Form Maker Stem Ed Supp Maker Stem Ed Supp Maker Stem Ed Support form 1

Museum/Science Center Partner Interview Protocol

Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today. I’m with Education Development Center. For this project, we’re working with the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) to learn about the implementation of the Making Curriculum at 21^st CCLC sites across the country. This effort is supported under a cooperative agreement between NYSCI and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In our interview with you today, I hope to find out how implementation has been going at the sites in your area and any successes and challenges you’ve had as a museum/science center partner throughout the project.

In order to capture all of your thoughts and feedback, I would like to record our interview. Unless otherwise required by law, your responses will remain confidential and will not be connected to your name or museum/science center. If there’s a question you don’t want to answer, feel free to skip it. This session will last approximately 60 minutes. You’re welcome to end the interview at any time. Is it alright if I record our discussion? (Start recording and confirm consent to record.)

1. Please describe your role at your museum/science center.

2. Before your work with this program, did you have any prior experience with Making activities?

• Prompt

  • If so, what kind of experience?

  • Have you facilitated or developed a similar type of program?

3. What types of 21^st CCLC sites did you work with to implement this Maker program?

• Prompt

  • Public, private, charter?

  • Title 1?

4. Were you involved in the 21^st CCLC site selection? Please explain.

• Prompt

  • Had you worked with any of these 21^st CCLC sites prior to this program? In what capacity?

5. Please describe your role in implementing the Making program. What aspects of the program were you responsible for doing?

• Prompt

  • Specifically, who was responsible for facilitating activities?

  • Who managed the materials?

  • Who coordinated scheduling/logistics with the sites? NYSCI?

6. For each of your sites, how did the youth participants become involved in the Making program? (e.g., were they hand-picked by the 21^st CCLC staff? Did youth choose to be in the program? Were all students from the 21^st CCLC program involved?)

• Prompt

  • How old were the participants?

  • Were the same participants in the program every session?

  • Were there any non 21^st CCLC students participating in the program?

I’d like to move on to some questions that get into thinking about the logistics around program implementation.

7. Please describe a typical Making activity/session.

• Prompt

  • Approximately how many youth participated each day?

  • What was the room set up like?

  • How did you start the activities? How did you wrap up the activities?

8. Approximately how much time did you spend on each activity? Did you feel like there was enough time for each session?

9. Overall, how successful did you feel students were in doing the activities?

• Prompt

  • What did success look like to you?

10. What were the biggest challenges while implementing the Making activities (e.g., materials, preparation, scheduling)?

11. What changes or adaptations did you make to the activities?

• Prompt

  • What made you choose to make these changes or adaptations?

Thinking now about the professional development opportunities provided by NYSCI . . .

12. In which professional development activities did you and your museum/science center staff team participate (e.g., the May partner training, Google Hangouts, calls with NYSCI liaison, training of the 21^st CCLC staff, etc.)?

• Prompt

  • How often did you participate in the professional development activities offered?

  • In what ways, if any, were those offerings useful?

  • Specifically, which ones were most useful? Not useful? Please explain.

13. Did you feel like your role and responsibilities as a museum partner were clearly defined for this program? Please explain.

• Prompt

  • Were the roles and responsibilities defined the same roles and responsibilities realized? Or in practice did your role and responsibility evolve as implementation progressed?

14. What role did the professional development offerings play in your efforts to implement the program with 21^st CCLC sites?

15. Overall, how do you feel about the amount and type of professional development support you received from NYSCI? Please explain.

• Prompt

  • Did you feel prepared to implement either the original Exploratorium curriculum or the curriculum with the NYSCI addendum?

Now I’d like to touch on your relationship with the 21^st CCLC site staff.

16. Please describe your relationships with the staff at your 21^st CCLC sites.

• Prompt

  • What was it like coordinating program implementation with the site staff?

  • How closely did you work with them?

  • How frequently did you communicate with them?

  • If they co-facilitated – what was it like co-facilitating activities?

17. How did you train your 21^st CCLC sites on the Making curriculum?

• Prompt

  • Amount of time they were trained?

  • Setting in which they were trained?

  • What were the successes in training the 21^st CCLC site staff?

  • What were the challenges in training the 21^st CCLC site staff?

18. Overall, how do you feel about the amount and type of training support you offered your 21^st CCLC sites?

• Prompt

  • Based on your training, did you feel they were prepared to co-facilitate the activities with you?

  • Based on your training, did you feel they were prepared to implement the activities on their own without your co-facilitation support?

19. Since working with this Making program, what changes (if any) did you notice in the 21^st CCLC site staff’s attitudes, interest, or capacity around STEM and Making? Please explain.

Now I’d like to touch on what you and your museum/science center gained from being a part of the program.

20. Since working with this Making program, what have you noticed about you (or your museum’s/science center’s) own attitude, interest, or capacity around working with Making curricula?

21. What tools or resources (if any) did you (or your museum/science center) learn about from being a part of this program?

22. Overall, how confident would you (or your museum/science center) feel to train and support 21^st CCLC sites in implementing a program like the Making program in the future? (i.e., with or without the support of NYSCI)

23. Overall, how interested would you (or your museum/science center) be in providing support to 21^st CCLC sites to implement a Making program like this again? (i.e., with or without the support of NYSCI)

Thinking about the youth who were in the program . . .

24. Please describe what you’ve noticed about youth participants’ interest, attitudes, or engagement regarding Making.

• Prompt

  • Did you notice any changes over the course of the program? (e.g., changes in youth’s participation, deepening discussion, deepening question asking by participants, participant’s ability to work through frustration?) Please explain.

  • What is one memorable moment that you can share with me related to STEM interest, attitudes or engagement?

25. Please describe participants’ interactions with each other throughout the activities.

• Prompt

  • Did you notice their interactions changing over time? (e.g., have you noticed participants encouraging, helping, sharing ideas with each other, or taking on roles of expertise?) Please explain.

  • What is one memorable moment that you can share with me related to participants’ interactions?

26. Overall, what do you think were the benefits of doing this Making program with youth at the 21^st CCLC sites?

27. Overall, what were the challenges?

• Prompt

  • How did you seek to address those during the activities?

  • If you were to do the program again, how would you address them?

A few last questions:

28. Have you or your museum colleagues used this curriculum outside of the 21^st CCLC program? If so, how?

29. Overall, what suggestions do you have for improving this program in the future?

• Prompt

  • For museum/science center partners?

  • For 21^st CCLC facilitators?

  • For youth who do the program?

30. Anything else you would like to share with the team who designed this program?

Thank you for your time. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us.