Thanks for the great questions! We are interested in collaborating and scaling our work. There are great opportunities we have been exploring to do so in Chicago (as you point, out Adler also has a flexible workshop space for young learners), as well as other informal learning institutions elsewhere (e.g., libraries; museums serving families in rural and small towns). 

We observe parent-child interactions during tinkering and score the video records using a system we have developed to capture engineering practices as outlined in NGSS and also described by others (e.g., Quinn & Bell in Design Make Play, Honey and Kanter, Eds.). Essentially, we adapt these to what we see with young children and their families in a tinkering exhibit. Our codes include: asking questions and defining problems, using and/or referring to models and/or creations made by staff and visitors to develop ideas, planning and seeing what materials are available, testing creations or parts of creations, math talk, and engaging in reflection, comparison, and evaluations/describing value of experience. Happy to share out our detailed coding system directly with you if you are interested. 

Thanks for your terrific questions. We've been very interested in the social nature of learning as well. The Tinkering Lab is an example of multi-sided, multi-visitor design, concepts researched by Minda Borun  her seminal Curator articles continue to inspire).   Mostly we see visitors engaging within groups or families, but they also have the example of what other visitors are doing and how they are interacting.  Caregivers tend to promote engineering process by asking questions and encouraging children to test and modify, based on observations.  Facilitators will often model these prompts and questions. Adults seem to have the effect of helping children be more methodical and reflective as they tinker. We've been studying the effect of a number of programmatic changes on interactions within  families.   

We do see families referring to others creations. Sometimes it is creations that have been left behind. Other times it is looking at what others are creating as it is happening, or how things work out for others when they conduct a test (e.g., whether something someone else has made rolls down the ramp). 

Facilitators do offer prompts and questions, and we do see parents incorporate some of these into their own natural way of talking with their children. We see more engineering-related talk during tinkering when families have received an orientation from facilitation staff, but it isn't just echoing what the facilitator said, but more talk about the engineering process overall. Also, families are engaging in more engineering related talk when the design of the exhibit provides explicit opportunities for testing (e.g., a ramp, a wind tunnel) than when these testing features are not available in the space. 

Yes! We have a terrific set up at Chicago Children's Museum. Families who consent to being part of our research activities are video recorded as they work in the Tinkering Lab. We have several hard wired cameras so we can capture what these families do as they work in the space (e.g., move from a work table to a wind tunnel across the room). The multiple cameras also help us to focus in only on the families we have consented. Families also wear wireless microphones that allow us to hear their conversations during tinkering. 

We have developed several coding systems that guide what we are looking for in the video records. We review the records, for example, to determine the frequency with which families engaged in testing their design, and whether after the test they redesign/iterate their design, and who performs the test (parent, child). We find from these analyses, for example, that when the child initiates the test, they are more likely to then move to redesign/iterate their creation compared to when the adult initiates testing. Happy to talk more with you about specifics of video analysis!

Hi Barbara! Thank you for you question! In Tinkering Lab, we are an open all the time, drop in space within Chicago Children's Museum.

Visitors always get a quick introduction which includes introducing ourselves, the challenge and the space. At busier points of the year we've also invited visitors to have an orientation to the challenge, for example, "Make Something that Rolls." This orientation has included science content (for something to roll either the wheel or the wheels/axles need to spin), and modeling and practicing close observation and comparison of examples. "Why does this vehicle roll and this one does not?" "Which creation moves more, why?"

As facilitators we do not follow a script, but we have a set of goals we are striving to reach during our interactions with visitors while being responsive to their needs and interests.