This case study draws on some experiments I have been doing in the use of dice in the ideas generation phase of a creative project. It draws on workshops I have run with creative technology students at Goldsmiths, with a range of adults at the Counterplay Conference in Aarhus (Denmark) and the Playful Learning Conference at Manchester Metropolitan…

As makerspaces and hackerspaces pop up in libraries and museums, one little lab sits in the middle of an Information School, but it is not a maker-space, a gallery, or a museum. The MuseLab, at the Kent State School of Information, is something else, something new--or perhaps something familiar, but situated in a different context, making it less…

Ask Dr. Discovery is an NSF-funded study addressing the need for ongoing, large-scale museum evaluation while investigating new ways to encourage museum visitors to engage deeply with museum content. To realize these aims, we are developing and implementing a mobile app with two parts: (1) a front-end virtual scientist called Dr. Discovery (Dr. D)…

Race is a social construct with a powerful impact on individuals and our society. Understanding the impact of race and racism in our educational settings is crucial to the betterment of our students and our future. This article discusses the role of museums to empower educators to engage in direct conversations about race within the school…

Since the granting of Native American materials -- excavated in archaeological projects sponsored by federal and state governments across the United States in the 20th century -- to public repositories, museum professionals have sought to manage such collections with care. At the University of Missouri, students responding to the local mandate of…

A growing body of research highlights how informal science learning environments (ISLE's) can alter modes of participation in science for youth who are traditionally marginalized in science (Calabrese Barton and Tan in "J Learn Sci" 19(2):187-229, 2010). While these findings reveal successful examples of ISLE's potential to bridge…

Museum professionals suppose that interacting with authentic objects promotes curiosity and engagement, but this has not been tested. In this research, children and adults visiting the Oxford University Museum of Natural History were shown a taxidermied rabbit or rabbit skeleton. They were asked "Is it real?," "Why?" and were…

In this article, we position museums as 'pedagogic contact zones,' sites fraught with both problems and potential. Using five stories drawn from our work and engagement with public museums over the past five years in Canada, England and Scotland, we illustrate how contemporary practices of critical cultural pedagogy work to construct, deconstruct,…

Museum partnerships can involve significant tensions, especially when these collaborations reach across institutions to blend disciplines such as art and mathematics. Rather than simply being obstacles to overcome, we suggest that tensions arising in multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary collaborations can be highly generative for collaborators,…

Hands-on digital interactivity in science centers provides new communicative opportunities. The "Microcosmos" multi-touch table allows visitors to interact with 64 image "cards" of (sub)microscopic biological structures and processes embedded across seven theme categories. This study presents the integration of biological…

Inspired by critical literacy practices, sixth-grade students at Carter Elementary designed, curated, and publicly displayed a museum exhibit to expose and confront issues of social justice. Through this case study of one display within the exhibit, we analyze the ideas and stances represented in each of its artifacts and investigate how,…

"ArtInSight" is a three-pronged constructivist education model for museum teaching. Utilizing (1) conversational tours, (2) mindfulness-based insight activities, and (3) art-making exercises, viewers develop critical and visual thinking skills and apply them to both arts-based experiences and to everyday life. This approach broadens…

This review explores Jackson and Seiler's "I am smart enough to study postsecondary science: A critical discourse analysis of latecomers' identity construction in an online forum" by considering the analytic framework for figured worlds guiding this study. We consider the specific affordances of cultural production theory for examining…

Lots has been written in recent years about how history teachers can bring academic scholarship into the classroom. This article takes this interest in academic practice a step further, examining how pupils can engage directly with the kinds of sources to which historians are increasingly turning their attention: the 'everyday' objects of ordinary…

Virtual and online learning arrived through a "force majeure" (French for "superior force"), the global COVID-19 pandemic. Google Expeditions, Google Arts and Culture and the Merge Cube are classified as simulated learning environments. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) create simulated learning environments with…