Janete Perez

Susannah Raub

Alexander Boutelle

Jonathan Warman

CS92

In the modern elementary classroom, the teacher’s educational direction must take into account both the spirit and the means of the lesson. The constructionist attitude can foster in young children an interest in virtually any subject matter. The key to success is simply finding the right way to relate to the materials and their peers. The surroundings of the Providence Firefighters program exhibit several useful attitudes about constructivist learning. The Charles N. Fortes Magnet Academy Museum School uses a number of methods of drawing the students into the process of learning, instead of letting them become innocent bystanders to education. It is with the careful addition of educational technology that modern schools can realize this goal.

The Paige Academy and Charles N. Fortes Magnet Academy Museum School take their educational roots in astoundingly similar sociocultural situations. Each relies heavily on the arts as a form of natural expression; each defines an alternative learning environment for young children; and each is home to a student body comprised at least largely of students of color. At the start of his article, “They Have Their Own Thoughts,” Hooper reasserts Bob Moses’ argument that “many children of color learn from an early age that there are doubts concerning their capacity to develop intellectually” (Hooper 241). He goes on to explain why the type of alternative learning that occurs at Paige is beneficial to its students and their situation, relating Shamia’s story to reinforce the positive effects of a constructionist philosophy on a young mind still willing to learn.

“The story presented here portrays how the African-centered ideology that defines Paige is put into practice through pedagogy that integrates children’s interests, desires, and valuing of their cultural identities with addressing their academic needs” (242). The fact that the students can identify with each other and with the material and the way that it is presented is a vital factor in the success at Paige. In our story, in which written English is not taught in the classroom and spoken English is seldom taught at home, Fortes appeals most directly to the Hispanic child, going out of its way to teach him or her in the environment that most comfortably facilitates his or her learning and communication. Further, a primary focus of the curriculum is the local history and tradition—the students learn to think critically by evaluating the way that time has crafted the history of Providence, an area that each calls home and to which each can therefore relate.

To enrich the classroom experience and to empower the constructionist ideology with a vehicle for the children to explore their own ideas, the computer plays a large role in the students’ education. Each of the schools “creates a unique setting for exploring the influence of interactions between sociocultural context and uses of constructionist technologies on children developing new ideas” (Hooper 243). In Shamia’s case, this meant that Brother Joe pushed her further to think critically about ideas and mathematical relationships to program her rainbow using Logo when he noticed that she was beginning to think independently. In the case of the second graders at Fortes, we must first assume on the teacher’s word and the school’s reputation and mission as a museum school that the classroom and hallway atmosphere motivate the students to think independently about the history and critically about the idea of change over time. Then we can be confident that this somewhat looser interpretation of constructionism might favor the attitude that learning from software, which often provides a passive, exploratory environment for students, allows them to form their own opinions and further explore the given options in whatever order and to whatever magnitude they see fit; they may choose to concentrate efforts completely in one arena or to partake of a wider breadth of the material. The fact that the information we are presenting is historical, that is to say primarily factual and more suitable for pure memorization, takes a backseat when one adopts the notion that providing a constructionist medium—specifically a hallway kiosk at which any student can peruse the software at his or her leisure—will assist a greater interest in the subject matter.

The values that underline a number of the Museum School’s practices are helpful and interesting when studying the effect of constructivism on a classroom. The school’s focus on connecting students to the material they are learning aids education and the overall goal of the institution. Despite this, it is important to consider the actual material of the program. Designing a museum-based system of education, which is one of Fortes’ most important features, requires a huge amount of preparation and careful decision-making. The article “Reflections on ‘African Voices’” describes some of the work that is involved in creating such a museum environment. Unlike several other groups in the seminar, the Firefighters project focuses less on involved skill or general concepts than specific information and facts. The defense of such techniques relies on the fact that the program is just one facet of many that the Magnet School will provide for this display.

The heart of the conflict is based on the question of how to successfully pull a participant into the experience—how does one connect the concepts of the exhibit with the user’s real world understanding. More importantly, how should the program convey its information to a user who will spend at maximum a few minutes on the program? The museum environment is fleeting; information needs to be conveyed compactly and memorably, while remaining connected to the overall themes that connect one section to another.

The curators of the Smithsonian’s Nation Museum of Natural History ran into similar concerns when redesigning the African wing of their museum. With a wealth of content that would make any designer jealous, the curators needed to choose and tailor the right pieces of information. Their choices needed to reflect the major themes of modern and historical Africa, and then design a setting to connect the information in the visitor’s mind. The Firefighters Project is much simpler in terms of content choice, but not in design decisions. The first step involves determining the core audiences of the program. These generally fall into two categories: students in Ms. Weinburg’s class, and students in other classes in the school. The former have knowledge of the material after several weeks of study, and the latter may have little or no knowledge of firefighting and its history whatsoever. As the Smithsonian curators realized, “our challenge is to hold the interest of both audiences”. For this reason, the group decided to design and develop the option between studying non-competitively (to “earn certification”) or playing a game with an “alert” that would ring at a predetermined point. The goal is to integrate both rookies and old hands at the material, and this system should prepare for that dichotomy.

Subtly important to museum exhibits and programs is the way the user can be influenced through color and artistic atmosphere. For instance, through audience testing at the Smithsonian, curators found that many visitors found the baby-blue color of the walls in the Atlantic Passage section was incongruous: “their visceral reaction led us to rethink the color scheme for the entire hall…to give these stories added weight and dignity” (Arnoldi 25). The history of Providence’s firefighting program also deals with weighty issues, but needs to remain fairly light-hearted as well. Most important in this situation is to remember the audience: there is no reason to tweak the emotions of elementary school students, no need to provoke too strong a reaction. Our color scheme and artistic decisions will keep some of the fiery theme, while staying light-hearted and non-threatening.

To deliver content in line with an underlying theme, the designer needs to first define a set of broad topics. The Smithsonian separated its information into Living in Africa, Working in Africa, and Wealth in Africa – similarly, the Firefighters project is arranged into lessons about Equipment, Truck, Firehouse, and Uniform themes that span time periods. The goal is to show students the connection of events through time, the progression of one technology to another. Also key to the museum’s success is the concept of continuity with a progression of change and development. This means designing with constant types of decoration and coloring (among other things) while using the difference to accentuate change in history. Students will have enough of a challenge trying to understand the connections through time—a unified artistic theme will aid them in this goal.

The challenge to create successful exhibit software for the Fortes’ school involves the integration of disparate goals. First, it is necessary to facilitate an educational experience within a comfortable sociocultural context that connects the student to the material. Also, the program must take into account standard aesthetic, organizational, and cultural considerations in its construction, to foster the best possible museum experience. These two collaborating concepts breed a new type of learning environment that fits the school’s cultural and pedagogical mission.