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Practice Based Facilitation

Session 4

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Improv Game Warm Up

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What is Practice Based Facilitation?

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Identify all the ways a visitor might interact with an exhibit. Collapse these into 5-10 Engagement Categories

For each Engagement Category, identify the practices that visitors would most likely be able to use

Observe visitor and identify visitor’s engagement category

Engagement categories (observed) act as a proxy for unobservable aspects of the visitor’s context (background, interests, age)

Choose a facilitation pathway

Change Engagement

Expand Practices

Prior to Facilitation

(complete for each exhibit)

During

Facilitation

Choose talk moves to either change engagement category, expand practices, or optimize a practice

Optimize a Practice

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Steel washers to build sculptures and experiment with

Two strong cylindrical magnets

Magnetic Islands

Three stainless steel pans

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Magnetic Islands

Engagement Category: Building a bridge of washers between magnets

Brainstorm which practices might be possible and what those practices might look like. For example:

What observations can be made, what questions might be asked, what ideas can be tested, what evidence could be used to support those ideas?

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Pegs hold tracks at different distances from wall

Balls of various diameters, mass, and materials

Wall and flexible tracks

Roll-It Wall

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Level 1. Collecting balls

Level 2. Playing with an existing track

Level 3. Testing an existing track and changing variables

Level 4. Modifying an existing track

Level 5. Building a new track

Level 6. Complex building

Roll-It Wall

Engagement Categories

Explain our observations -- these are the levels we came up with. NOTE THAT THEY ARE EXHIBIT SPECIFIC

level 1. Collecting Balls. Collecting balls that have fallen onto the floor in the small pails used to hold the balls.

Level 2. Playing with an Existing Track. Visitors play with an existing track.The initial interactions of guests of all ages often begin with picking up a ball and placing it on an existing track to see what happens. If these initial observations spark interest and questions, most visitors quickly move on to higher levels of engagement.

Level 3. Testing an existing track and changing variables. Testing an existing track through repeated interactions that appear to be focusing on understanding how a variable affects the ball’s travel along the track. Visitors may change the ball, noticing how balls of different size, material, or mass travel. They may start a ball from different heights along the track, change the initial velocity by pushing the ball instead of just letting it go, or place additional balls strategically along the track to observe what happens when the balls collide.

Level 4. Modifying an existing track (4a. Self-imposed goal, 4b. Externally-imposed goal). Visitors modify an existing track. They may make small or large adjustments to the track. These modifications are usually intentional with some goal in mind. These goals may be self-imposed and flexible, negotiated among a group of people working together. Or the goals might be externally suggested by floor staff or a sign on the wall.

Level 5. Building a new track (5a. Self-imposed goal, 5b. Externally-imposed goal). Visitors start out by tearing down an existing track and starting with a blank wall. These visitors typically have a goal in mind. Like level 4, this goal may be internally or externally imposed.

Level 6. Complex building. Combine two existing tracks with the goal that the ball will travel from one track to the other, building in 3 dimensions, adding additional materials. .

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What practices do you think they are or are not using?

How would you:

Change their engagement category?
Expand their use of practices?
Optimize their use of a specific practice?

Roll It Wall �Case Study Video A

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Two 5th grade boys are rolling balls down a track and through a loop. Consistently, the balls leave the track without completing the loop. The boys try different types of balls and different starting heights, but they are unsuccessful in getting the balls to complete a loop. You notice that the pegs holding the track vary in length, holding the track different distances away from the wall. This means that the track does not make a smooth loop, but instead curves side to side as it also makes a loop.

Roll It Wall Vignette #2

What facilitation pathway would you choose?
What talk moves would you use to move the visitors along that pathway?

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Break

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In Breakout Rooms: Explore the Mystery Bottle

What do you notice?

What do you think is going on?

How can you test your ideas?

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Based on your experience investigating the mystery bottle and your experience with visitors in your home informal learning institution:

What are the ways that you think visitors would explore the bottle?

What are some explanations that they might propose?

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Watch video

How was this experience similar and different from your experience?

Mystery Bottle Facilitation Case Study A

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Watch video

How was this experience similar and different from your experience?

Mystery Bottle Facilitation Case Study B

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Off-screen

Person watching video

Learner Facilitator

Video 1 - Mystery Bottle facilitated through Practice Based Facilitation.

Video 2 - Explanation of Mystery Bottle by Bill Nye.

Discussion Prompt: What is the difference between the learner’s experience in the two videos?

Comparison of Case Study Videos

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Steel washers to build sculptures and experiment with

Two strong cylindrical magnets

Magnetic Islands

Three stainless steel pans

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Watch the following video and answer the questions below:

How would you categorize the visitors’ engagement with the exhibit?

What practices are the visitors engaged in?
What practices can you infer that the visitors might be engaged in?
What other practices are possible for the visitors to be engaged in?

What facilitation pathway would you choose?

Change engagement?
Expand practices?
Optimize a practice?

What talk moves would you use to move the visitors along that pathway?

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Magnetic Islands Case Study Video A

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Watch the following case study video and answer the questions below:

How would you categorize the visitors’ engagement with the exhibit?

What practices are the visitors engaged in?
What practices can you infer that the visitors might be engaged in?
What other practices are possible for the visitors to be engaged in?

What facilitation pathway does the facilitator choose?
What talk moves do they use to move the visitors along that pathway?
Is the facilitator modeling the behavior of exploration of the exhibit?
What missed opportunities do you see for facilitation?

What facilitation pathway would you choose?
What talk moves would you use to move the visitors along that pathway?

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Magnetic Islands Case Study Video B

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Debrief

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Practice Based Facilitation

Module 1 - Session 4

Thank you for participating!