Hvad er spørgsmålet: om at skabe et læringsrum i udstillingen

Title: What is the question? Creating a learning environment in the exhibition

Abstract: Data presented in this paper involves asking 15–16-year-old students questions during a visit to a science centre. The hypothesis was that it is possible to create curiosity and reflection at a science centre by stimulating and facilitating a dialogue. The background was the vast amount of studies showing that unstructured free-choice school trips result in little (if any) student reflection.
We used a dialogic approach to prompt the students’ curiosity and reflection. Four students were chosen to participate in the study. One of the authors took on the role as facilitator and joined each of the four students on a visit to seven exhibits (pre-selected by the authors) and recorded the students’ interactions on video. During each visit, the facilitator made sure that the students understood how to use the exhibits so that technical/practical problems were not an issue. The researcher also conducted a brief interview adjacent to each exhibit in order to allow students to reflect upon their experiences. We also interviewed the four students one year later in order to find out how the dialogic approach had impacted these students over a longer term.
We found that the approach facilitates curiosity and reflection, and that the students had a good recollection of the visit one year later and had used insights gained from the visit. Furthermore, it appeared that the four students had different learning styles but that the facilitator was able to embrace several different learning styles through the approach. The dialogic approach thus seems to constitute a fruitful guidance tool at science centres but possibly also at other types of museum, such as art museums.

Key words: Learning, dialogue, style, curiosity, reflection, video, science centre.