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This study examined whether connecting storytelling and tinkering can advance early STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning opportunities for children. A total of 62 families with 4- to 10-year-old ( M = 8.03) children were observed via Zoom. They watched a video invitation to tinker at home prepared by museum educators prior to tinkering. Then, half of the families were prompted to think up a story before tinkering (story-based tinkering group), whereas the other half were simply asked to begin tinkering (no-story group). Once they had finished tinkering, researchers elicited children’s reflections about their tinkering experience. A subset of the families ( n = 45) also reminisced about their tinkering experience several weeks later. The story instructions provided before tinkering engendered children’s storytelling during tinkering and when reflecting on the experience. Children in the story-based tinkering group also talked the most about STEM both during tinkering, and subsequently when reminiscing with their parents about their tinkering experience.
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Storytelling With and About Data: Mapping the Terrain
“Data storytelling” is described in a variety of ways in literature, and even within the same project what constitutes a “data story” can vary among learners. These different treatments are likely to support different engagements with data, and therefore different learning opportunities for students. Here, we describe preliminary efforts to characterize the variety of ways in which data stories may differ in their mode (e.g., story about work with data and story about the data’s implications) and in their features (e.g., attention to data source; attention to history; case vs aggregate reasoning). To illustrate, we present an analysis of two data story artifacts produced by adolescents that participated in the same data storytelling workshop focused on health and the environment.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1900606
- PAR ID:
- 10552234
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Society of the Learning Sciences
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1838 to 1841
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2024.160400
