Insights from a Reflective Practice Process
One of the main concerns of science and technology museums when addressing the diversity of visitors, and especially young people and schools, is to understand how best to foster engaging learner-centered experiences with STEM. How can we shape an approach that values learners’ science capital as much, if not more than, subject-knowledge? Which pedagogies or tools are capable of ‘putting back together’ aspects that, even though fundamental, have lost their importance in STEM, such as emotion, imagination, the senses, creativity and self-expression?
The speakers will try to answer the above questions by sharing their own experience and expertise in the attempt to enrich STEM learning in school and out-of-school contexts. Heather King will discuss John Dewey’s ideas about learning through experience and the application of this thinking to STEM. Maria Xanthoudaki will share the ways in which the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci has placed the aesthetic experience at the heart of STEM learning. Amos Blanton will share his thinking about design for open-ended creativity especially the use of technology to support children’s own ideas.
Maria Xanthoudaki (IT): Maria Xanthoudaki is Director of Education and Head of the Centre for Research in Informal Education at the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci. She holds a BA in Pedagogy from the University of Crete Greece, a Master’s degree in Arts Education and a PhD in Museum Education, both from the University of Sussex UK. Her work in informal learning began in the art museums in 1994 and shifted to science museums in 2001 through collaborations with museums and education institutions in the UK, Italy and internationally. Maria has also held academic positions at the University of East Anglia UK, Politecnico di Milano and the Catholic University of Milan.
Amos Blanton (DK): Amos Blanton is an educator specialising in the design of open-ended creative learning experiences and environments, and is currently researching collective creativity as a PhD Student at Aarhus University in partnership with Dokk1 Library. He ran the Scratch online community at MIT Media Lab, designed learning through play activities for LEGO House and LEGO Foundation, and helped land the FujiFilm Blimp.
Heather King (UK): Heather King is Reader in Science Education at. King’s College London UK. Her research examines the ways in which educators foster learner engagement with science across many contexts including schools, museums, the natural environment, and non-formal spaces such as maker-spaces. Other research interests focus on the pedagogy of museum and out-of-school educators, and the practice of, and policy support for, environmental education in England. Heather is a member of the Science and Technology Education Research Group, and a founding member of the Environmental Education Research Group.
