Introduction

In summer 2015, GW and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History launched a new summer internship program to help future STEM teachers learn to spark children’s curiosity and inquiry using museum collections. The internships take place in Q?rius (“curious”), the Natural History Museum’s new multi-purpose space featuring 10,000 specimens—shells, skeletons, fossils, and more—that visitors can see, touch, and study under the microscope. GW interns act as co-learners, helping visitors access the collection, ask questions, uncover patterns, and log their discoveries in digital field books.

Overview of the Field Experience

Q?rius is an interactive learning space that brings the unique assets of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History – the science, researchers, and collections – out from behind the scenes. Created for 10-to-18-year-olds to deepen their interest in nature, culture, and science. Q?rius employs a visitor-centered, inquiry-based approach to learning in a broad spectrum of school programs, workshops, teen internships, self-guided activities, and open exploration in the Collections Zone. Through real-world questions with scientists, and interactions with thousands of authentic objects, visitors can unleash their curiosity with surprising results.

In their Q?rius placement, students in the GWU Secondary Education Program will step into the role of informal educator to gain critical practice in facilitating inquiry and engagement among diverse populations of learners. The majority of the field experience will involve volunteering in the Q?rius Collections Zone, where visitors are invited to explore 6,000 objects across all seven disciplines represented at the museum: Anthropology, Botany, Entomology, Invertebrate Zoology, Mineral Sciences, Paleobiology, and Vertebrate Zoology.

Goals and Learning Objectives

The field experience is designed to mutually support the learning of GW teacher candidates and Q?rius visitors. In Q?rius, the education staff aim to deliver experiences that enable visitors to:

• Be excited to learn about the natural world and our place in it.
• Feel like they are handling the objects and using the tools that museum scientists use.
• Be inspired to continue to use scientific tools, skills and processes when they leave.
• Understand how scientists use collections for research.
• Use and/or acquire scientific skills and habits of mind to explore natural history concepts. (At the most basic level, this means using collections to formulate and answer questions about the natural world!)
• Make connections between research done at the museum and broader environmental and cultural issues.

Meanwhile, the learning objectives for the Secondary Education program are to:

• Develop teacher candidates’ reflective capacities, instructional skills, and assessment approaches necessary for teaching in secondary schools.
• Enable teachers to use their content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and disciplinary perspectives to make curricular decisions.
• Develop teacher candidates’ knowledge of the multiple contexts of school so that they can create learning environments in which all students can participate. 

From these lists of learning goals, three areas of resonance emerged which shape the design of the secondary education field experience in Q?rius.

Field Experience Requirements

The Q?rius experience fulfills the Secondary Education program's community-engaged teaching field experience requirement.

Activities and Time Commitment

1. Apply and register as a Museum Volunteer. Prior to working in the museum, all teacher candidates register as museum volunteers. During registration, teacher candidates select which of the locations in the museum they wish to work during their field experience: Q?rius Collections Zone, Insect Zoo, or Butterfly Pavilion.
2. Volunteer Orientation and Training (16-24 hours total). All GW teacher candidates complete the standard training for museum volunteers. A day of general training includes (i) discovering behind-the-scenes scientific research, (ii) exploring activity content as learners, (iii) understanding the museum education approach, (iv) working with multi-generational visitors, and (v) examining scientist communication techniques. In addition to the general training, teacher candidates complete a day of specialized training for the location where they will work with visitors, either the Q?rius Collections Zone or Insect Zoo/Butterfly Pavilion. Teacher candidates in the Q?rius Collections Zone may also complete additional three hours of training if they wish to work with School Programs.
3. Volunteering in the Collections Zone, Insect Zoo and/or Butterfly Pavilion (40 hours minimum). Volunteer shifts at the museum run from 9:45 am - 1:45 pm or 1:15 pm - 5:15 pm daily from June 15th-August 26th. Using the online museum volunteer scheduling system, teacher candidates sign up for 4-hour morning or afternoon shifts. Each shift begins with a 15-minute volunteer check-in, where teacher candidates will learn about important events happening at the museum that day. Teacher candidates are asked to select a shift that they can work weekly throughout the summer, for example Monday mornings. Up to 2 teacher candidates can sign up for any one shift. All teacher candidates must complete ten (10) 4-hour shifts for a total of 40 hours in the museum. Teacher candidates are encouraged to devote more hours if their schedule permits, to approach the standard volunteer commitment of 96 hours.
4. CET Seminars (4 hours). Throughout the summer, the GW Secondary Education program hosts four 1 hour sessions to support field experiences across the program (including Q?rius). The first session is an orientation where teacher candidates are introduced to Q?rius staff and the components of the field experience. Later workshops build upon the questioning and engagement strategies practiced in the volunteer training and on the Q?rius floor. These sessions also allow teacher candidates to share what they’ve been learning in their interactions with museum visitors and to make connections to their own future classroom teaching. When possible, Qrius staff participate in these sessions. 
5. School program observations (2 hours; optional). Q?rius offers 60-minute, pre-registered classes led by experienced Museum Educators for up to 35 students at a time. Using objects, data, scientific equipment, and digital media, students complete a series of activities based on Smithsonian research. In the process, they investigate core ideas in nature and culture related to classroom curriculum. They gain critical skills in the practices of science by observing, documenting results, and justifying their conclusions with evidence. See the full list of programs here. During training, pre-service teacher volunteers observe the Collections challenge and one additional school program to see how the museum approaches inquiry-based science instruction in a classroom setting. Q?rius school programs end June 12.

Assessment of the Field Experience

• Observations working with visitors. All teacher candidates have an opportunity to be observed twice by a university or museum staff member. The observation notes will be included in the candidate’s teaching portfolio as evidence of their ability to facilitate inquiry. Teacher candidates will have an opportunity to meet and discuss the observation notes and receive constructive feedback from the faculty member/staff member.  
• Reflective Journal. To be submitted weekly, these journal entries can be free writings, drawings, etc., focused on the week’s interactions. Reflections will become part of the teacher candidate’s secondary education portfolio. Though not required, some teacher candidates post their journals online, which helps GW faculty and Q?rius volunteer staff follow along. Reflections should respond to the following: 
  • Learners’ ideas and interactions. What did visitors say, do, ask, and explore in the space?, What patterns emerged from your observation of learners’ interaction with objects and/or the Q?rius space?
  • Learner engagement. What techniques did you try to help learners explore/investigate their questions? What questioning and participation/engagement strategies did you try? How did visitors respond? What types of learners did you engage? How did you adjust your engagement strategies for these different learners? What challenges did you face in prompting and sustaining engagement?
  • Overall impressions and insights. Were there particular objects or groups of objects that you found led to good questions and critical thinking? What about them or your presentation of them generated deeper engagement? How do you think you could incorporate what you are seeing and learning in your classroom?
• Curriculum Work (optional). All Secondary Education students must submit a curriculum piece as part of their program teaching portfolio. They may choose to meet that requirement through Q?rius by developing at least one “Let’s Look Closer” collections investigation engagement experience. Each student will choose at least one focus area where they can practice questioning and engagement strategies and work to develop deeper engagement to help visitors achieve Qrius learning objectives.

After the Museum Field Experience

Following the summer field experiences in Q?rius, teacher candidates complete their science teaching methods course in the fall where they deepen their thinking about informal-formal classroom connections. Teacher candidates are introduced to object- and collections-based inquiry and principles for effective field trips to museums. They write lesson sketches to incorporate museum resources into their unit planning, and also visit the museum again as a group to consider the design of informal learning, and how to replicate or extend elements of that design into their classroom.

References

Popson, C. & Sikorski, T. (2015, November). Community-Engaged Teaching Experience at Q?rius 2015. Invited presentation at the DC STEM Network 2015 STEM Summit, Washington, DC.

Acknowledgements

Recommended Citation: Sikorski, T., Popson, C., & Raimondo, E. (2016). STEM Teacher Learning in Informal Settings: Guidelines for the GW Secondary Education Community-Engaged Teaching Experience at Q?rius. Available from https://blogs.gwu.edu/teachstem/products-and-tools/

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1439819, Building Capacity for Disciplinary Experts in Math and Science Teaching, 09/01/14-08/31/16.