From Physical to Digital: Recent Research into the Discovery, Analysis, and Use of Museum Resources by Classroom Educators and Students
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From Physical to Digital: Recent Research into the Discovery, Analysis, and Use of Museum Resources by Classroom Educators and Students Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago April 9, 2015 Paper: http://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/from-physical-to-digital-recent-research-into-the-discovery-analysis-and-use-of-museums-resources-by-classroom-educators-and-students/ Darren Milligan Senior Digital Strategist Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Smithsonian Institution @darrenmilligan / milligand@si.edu Melissa Wadman Manager of Program Evaluation Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Smithsonian Institution @melwad / wadmanm@si.edu
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From Physical to Digital: Recent Research into the Discovery, Analysis, and Use of Museum Resources by Classroom Educators and Students
- 1. From Physical to Digital: Recent Research into the Discovery, Analysis, and Use of Museum Resources by Classroom Educators and Students Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago April 9, 2015 Darren Milligan Senior Digital Strategist Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Smithsonian Institution @darrenmilligan / milligand@si.edu Melissa Wadman Manager of Program Evaluation Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access Smithsonian Institution @melwad / wadmanm@si.edu
- 4. Smithsonian, in 2014: 19 Museums and Galleries & National Zoo
- 5. Smithsonian, in 2014: 19 Museums and Galleries & National Zoo 137.7M Museums Objects & Specimens 1.9M Library Volumes 136,194 Cubic feet of archival material
- 6. Smithsonian, in 2014: 19 Museums and Galleries & National Zoo 137.7M Museums Objects & Specimens 1.9M Library Volumes 136,194 Cubic feet of archival material 6,373 Employees 721 Research Fellows 9,817 Volunteers
- 7. Smithsonian, in 2014: 19 Museums and Galleries & National Zoo 137.7M Museums Objects & Specimens 1.9M Library Volumes 136,194 Cubic feet of archival material 6,373 Employees 721 Research Fellows 9,817 Volunteers 26.7M Physical 99M Digital (Website) Visitors
- 13. Pew Research Teachers Survey Report February 2013 92%: Internet has “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching 90%: use search engines to find info 84%: use Internet weekly to find content that will engage students 80%: use Internet weekly to help them create lessons
- 14. The Digital Education Problem Fragmented Brand Outdated Platform Lack of Detailed Data Who is using our resources? Why are they using them? How are they using them? Where are they using them? How would they prefer to access them? In what format would they prefer them? Are they using them as designed? Are students learning from them…?
- 16. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 17. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 20. Remedial Evaluation of the Materials Distributed at the Smithsonian Institution’s Annual Teachers’ Night (2010) Literature review and evaluation to produce generalizable guidelines for the design and development of museum-based lesson plans and investigated classroom educator methodologies for incorporating museum-based lessons into classrooms.
- 21. Results: Literature Review Usability and navigability of websites are important. Common usability problems for visitors (including classroom educators) who are non-museum professionals when using museum websites: • Frustration with overloading of content • Distracting graphical user interfaces • Browsing not conducive to understanding specific topics • Difficulties with certain terminology • Disconnect of museum websites to the physical museums
- 22. Results: Literature Review Key requirements classroom educators need for museum material to be incorporated into their teaching: • Aligned to curriculum standards • Updated • Interdisciplinary • Related to big concepts • Educational • Not dependent on museum visits
- 23. Results: Analysis and Focus Groups Key requirements classroom educators need for museum material to be incorporated into their teaching: • Enjoyable for their students • Interdisciplinary • Adaptability • Alignment with curriculum standards • Flexibility to accommodate a diversity of students
- 24. Results: Overall Educators reported that they used Smithsonian materials acquired at Teachers’ Night as resource starting points for their teaching. Museum materials do not always fit into their teaching (museum materials must be deconstructed and then reconstructed). There was no definite indication that participants from the focus groups used the materials as intended by the Smithsonian.
- 25. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 27. Capturing the Voice of Customer, Satisfaction Insight Review of SmithsonianEducation.org (2011) Collected from more than seven thousand surveys completed by visitors to the central Smithsonian Education website, the makeup of this audience, their motivations for site visitation, their activities while on the website, and their sources of dissatisfaction were explored.
- 34. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 35. Digital Learning Resources Project (2012) To assist the Smithsonian to better understand the educational uses of Smithsonian digital resources and provide a road map for future digital development. Research objectives focused on classroom educators’ ability to identify, analyze, and extract digital content, with the ultimate goal of enabling all users to achieve their own personal learning objectives through the Smithsonian’s resources.
- 36. Intended Outcomes Short-term: to increase classroom educators’ skills in identifying, analyzing, and extracting specific Smithsonian digital learning content Medium-term: to increase skills to make strategic use of digital learning content Long-term: to foster online users who are active creators of digital resources personalized for learning in their own classroom.
- 38. Results: Focus Groups, Literature Review, Environmental Scan Search and Visualization Tools Museums need to make resources more findable and to generate assets that are personalized and accessible anytime, anywhere, and on multiple platforms. Classroom educators also asked for: • Search results with thumbnails, previews, tag clouds, and rating systems that allow them to easily identify what is useful and what is not • Personalized search hints • Search capabilities that can be either highly filtered or extremely broad
- 39. Results: Focus Groups, Literature Review, Environmental Scan Engaging, Standards-aligned, Learner-centered Content Classroom educators put student interest and engagement at the top of their list and need content that aligns with learning goals and standards. • Engage students • Allow for student interaction and adaptation • Afford accessibility for various learning styles and levels • Offer coherence with the lesson and multidisciplinary opportunities • Support problem-based learning goals • Support standards-based teaching goals
- 40. Results: Focus Groups, Literature Review, Environmental Scan Instructional Tools When extracting resources, classroom educators want: • Flexible technologies for a diversity of devices and delivery methods • Tools to assess learning • Tools to adjust reading level of text • Ways for classroom educators to upload their self- authored components into a saved file, or resources from other sites or collections • Specific pedagogical tools
- 45. Results: Iterative Prototyping Search and Visualization (Identifying) • Search by entering a general search term, then filtering further if needed. Educators also preferred the gallery view to review their search results. Participants want more intelligence in their searches and results to guide them toward the most valuable resources. • Use a diversity of locations to find what they need and have little loyalty to one site in particular • Use the Facebook Share option, but the most popular method of sharing was emailing the link to themselves or a colleague.
- 46. Results: Iterative Prototyping Authentication, Saving, and Storing (Analyzing) • To save resources that they find useful. • The flexibility to organize and annotate resources according to their own schemas. • Flexibility in the types of viewing methods available: one for whole-class interaction and one for individual interaction. • The ability to allow students to use the site and its tools as much as the classroom educator. • Content that is aligned with Common Core State Standards.
- 47. Results: Iterative Prototyping Instructional Tools (Extracting) • Were excited about the use of “interactives” with the resources found in the Smithsonian collection. • Appreciated the search functionality of the site but want better visibility of the tools, including prompts and explanations for their use. • Liked being able to upload resources from other sources to augment their collections and appreciated being given tools that make this easier to accomplish within the site.
- 48. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 49. Piloting Tools to Enable Active and Participatory Learning for Middle School Students: Facilitating Digital Learning with Smithsonian Digital Resources (2014) Classroom educators have indicated that relevance to students’ needs are a top priority. We are now testing directly with students to better understand how they use digital museum assets (specifically digitized collection objects) and to document the types of scaffolds necessary to enable active and participatory learning using them.
- 51. Results: Prototyping Challenges for Student Users • Unintelligible descriptions: some of the students found that the descriptions were difficult to understand • Spelling limitations: some of the students could not find the items they were looking for because they could not spell the search terms correctly • Loss of authority: some of the participants thought that the information in their collections was unreliable if they (or anyone else) were able to change the information from the original Smithsonian descriptions (a feature of the prototype)
- 53. Results: Prototyping Feature Requests • Auto-correct to assist with spelling • Predictive searches/Recommended searches • Ability to adjust fonts • Draw on objects • Put external images into their collection • Share collections through social media and email • Export their collection • Create unique collages from multiple images • Child-accessible collection descriptions
- 54. The Solution Research - Evaluation of Learning Materials - Audience Survey - Digital Learning Resources Project - Tools for Middle Schoolers - Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
- 55. Learning Resource Metadata Initiative Project and Evaluation (2014–2015) Smithsonian produced educationally-relevant metadata for 2,500 Smithsonian learning resources, distributed the metadata via the Learning Registry, and built capacity for Smithsonian educators and content creators to develop metadata as they publish new digital learning resources. The goals of the Smithsonian LRMI project are to: • Develop and publish metadata required to fully describe the existing Smithsonian learning resources • Evaluate the impact of LRMI metadata on the discoverability, analysis, and use of Smithsonian learning resources
- 56. Results: Online Survey Only a handful of the participants were familiar with LRMI, having heard about it from “our school librarian” or “at a teachers’ conference.” Almost all of the participants projected that educator specific tags would increase their search satisfaction and increase the likelihood they would use the materials. Which educator specific tags were ranked most relevant: • Grade level • Content/subject area • Alignment to standards
- 57. Results: Webpage Analysis Majority primarily use Google to search for digital learning resources several times a week, if not almost every day. Less than one half of educators consider their searches successful. Irrelevant results, lack of educator specific filters, and time consumption are the factors leading to search failure. Participants found search and analysis to be most useful when these metadata fields are visible: • Content/subject area • Grade level • Source
- 58. HUH?
- 59. META TIME! Conclusions Focused on • Educator search preferences • Factors that contribute to difficult analysis and resistance to use learning resources • Educators’ preferences for learning resources • Educators’ preferences for platform content and functionality
- 60. Educator Search Preferences • Searching assist via autocomplete and/or spelling assist • Search results that allow for both browsing and filtering • Scannable grade level and subject information • Resources from a wide variety of sources
- 61. Factors that Contribute to Difficult Analysis and Resistance to Use Learning Resources • Too many search results; too difficult to browse quickly for relevant content • Distracting user interfaces • Unfamiliar terminology and/or lack of contextual information
- 62. Educators’ Preferences for Learning Resources • Interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary • Connection to students’ interests • Alignment to teaching standards and/or relationship to big ideas • Highly Adaptable • Downloadable format
- 63. Educators’ Preferences for Platform Content and Functionality • Content available from more than one one producer/supplier • Tools available within the platform for student interaction with the resources • Variety of sharing options • Ability to save and structure resources within the platform for later review/use
- 64. Smithsonian Learning Lab Beta Launch September 2015 Follow Along And Share Your Thoughts learninglab.si.edu
- 65. From Physical to Digital: Recent Research into the Discovery, Analysis, and Use of Museum Resources by Classroom Educators and Students Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago April 9, 2015 Darren Milligan @darrenmilligan / milligand@si.edu Melissa Wadman @melwad / wadmanm@si.edu Paper Available at http://s.si.edu/1O8uTKS
Editor's Notes
- Museums are uniquely positioned to play a greater role in education. In order to meet this potential, museums can benefit from understanding the needs of these audiences and the capabilities of their institutions to meet them.
- Since 2010, the Smithsonian, through its Center for Learning and Digital Access, has conducted a series of research projects to better understand how teachers and their students use museum learning resources. This afternoon we will share the results of the following five independent, yet progressional, studies and offer usable best practices garnered from a meta-analysis of their results combined with other recent literature in this field:
- Photo shows 8 or the Smithsonian museums.
- 3 Digital Goals: Improve the discoverability of and access to Smithsonian digital content for learning Research the intersection of the needs of learners (formal and informal) and educators, and the capabilities of the Smithsonian Create youth-focused digitally-accessible learning experiences
- SmithsonianEducation.org was launched in 2003 by the SCLDA.The core objectives for the SCLDA website were to serve as the gateway to Smithsonian educational resources; tailor content to serve three distinct audiences: educators, families, and students; promote the understanding and use of museums; and emphasize inquiry-based learning using primary sources. During the early 2000s, websites were moving into a new era by acknowledging and addressing the unique needs of different user groups. This approach also supported the shift in museology in which museums moved from being "about something" to being "for somebody" (Stephen Weil, 1999). Throughout the past thirteen years, the site has grown to house SCLDA-published materials and to serve as the gateway to the Institution’s more than two thousand digital educational resources (from thirty-two museums, libraries, archives, and research centers) indexed and searchable by national and Common Core State Standards. In 2007 and 2008, the site was selected as the People’s Voice winner for Best Cultural Institution Website in the Webby Awards.
- Smithsonian resources are things like traditional lesson plans design for educators, interactive content developed for young learners, but also things that we find education audiences are interested in as well, like research databases, and online conference archives and videos.
- More than ever before, teachers use the Internet to inform, support, enhance, and even enable their teaching. Survey covered only Advanced Placement and National Writing Project teachers - Sample size: 2,462 middle and high school teachers in US Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/28/how-teachers-are-using-technology-at-home-and-in-their-classrooms/
- So, it took, what I think of as an act of great courage, to face these issues and admit how little we really knew.
- Smithsonian Teachers’ Night 2012 Photo © Bruce Guthrie
- Smithsonian Teachers’ Night 2012 Photo © Bruce Guthrie
- Methodology: Phase one: extensive literature review to explore the following questions: What methods do classroom educators use to find and use lesson plans? Do lesson plans from museums meet classroom educators’ needs? Phase two: analysis of comments by visitors to SmithsonianEducation.org on specific Smithsonian lesson plans. The analysis reviewed 132 public comments classroom educators posted in 2008. The purpose of the content analysis of these comments on Smithsonian lesson plans was to identify themes in alignment with the literature review. Phase three: focus groups and in-depth interviews with classroom educators to address two questions: What design elements are most important to classroom educators? What extent and in what ways do classroom educators make use of materials provided by the Smithsonian?
- The literature review confirmed that the usability and navigability of websites are important. The research suggests that there are common usability problems for visitors (including classroom educators) who are non-museum professionals when using museum websites: Frustration with overloading of content Distracting graphical user interfaces Browsing not conducive to understanding specific topics Difficulties for non-museum professionals with certain terminology Disconnect of museum websites to the physical museums
- Regarding the suitability of lesson plans for classroom use, the literature review presented several key requirements classroom educators need for museum material to be incorporated into their teaching. Material must be: Aligned to curriculum standards Updated Interdisciplinary Related to big concepts Educational Not dependent on museum visits
- Key requirements classroom educators need for museum material to be incorporated into their teaching: enjoyable for their students interdisciplinary adaptability alignment with curriculum standards flexibility to accommodate a diversity of students
- Educators reported that they used Smithsonian materials acquired at Teachers’ Night as resource starting points for their teaching. They expressed that materials need to be visually appealing, useful right out of the box, durable, and multipurpose. Feedback suggested that classroom educators are selective when using Teachers’ Night materials. Museum materials do not always fit into their teaching (museum materials must be deconstructed and then reconstructed). Educators expressed the desire for the Smithsonian materials to be more readily usable in the classroom. There was no definite indication that participants from the focus groups used the materials as intended by the Smithsonian.
- Methodology User satisfaction survey (using the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index) conducted via SmithsonianEducation.org. A total of 7,470 surveys were completed during the twenty-four month span of data collection through a popup window presented to website visitors. The survey consisted of twenty-one numerically scored model questions, as well as ten multiple choice and five open-ended custom questions developed by SCLDA.
- Findings: About half of visitors (48 percent, n=3,578) to the site identified themselves as “teachers,” by far the largest audience segment. However, if you add in other formal education audiences (Librarian, Curriculum Developer, School Administrator), we find that this segment increases to approximately 56 percent. 9% of SI Digital Visitors self identify at Educators 8% of SI Digital Visitors self identify as Students
- Subject area taught by those self-identifying as a teacher (the survey here allowed multiple selections). The data points to a fairly equal distribution between Language Arts (34 percent, n=915) , Science (34 percent, n=915), and Social Studies (33 percent, n=888). Again, it was not a surprise that more generalized subjects are dominant (Language Arts and Social Studies), as 65 percent of teacher survey respondents taught in grades PreK–8.
- Motivation: Inherent to understanding satisfaction (the original intention of the survey) was a need to identify the motivations that lead to users arriving at the website. Almost 60 percent (congruent with the number of visitors in formal educational roles) came to the site with aspirations of finding educational resources.
- We looked into the actual activities they performed while on the site to correlate intention with real action. Most came to access the content: to read it online (48 percent, n=3,344), to search for it (47 percent, n=3,274), to download it (25 percent, n=1,742), and to share it with others (22 percent, n=1,533).
- "What were you primarily looking for today?" We see here a connection between visitor motivation pre-visit and the actions performed on the site. Fifty-nine percent came to the site to "find educational resources," and again the majority end up performing this type of search, in the form of teaching resources, lesson-plan downloads, or content information (clarified in the survey to mean specific information, such as oceanography).
- Visitors who indicated that they were primarily looking for teaching resources were asked to clarify their needs. We can see here both the types of information desired (supplemental and topical) as well as the format in which they need it (downloadable).
- Methodology Phases One/Two Focus groups with twenty classroom educators in Northern California combined with user analytics; literature review & environmental scan Phase Three Prototypes were developed and tested by group of sixty-nine classroom educators (grade-level and geographically diverse)
- Search and Visualization Tools The literature suggests that museums need to make resources more findable and to generate assets that are personalized and accessible anytime, anywhere, and on multiple platforms. Classroom educators also asked for: Search results with thumbnails, previews, tag clouds, and rating systems that allow them to easily identify what is useful and what is not Personalized search hints Search capabilities that can be either highly filtered or extremely broad
- Engaging, Standards-aligned, Learner-centered Content Previous findings suggest that classroom educators put student interest and engagement at the top of their list and need content that aligns with learning goals and standards. When analyzing resources, classroom educators want content that will: Engage students Allow for student interaction and adaptation Afford accessibility for various learning styles and levels Offer coherence with the lesson and multidisciplinary opportunities Support problem-based learning goals Support standards-based teaching goals Convey a virtual museum experience
- Instructional Tools Deeper exploration answered new questions about how classroom educators use museum digital content in their classrooms. When extracting resources, classroom educators want: Flexible technologies for a diversity of devices and delivery methods Tools to assess learning Tools to adjust reading level of text Ways for classroom educators to upload their self-authored components into a saved file, or resources from other sites or collections Specific pedagogical tools ( such as Graphic organizers, Vocabulary/glossary builders, and Discussion and question area)
- Phase 3, all about prototyping: To look at the learning resources and their construction, but also to look at the…
- … platforms on which they are presented.
- Search and Visualization (Identifying) Classroom educators commonly: Search by entering a general search term, then filtering further if needed. Educators also preferred the gallery view to review their search results. Participants want more intelligence in their searches and results to guide them toward the most valuable resources. This intelligence included auto-complete typing, auto-correct spelling, and similar items for returns that bear few results. (We will also see these suggestions from the student testers in the next study.) Use a diversity of locations to find what they need and have little loyalty to one site in particular, although they go to educational sites more frequently than non-educational sites. Use the Facebook Share option that was provided, but the most popular method of sharing was emailing the link to themselves or a colleague.
- Authentication, Saving, and Storing (Analyzing) Classroom educators prefer: To save resources that they find useful. They will use whatever means available to do it, even if the site does not provide this function. The flexibility to organize and annotate resources according to their own schemas. Flexibility in the types of viewing methods available: one for whole-class interaction (where site order is emphasized and only one site is viewed at a time), and one for individual interaction (where student selection is emphasized and all sites are easily accessed). The ability to allow students to use the site and its tools as much as the classroom educator. Content that is aligned with Common Core State Standards.
- Instructional Tools (Extracting) Classroom educators: Were excited about the use of “interactives” with the resources found in the Smithsonian collection. Appreciated the search functionality of the site but want better visibility of the tools, including prompts and explanations for their use. Liked being able to upload resources from other sources to augment their collections and appreciated being given tools that make this easier to accomplish within the site.
- Methodology Prototype presented to middle school students in College Park, Maryland and in Chico, California. Testing was conducted using a predefined set of instructions and tasks. Each testing session included an activity where students were first introduced to the Smithsonian, the research project, and their role as testers. Students were then shown the prototype and walked through how to search, save, and edit collections. Individually, they were then asked to conduct the same search. Finally they were instructed to search, create, and edit a collection based on their own interests. The group was then interviewed for suggestions of improvements.
- Unintelligible descriptions: some of the students found that the descriptions were difficult to understand (the information provided on collection items is often museum cataloging information rather than education information specifically designed for students) Spelling limitations: some of the students could not find the items they were looking for because they could not spell the search terms correctly Loss of authority: some of the participants thought that the information in their collections was unreliable if they (or anyone else) were able to change the information from the original Smithsonian descriptions (a feature of the prototype)
- Participants wanted to see features that are familiar from other search engines/software, such as: Auto-correct to assist with spelling Predictive searches Recommended searches Filters for inappropriate material Ability to adjust fonts Microphone speech for text searching Participants wanted the ability to personalize their collection by being able to: Draw on objects Put external images into their collection Share collections through social media and email Export their collection Create unique collages from multiple images Participants wanted additional content such as: Modern photos Specific information about the items (such as whether or not certain animals are endangered or where the animal lives) Child-accessible collection descriptions
- The project connects the Smithsonian to national efforts to make personalized learning a reality for every U.S. student and includes producing educationally-relevant metadata for 2,500 Smithsonian learning resources, distributing this new metadata via the Learning Registry, and building capacity through professional development opportunities for Smithsonian educators and content creators to develop metadata as they publish new digital learning resources. Methodology: METHODOLOGY / SAMPLE To asses the effects of the project, SCLDA has established an ongoing LRMI Impact Evaluation Study to understand if LRMI metadata enables educators to better discover, analyze, and use Smithsonian resources to create personalized learning resources for their students; and what changes and refinements need to be made to trainings to encourage museum educators to adopt LRMI metadata. To address these questions 56 classroom educator participants (from across the U.S. and recruited through an external firm) in this study completed the following activities: Phase One: Online Survey The survey was designed to understand participants’ current attitudes and expectations regarding digital resource discoverability, analysis, and extraction. The survey was based upon one developed by the LRMI Survey Report (Winter Group, 2013). Phase Two: Webpage Analysis To understand participants’ tag or attribute preferences in the analysis of digital resources, participants were asked to view and comment upon four different web environments, each showing metadata describing the same digital resource, World War II on the Home Front: Civic Responsibility but each having a slightly different user interface as determined by the inclusion (or not) of LRMI tags. Website Markup and Explanation The markup and explanation activity collected similar information as the survey, but through qualitative data. Participants were shown screenshots of metadata describing the Smithsonian digital resource as it could be displayed in two search result environments: 1) Google search results, and 2) California Brokers of Expertise website. Participants were asked to identify and place a virtual pin on two aspects of each environment that supported their analysis. Follow up questions asked the participant to explain their pin placement. Pin placement served as a visual representation of analysis, while participant explanations provided qualitative support. Website Surf and Explanation Participants were asked to click on live links to two environments each hosting a landing page describing the Smithsonian digital resource, review the information on the page for no more than 2 minutes, then answer follow-up questions. As with the Website markup activity above, participants were asked to identify two aspects of each landing page which would support their analysis of the digital resource. Participants were asked for deeper explanations about the characteristics of the pages they identified. Phase Three: Web Analytics Further assessment on the quantitative impact of LRMI on discovery, analysis, and extraction will be examined through comparative web analytics in the next phase of this study in mid 2015.
- To reach these conclusions, the authors examined each of the studies and consulted both the literature analyzed in the individual literature reviews referenced above, as well as more recent literature to identify common conclusions. These are organized below and reflect educational preferences for both searching for learning resources and analyzing their usefulness: 1) educator search preferences, 2) factors that contribute to difficult analysis and resistance to use learning resources, 3) educators’ preferences for learning resources, and 4) educators’ preferences for platform content and functionality. Image: Taxidermy primate from the Museum of Zoology and Natural History, Firenze https://www.flickr.com/photos/brad-darren/4491924025/in/set-72157605885251208
- To reach these conclusions, we examined each of the studies and consulted both the literature analyzed in the individual literature reviews referenced above, as well as more recent literature to identify common conclusions. These are organized below and reflect educational preferences for both searching for learning resources and analyzing their usefulness: 1) educator search preferences, 2) factors that contribute to difficult analysis and resistance to use learning resources, 3) educators’ preferences for learning resources, and 4) educators’ preferences for platform content and functionality.
- Enabling effective search for educators reflects both standard website search best practices and also recognizing the need for and providing for descriptive metadata relevant to and understandable by this audience, specifically grade level and subject alignment. This audience does not appears to have any specific loyalty to particular providers of content nor platforms where learning resources are provided, however, our recent analysis has shown that clear indications of the source of the item coming from a trusted provider (such as the Smithsonian) is useful.
- Educators report that the number of search results encountered, further hampered by both the website user interface design and the information provided with museum-based content, detract from their ability to effectively determine if the resources are appropriate for their pedagogical needs. Specifically we found these factors to be the most detrimental:
- Educators express some consistent needs when explaining the types of digitally-accessible resources they look for from museums. Many express the desire that the focus of the resources be inter- or multidisciplinary. This may stem from preconceived notions of the types of knowledge contained within museums, but the studies did not offer enough information to firmly conclude this. Secondly, a strong preference was noticed for content that connects with both the interests of the students and accepted teaching standards, such as Common Core State Standards. In terms of format, resources should be adaptable, either in how they are used pedagogically (for various learning or reading styles/abilities) and functionally (flexible to various presentation, sharing, and export formats). Specifically educators are looking for resources that meet these criteria:
- When considering the platforms on which educators access educational resources for their classrooms, they seem to prefer ones that consolidate content from a variety of sources (not just the platform provider, for example). As well, they look for tools to make the content more useful, both for their students (such as discussion areas, annotation tools, etc.) and for themselves. They prefer a variety of sharing options (although the SCLDA research indicates that email continues to be the preferred method of sharing resource with other colleagues) and ways to save and sort content for later use. Specifically the research and literature indicates these preferences:
- So, where is this leading, for the Smithsonian? Check out the Learning Lab.