Discourse Analysis 1

Discourse Analysis 1

Tran, Lynn Uyen. "Teaching science in museums: The pedagogy and goals of museum educators."  Science Education 91.2 (2007): 278-297. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 17 Feb. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?hid=106&sid=c9dabbe0-9601-44fd-bf7c-dca0ad5006d5%40sessionmgr115&vid=14>

                The author’s goal in writing this paper is to identify the aspects of the effectiveness science museum educators have in teaching beneficial lessons to kids.  This is a fairly current research paper written in 2005, the author targets teachers and science museum educators to speak of his thoughts and strategies derived from his research; he provides beneficial information to those teaching science currently and in the future.  The pitch Tran offers are science museum educators need specific teaching plans and styles to be more effective in creating lasting memories beneficial to students.  His complaint is that research on the teaching of museum educators is too inconsistent; he (the author) will conduct his own research to draw his own conclusions.  His research questions are…

1.                 How do educators teach science lessons in museums?

2.                 What are the educators’ goals for science lessons taught at museums?

While strongly implicating the benefit of student visits to science museums, the author states fairly early in his work, that “teachers are novices at planning field trips,” assuming teachers do not plan field trips beneficial to student learning.  As I found myself thinking back to all the awesome field trips I had the opportunity of partaking in, I reasoned the author made false assumptions, and I am sure many people would agree with me.  Not sure if this was a predesigned strategy, to cause questioning and remembrance in the reader, I continued on reading with museum experiences in the back of my mind.  Never the less, mostly every elementary schools schedules a science museum field trip, and Tran says (paraphrased) it is the job of the museum educators to provide lessons with memory-making experiences.  These memory making experiences are due not only to the lessons, but the environments they are in; museums have a specific ‘feel’ that seem to activate one’s inner-scientist, making one think about the meaning and reason for an exhibit.  Tran continues on for pages about the roles played by museum staff, portraying them as teachers in their own way.  What I thought most interesting was the way the author described how museum educators are “helping the helpers;” while this term may seem confusing, it shows the relationship between the teacher and the museum educator.  The volunteers are helping the teachers by guiding the students and providing the group with fascinating information and stunning visual actions which text cannot portray.  Feeding back to the teachers, who are helping the kids, the educators are helping the helpers do their job in a more proficient way.  In this way the author is trying to communicate the benefit/relationship museum educators have to the teachers; the instructors of the future’s young minds.

Tran’s research, in which this paper is based, lies on the foundation of four case studies, yes, four case studies, not ten, not twenty, but four.  The benefit of this type of research is that case studies go into depth on specific targets; therefore the researcher can uncover much more information than questionnaire, survey, etc.  The problem is that this type of research in not conclusive to all studies, in this case, museums.  While the author can speak about the many facets of effective teaching styles and techniques museum educators can have, not all museums should do as Tran says.  To make this clearer, if a teacher has a group of rowdy boys goofing around in class the teacher must find an effective way to handle their antics.  So let’s say the teacher finds a successful method to handle the boys, however, if a group of rowdy girls are goofing around in class, the teacher will try to use the same technique as before, but will fail.  Why? Because the subject is different.  This pertains to the different atmospheres of museums and locations and the types of people who visit them.  Also, the four case studies were done on east-coast museums, not in different parts of the country, therefore providing room for disagreement on appropriate lesson strategies amongst educators.