Assignment 1

 The essence of informal learning is that individuals get to select what, where and when to learn, presumably primarily driven by intrinsic motivation. However, as facilitators we may have very specific learning goals and outcomes we wish to achieve. How can we structure engagement to build on intrinsic motivation but at the same time motivate individuals to try/learn things that they may not have initially realized was worth learning?

ASSIGNMENT 1

To briefly expand on the included context of the question, I found in our readings the observation that people who expected to be involved in a science career at the age of 13 were far more likely to have earned a science degree (The 95% Solution) partiulcarly intrigueing. This describes myself (I believe, at the age of 13, I wanted to go into the biological sciences, even though I eventually gravitated towards geology) and many people I know. I was lucky to have a variety of informal learning experiences as a child as well as a family of scientists and engineers that encouraged me to pursue that interest with reading, exploration, and trips to parks and museums. 

I found that the science education I received in school was irritating. It moved slow, the other students were frustratingly ignorant, and when I found ways to make things interesting for myself, the educators stifled that creativity. For example, in my 6th Grade Earth Science course, we were instructed to created a brochure on California geology. Included in the assignment was a checklist, but many of the topics we were supposed to cover were so elementary that I focused on learning how to use a new and interesting program: Pages. This page layout program meant that my project looked far better than anyone elses, filled with aesthetic flourishes, high resolution images, and more. 

In the end, I received a poor grade. Even though I went above and beyond the requirements and put hours of work into learning something new, none of the additional graphs or figures I found were included in the final grade. I received no marks for going beyond the 3 or 4 citations that were required, and I didn't receive credit for the geologic map since it was cropped to emphasize the section of California I had focused on. I didn't have the knowledge or experience to communicate just how unfair this was to me (it's easy to win an argument against a 6th grader). 

After this negative experience, I focused more on alternative sources of scientific knowledge, albeit with the nagging feeling that I'd have to dive into school science classes in order to make it into the schools that I wanted. I knew better than to do more than minimum by that point. 

My teachers completely failed to motivate me to learn things that they presented in class that I did not already know or want to know. In contrast, the open-ended environments of my dad's library (or the bookstore), my grandparent's balcony or laboratories with access to all sorts highly educated academics, various national parks, natural environments, and museums all meant that I could explore my love of the sciences without being cornered into learning outcomes. That said, I was able to explore much more deeply the subjects that my family was interested in: my father in programming and electrical engineering, my grandfather in biochemistry, my uncle in earth science, my grandmother in mathematics and education, and so on. I don't know to what extent those people manipulated the conversations we had to push me in a particular direction or if they had real learning outcomes set out for me or my similarly aged family members. They had their own busy lives to attend to, but they certainly had the opportunity to direct that learning if they so desired. 

In our modern environment, our guests have the ability to follow up on what they experience in museums at home with access to the internet. While as a child I could certainly acquire the books I wanted, I did get my start in many subjects through Wikipedia and later, Google Books. With the study described by Falk and Dierking involving the long term impact of a museum visit, I feel a lot of the burden of providing that academic knowledge is lifted. People can and will follow up and think about what they experienced at the MOXI. This means we can structure our engagement in ways that incite curiosity about relevant subjects. 

We can leave behind interesting structures on the Keva Planks table (whereas parents directing their children rarely do more than attempt a Jenga game); let people know that the metal tokens will stick on the Magnetic Island in certain orientations and with different strengths depending on their distance and position relative to the strong magnets (albeit with a fun and easy demonstration), allowing them to build bigger and better and directing them towards or back towards the ferrofluid when they inevitably have more questions; and ask questions not just about what they see right in front of them, but whether they've seen similar things out in the real world and what they do. 

Personally, I always try to use a few key words when describing what's happening with the hope that if the person is curious they can use the keyword to look up the principle or example I've described. While early on I hid the name of the Archimedes' Screw following the lead of other sparks, after doing the reading I frequently start with "You've found the Archimedes' Screw!"  I've barely seen the fruits of this change, but I hope that it helps to satiate their intrinsic wants and needs later on and in the subjects that we display at the museum.