I am forwarding this message to the list on behalf of Leone Burton who is having email problems.
LS
*********************************************************
With respect to "Explainers", as a mathematics educator I, too, react very
strongly against what lies behind the notion that the "expert" "explains"
and the learner, theoretically, learns. Learning is far more complicated
than that and no-one learns by being told. I was connected with the Light
on Science exhibits at the Birmingham Museum and, there, the support people
were referred to as Facilitators and were "trained", in the way Ian Russell
suggests, not to tell, but to ask questions. We used some of our PGCE
mathematics teacher trainees in this role (a number of the artifacts and
exhibits were mathematical) and it was highly informative for them, as well,
I think, as being helpful to the visitors.
Prof. Leone Burton
8 Grange Walk
London SE1 3DT
Tel: 44 (0)20 7394 2929
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Russell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] The role of the Explainer in a Science Centre
> At 11:09 31/01/03 +0000, you wrote:
>
> >I am working on a project focusing on the role of Explainers in a Science
> >Centre, and am looking for ways to improve the two-way communication
> >between them and the visitor. Does anyone know where I can find some
> >literature on previous evaluations of Explainers?
>
> I have radical and passionately-held views about "Explainers". After I
held
> forth recently in the ASTC-L email list a small Canadian journal asked
> permission to publish what I'd written. So I guess it now qualifies as
> "literature"...
>
> Although this may not seem like a direct answer to your question, I hope
it
> helps to undermine preconceptions about the aims and objectives against
> which science-centre effectiveness should be evaluated.
>
> Forgive me for repeating myself here. I said:
>
> Recruitment is an issue, isn't it?
>
> Do you select "experts" who'll give correct explanations, but pitch too
> high and bore visitors to death?
>
> Do you select trainee teachers who'll give moderately correct
explanations,
> pitch at the correct level but still be nearly as boring as the experts.
>
> Do you select drama specialists, entertainers and "performers" who'll want
> people to look at them rather than the exhibit-phenomena, and get the
> science hopelessly wrong, but interact wonderfully with their little
> "audience".
>
> Only those rare people with all three skill-sets are really qualified as
> "explainers". I've always argued against using "explainer" as a job
> description, because THAT is the problem. I have even tried forbidding
> trainees to "explain" anything and this seemed a remarkable breakthrough.
> Questions can be so much more powerful than explanations...
>
> I reckon we need to learn from grandmothers. Grandmothers are awesomely
> effective science centre learning-facilitators. They stand beside the
> child, looking at the exhibit: supportively sharing the experience, not
> facing the child. They don't act as if they know it all, or even as if
they
> OUGHT to know it all. Grandmothers are supremely humble about their own
> knowledge, yet wonderfully, openly interested in what the child is doing.
> They don't radiate anxiety that the child should be "learning" more, like
> mothers do. They are not driven to conceal their own ignorance with
> obsessive label-reading, like fathers are. Best all, Grandmothers know how
> to ask Dopey Questions...
>
> "What does this one do, dear?" "Does it? Really? Go on then." "OOH, that
> was good! What if you do it again?" "I wonder what would happen if we
> twisted that thing over there...?" "Oh, is THAT why it happens? Can you
> tell me about it?"
>
> It seems so hard to train people to ask genuinely open questions. They pay
> lip-service to the idea, but always end up surfacing with a hidden agenda
> of herding visitors, craftily, sheepdog-like, towards some explanatory
> sheep-pen. How can sheep "explore" with a dog at their heels? Grandmothers
> don't do that. They support and empower, relying on the exhibition's own
> inbuilt explanations. The most skilfully formulated open questions sound
> like Dopey Questions.
>
>
>
> A SUCCESSFUL interactive exhibition provides
> * a pleasurable, empowering, social experience
> * while touching people's emotions,
> * positively influencing their attitudes
> * and improving their understanding.
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * Ian Russell * * * * * * * * * * *
> www.interactives.co.uk * [log in to unmask]
>
> **********************************************************************
>
> 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example,
> send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message:
>
> set psci-com nomail
>
> 2. To resume email from the list, send the following message:
>
> set psci-com mail
>
> 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the
message:
>
> leave psci-com
>
> 4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list
archive,
> can be found at the list web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html
>
> 5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and
science
> and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk
> **********************************************************************
>
>
**********************************************************************
1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example,
send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message:
set psci-com nomail
2. To resume email from the list, send the following message:
set psci-com mail
3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message:
leave psci-com
4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive,
can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html
5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science
and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk
**********************************************************************
**********************************************************************
1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example,
send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message:
set psci-com nomail
2. To resume email from the list, send the following message:
set psci-com mail
3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message:
leave psci-com
4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive,
can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html
5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science
and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk
**********************************************************************
|