Learning Science Through Encounters with Museum Dioramas Themes and Patterns in Students’ Conversations

Abstract

The use of dioramas in educational activities at the museum provides exceptional opportunities for students’ learning. In this study, we present a detailed analysis of student teachers’ moment-by-moment learning during a teaching activity in a museum of natural history. Specifically, we focused on the content and the direction learning takes in response to what students notice in a diorama. Data comes from the videotaped conversations of ten student teacher groups of encounters with a diorama representing a natural scene of animal behaviour. Using analysis of practical epistemologies, the students’ talk was segmented and examined for different themes emerging during the activity. The ten students’ conversations elicited during the activity were, on average 12 min long, with 15 different themes evolving in the conversations. Surprisingly, the most common theme engaged in by the students was not the most related to the curatorial intention of the diorama. Even though each conversation developed differently, it was possible to identify certain temporal patterns in the order that themes appeared. When examining the relationship between the different themes in the conversation, our results showed that the relationship established to certain details of the diorama helped the students significantly to go further with the conversation and the process of meaning-making. Furthermore, teacher’s intervention was important when details of the diorama were not noticed spontaneously by the students.