be most welcome!

Hi Cristine and colleagues!  Important work!  I'm curious how you are connecting your research on cultural aspects of learning with informal learning in the museum setting.

Come have a look at our video, 'next door,' on "Learning with Purpose as a Strength for Learning".  I think that the principles of learning with purpose can jibe well with museum and other informal settings!  I'd be interested in your thoughts on that idea.

This project provides a model future. It is a great example of how university researchers in partnership with museums, parents, and the community can all collaborate to increase joyful learning in our kids. The creative approach you've developed is likely to be applicable in many museums. Congrats and thanks for posting all this helpful info!