I had a lot of trouble getting much out of the Roth article, mainly just because I had a hard time getting interested in it, so I will focus on the Gutwill and Zimmerman articles.
I found the Gutwill article actually very interesting. They had an interesting way of going about investigating the use of inquiry. I can understand why it is important to investigate something of the nature. I have found myself sometimes going through museums and just kind of passing through and not really putting much thought into it. I don’t know that I can say for sure if some of that was not due to disinterest in the specific topic, but having the families participate in the way they did was a good way to make things interactive. It makes sense that after encouraging the PA and IR skills that the families would have increased numbers in those areas as opposed to the families that were not exposed to the ideas. However, I find one thing about the whole experiment that bothers me is the fact that at the posttest, the families were asked to use the method that they were taught specifically. There are some issues with this as far as I am concerned. If they were asked to use it, then it is difficult to know whether they used it because they actually found it helpful and worthwhile or whether they just used it because they were asked to and they didn’t want to disappoint the educator. I realize that the authors discuss this in the article and also discuss why they chose to do this but I feel that it has sort of a comprimising effect on the actual data and conclusions.
The Zimmerman article relates nicely to the Gutwill article. Both are based on the interactions of families in museums and their learning as a result. The Zimmerman article approaches the idea kind of in a backwards fashion from the Gutwill article. The Gutwill article first teaches/introduces strategies such as the formulation of questions and interpretation of results; whereas, Zimmerman et al. approach it from a view of ideas and experiences that the families bring with them and connect to the exhibits in the museum. I think both are interesting to investigate. I think the approach Zimmerman et al. takes shows a demonstration of how people’s views and experiences may determine how they see things in the world. The articles clearly states that they have a situated viewpoint and also think that experiences depend on “cultural tools such as languages, technologies, dispositions…” (pg 481). It is a good example of using connections and different signs and tools to help understand other ideas that they may be less familiar with.
Tags: DDU
I’m a little lost by this statement: “However, I find one thing about the whole experiment that bothers me is the fact that at the posttest, the families were asked to use the method that they were taught specifically.” I went back through the article to see if I could find this issue, but I can’t. Would you mind explaining this in class to me? Thanks.
I understand why Gutwill asked the families to use the games they had been taught – they were trying to gauge and measure the success of the games in creating more PA/IR instances. Maybe they could have included in their follow-up survey a questions of whether or not the family would have used the game without being prompted. If the follow-on interview were conducted by someone who the family did not meet at the museum, that might have minimized their concern of trying to please the educator.