On the Road
Since its inception, the MLC has actively participated in conferences sponsored by museum and academic organizations. This involvement has enabled MLC members both to understand the concerns of the museum community, and also to disseminate information about the goals and progress of the project. To that end, researchers have attended or presented at the following museum and academic conferences thus far during 1999:
American Educational Research Association (AERA), Montreal, April 1999:
Doris Ash was a discussant at a structured poster session entitled, "Multiple Perspectives of Informal Learning Environments Research," which examined different aspects of informal learning environments, with special focus on those found in museums. Kirsten Ellenbogen was a co-author and presenter of a paper on discourse analysis, "Understanding Dialogic Argumentation Among Middle School Science Students." In an invited address at a special breakfast meeting of the Informal Learning Environments Research Special Interest Group, LRDC's director Lauren Resnick told the SIG members about the MLC's Phase 2 research plans.
American Association of Museums (AAM), Cleveland, April 1999:
In a session on communicating with visiting families, Kevin Crowley examined approaches for studying multigenerational family groups.
Association of Youth Museums (AYM), New York, May 1999:
Leona Schauble participated in a forum entitled, "From Theory to Practice: Facilitating Family Learning in Informal Settings."
Visitor Studies Association (VSA), Chicago, August 1999:
In a session on new bibliographies for museum learning research and visitor studies, Gaea Leinhardt presented a paper, "Netting the Web: Analyzing the Museum Learning Collaborative (MLC) Web Site." Sue Allen chaired a session on Summative multi-site studies.
AAM, Learning in Museums seminar, Bozeman, MT, September, 1999:
Gaea Leinhardt discussed the evolving philosophy of the MLC, presented the model for our comprehensive study explained the construct of conversational elaboration , explored the dimension of identity , and presented summaries of two of the MLC studies.
Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), Tampa, FL, October, 1999:
Doris Ash was a facilitator at a session entitled, "Between Hand to Mind: Looking at Visitor Interactions-Practical Applications."