Tinkering at school: reflections from museum-teacher partnerships
Tinkering has the potential to strengthen engagement with STEM. Furthermore, research has found that tinkering could be particularly beneficial for students facing social, economic or cultural disadvantage. Museums across Europe have been involving teachers in a process of observation and reflection during the students' engagement with tinkering activities and used specifically-designed observation and reflection tools. Tinkering is also aligned with the Science Capital teaching approach, which emphasises the importance of practitioners developing and maintaining a mindset that recognises a broad range of experiences and skills as having a legitimate place in the science classroom.
We invite you to come and discuss both the results of this research and the research tools themselves.
Facilitator
Senior Lecturer in Education
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Session speakers
Director of Education and of the Centre of Research in Informal Learning
Maria will contribute the experience from the work with teachers, a piece of results from the reflective practice as well as the view of the project coordinator who puts all this together.
If no more representatives of the partner museums can be added to this session, Maria will also bring the results from the work in the remaining countries (Greece, Spain).
Senior project manager Education
Inka will contribute the experience from the work with teachers and the results coming from the reflective practice experience of The Netherlands.
Grace will discuss the adoption of Tinkering by teachers in underserved schools in Ireland, and present some of the results of the observational reflective practice carried out by teachers.
Assistant Project Manager
Mathieu will discuss the adoption of Tinkering by teachers in underserved schools in Austria, and present some of the results of the observational reflective practice carried out by teachers.
