Abstract
Data presented in this paper involves asking questions to 15-16 years old students during a science centre visit. The hypothesis was that it is possible to create curiosity and reflection at a science centre by stimulating and facilitating a dialogue. The background was the vast amount of studies showing that free-choice, unstructured school trips result in little (if any) student reflection.
We have used a dialogic approach to prompt the student's curiosity and reflection. Four students from were chosen to participate in the study. One of the authors took the role as facilitator and joined each of the four students on a visit to seven exhibits (pre-selected by the authors) and recorded the students' interactions on video. During the visit the facilitator made sure that the students understood how to use the exhibits so that technical/practical problems were not an issue. Further, the researcher conducted a brief interview by each exhibit to allow students to reflect upon their experiences. Further, we interviewed the four students one year later in order to find out how the dialogic approach had impacted the students in a longer term.We found that the approach facilitates curiosity and reflection, and that the students had a good recollection of the visit one year later and had used insights gained from the visit. Further, it appeared that the four students had different learning styles but that the facilitator was able to embrace several different learning styles through the approach. Thus, the dialogic approach seems to constitute a fruitful guiding tool at science centres but possibly also at other museums like an art museum.
| Translated title of the contribution | What is the question?: Creating a learning environment in the exhibition |
|---|---|
| Original language | Danish |
| Journal | Nordisk Museologi |
| Volume | 2010 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 50-63 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| ISSN | 1103-8152 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |