-People of CoEd- This is Susan Rowe. She is one of the SEA through the eye of an artist event coordinators. Susan is a current PhD student for Environmental Education and Free Choice Learning.
Please note: The College of Education’s PhD program no longer offers a free-choice learning focus or related courses.
Free Choice Learning PhD Candidate Jen Wyld is attending the ISTE (International Society for Technology) conference taking place since this past weekend through Tuesday.
The ISTE conference serves as a part idea incubator and part collaborative workspace and brings educators of all types and grade levels together to share discoveries and develop solutions for their greatest challenges—all while connecting to a global network of education resources.
Jen is not just attending the conference but is also guest-blogging for them. Here is a link to her first post: http://blog.iste.org/making-connections-making-connections.
Please note: The College of Education’s PhD program no longer offers a free-choice learning focus or related courses.
Marine Science Day at the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon
Saturday, April 12, 10am-4pm – Schedule of Events
Join the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) in Newport for Marine Science Day! HMSC will open its doors for a behind-the-scenes peek at the cutting-edge research, education and outreach in marine sciences that makes this marine laboratory unique. Meet researchers from Oregon State University and six government agency partners (see below). Explore with interactive science displays presented by marine scientists and special family-friendly activities by Oregon Sea Grant, the Oregon Coast Aquarium and US Fish and Wildlife.
Come learn what’s new on the Oregon Coast’s most dynamic Marine Science campus.
For more information, see hmsc.oregonstate.edu/marinescienceday
TO VOLUNTEER – please go to our volunteer sign-up link: http://www.volunteersignup.org/JCWWD. Volunteers serve as greeters and guides, and shifts are two hours – parent/child teams welcome!
For accommodation requests related to a disability, or for other questions, email maryann.bozza@oregonstate.edu or call 541-867-0234.
Note: Most Marine Science Day exhibits and activities will be indoors, although visitors are advised to dress for the weather as portions of tours, paths between buildings and some exhibits will be outdoors. The OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center is located at 2030 SE Marine Science Drive in Newport, Oregon.
Marine Science Day partners:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Oregon State University is excited to announce the next courses in our online professional certificate in Free-Choice Learning for science and informal educators.
Designing Learning Environments: Physical dimensions of free-choice learning Online | 30 hours, $540
Learning is influenced by the interaction of variables within three contexts — personal, socio-cultural and physical. This course focuses on how macro-scale environmental factors, like space, crowding and novelty, and micro-scale environmental factors, like design elements, real objects and different media, support free-choice learning. Begins April 1.
Developing Effective Evaluations Online | 15 hours, $390
The course provides a hands-on approach to effectively assessing/evaluating learning and behavior within the free-choice learning contexts such as museums, national parks, zoos, aquariums and broadcast media. The design and implementation of an evaluation is used as a lens for understanding the hows and whys of assessment and evaluation. This course is designed to help professionals design their own evaluation/assessment research as well as become informed consumers of others’ research. Begins April 1.
Program Highlights
· No prerequisites, instructor-led, research based
· Peer interaction with professionals across free-choice learning contexts
· Completely online program offers flexible scheduling
· Take one class, or enroll in an entire certificate program and receive a discount
Group Discounts available! Go to:
The College of Education is pleased to introduce Dr. Molly Phipps as a guest lecturer for the winter term. Dr. Phipps will be teaching Dr. Lynn Dierking’s course, “Sociocultural Dimensions of Free-Choice Learning,” while Dr. Dierking is on sabbatical.
Dr. Phipps is the owner of Molly Phipps Consulting, a free-choice learning firm that conducts research and evaluation on environmental education and community-building endeavors. She is the first PhD graduate of the Oregon State University Free-Choice Learning program with a minor in Oceanography, where she studied the implementation of an iPod-based program at Hatfield Marine Science Center for her dissertation.
Dr. Phipps received her undergraduate degree in geology-biology from Brown University and worked as a research assistant and lab manager in a paleoclimatology lab at Brown before moving to Oregon. Since graduating from OSU, she has lived in St. Paul, MN where she worked as a Senior Evaluation and Research Associate at the Science Museum of Minnesota until 2013. At the Science Museum of Minnesota, her work focused on the visual display of data on Science on a Sphere, communicating climate change through exhibits and programs for the public, workshops for scientists, and community development project.
In her new venture, Molly Phipps Consulting, Dr. Phipps is focusing on evaluation capacity building for smaller organizations, program evaluation for free-choice learning opportunities, and ways to make evaluation more sustainable. She also serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Association of Environmental Education, on the Educational Committee for the Will Steger Foundation, and on the Editorial Board for Visitor Studies; she is the 2013-2014 Chair of the Informal Learning Environment’s Research SIG at AERA.
When she’s not working, Dr. Phipps enjoys spending time outside with her husband Ralph, their daughter Lila, and their pets gardening or walking along the Mississippi River, as well as cooking, and knitting.
A recent article in Education Week highlights the work being done by Free Choice Learning faculty and researchers John Falk, Lynn Dierking, Nancy Staus and their Synergies research project.
Click below to read the article posted on our Facebook page. To learn more about the Synergies project, please visit here.
As an assistant professor of science education at Oregon State University, Shawn Rowe studies how people learn about science and the ocean outside of the classroom.
According to Rowe, people do most of their learning over the course of their entire lives, rather than the years they spend in formal education.
Here, Rowe talks about “free choice learning,” and how his work can help promote it.
It’s easy to add a bit of education to your family vacation. Museums have upped the wow factor in recent years, creating galleries and programs that engage the mind and imagination. “These are cool places where you get to see things that aren’t in your everyday life,” says Lynn Dierking, a science and math education professor at Oregon State University and co-author of Museum Experience Revisited.