Mini-Analysis - Informal Science Educators

Course Topic
My course will provide professional development to informal science educators. Often, museum educators have a background in their science specialty but lack formal training in learning theory, pedagogy, curriculum design, and assessment. This course will assist participants in developing the necessary skills to be effective educators. The content of the course will be determined by survey responses.

Audience
The audience for this course is informal educators who are fairly new to the field. However, more experienced educators may also find the content useful.

Description of Mini-Analysis
I created an eight-question survey via Survey Monkey. The survey link was emailed to fellow science educators in San Diego and across the nation. The main purpose of the survey was to determine the topics that would be most useful to novice educators.

Survey Questions
I asked the following questions:
1. How long have you been working in informal education?
2. Is your current position full-time or part-time?
3. Do your career goals include staying in a museum or other informal educational setting?
4. How interested would you be in taking a collaborative online professional development course for informal science educators?
5. What topics would be of most useful to you in an online course? (Respondents were asked to rank each topic on a scale from “very interested” to “very disinterested.”

• Learning theory and current research
• Pedagogy (inquiry-based teaching methods, etc.)
• Assessment of student/visitor learning
• Science content (understanding of chemistry, geology, etc.)
• Curriculum design
• Program evaluation

6. What other topics would be useful to you?
7. How important is it to you that your organization compensates you for the time that you spend working on the course?
8. How much time would you be willing to devote to an online course each week (regardless of whether or not you are compensated)?

Results of Analysis
Seventeen educators completed the survey. Most of the respondents (53%) have worked in informal education for 3-4 years. Approximately 47% of the respondents were employed fulltime, while the remaining 53% were part-time educators. Nearly 60% of those surveyed hoped to remain in museums or other informal educational institutions. More than 88% of the educators were “very interested” or “somewhat interested” in participating in a collaborative distance-learning course. Not surprisingly, most respondents believe it is “very important” or “somewhat important” for their organizations to compensate them for the time they spend working on the course. Most educators (53%) are willing to spend 3-5 hours per week on a course. The remaining 47% would prefer a class that requires 1-2 hours of work per week.

The educators’ responses to question five were the most useful to me. They were most interested in topics related to pedagogy, inquiry-based methodology, and science content. Many respondents were also interested in curriculum design. Program evaluation and learning theory proved to be the two least useful topics. Only a few respondents suggested other topics for the course. These suggestions included project-based learning, integration of science with other subject matters, and the role that informal education plays in formal education.

Impact on Course Design
After conducting the survey, I determined that there is definite interest in professional development classes for informal science educators. I will use the results of the survey to determine the topics and complexity for my course. Because many of the educators were interested in pedagogy, the first five-week course will focus on different instructional methodologies and the application of these methodologies to teach science content. If successful, later courses will highlight some of the other topics that the educators ranked as useful. I will structure the complexity of the course content so that participants spend between 2-4 hours per week working on the projects and assignments.