For an outdoor educator, what is the value of an authentic experience? How can you guide your learners to affective engagement -- an attitudinal, emotional connection with the material you're sharing? That's the topic I discuss today with Lacie Ownbey, educator at the Indianapolis Zoo. She shares her adventures with dolphins, seals, and sharks to get learners excited -- and that way, they learn more. The jargon of the week, in fact, is affective engagement -- check out the blog post here! Drop b...
Feb 09, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 9
On this week’s podcast episode , I have a conversation with two Explainer-Facilitators from the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s storied palace of science, art, and perception. Gwen Payne and Gianna Calamar both participate in the Exploratorium’s diversity and inclusion efforts, and we talk a lot today about how including everyone improves the visitor experience and, of course, increases learning. Get in Touch! I would love to hear from you! Feel free to drop by the Web site and drop me a message....
Jan 31, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 8
On this week’s podcast, I talk with Elise McFarland, an Interpretation and Education Manager for the California State Park system. In her far-ranging job, she’s responsible for several parks’ cultural resources and, of course, many levels and modes of interpretation . Like many informal educators – especially outdoor educators in regional parks – Elise calls herself an interpreter . Since Freeman Tilden published Interpreting Our Heritage in 1957, the idea of interpretation as a cultural activit...
Jan 24, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 7
On this week’s podcast, I talk with science educator Brittany Sabol. She’s the training director at Environmental Volunteers, an organization that turns everyday folks into extraordinary informal educators who go into classrooms to provide science enrichments. On the blog, I have a post about volunteer training , often a big part of informal education sites. For my ever-growing jargon list, I search for a good definition for a term we all hear a lot but don’t interrogate enough: Inquiry . Please...
Jan 17, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 6
On this week’s podcast, I talk with Minnesota naturalist Claire Dobie. Nature-based education is popular – who doesn’t like a field trip? But we don’t talk as much about how learning while immersed in the outdoors, in nature, can impact student behavior and outcomes. Claire and I discuss the profession of naturalist and the “nature” of “nature-based education” – how we do it, why we do it, and how to get started! Maybe most importantly, Claire and I talk about saying “I don’t know” when you have...
Jan 11, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 5
On this week’s podcast, I talk with piano teacher Jim Cornfoot from Memphis, Tennessee. We talk about the kinds of connections non-classroom teachers make with their students. For some informal educators like piano teachers, those connections can last for years. There’s a huge body of research around affective connection and how it impacts learning. Essentially, we learn when we have connective relationships with the teachers and fellow learners around us. So the first blog post this week is abo...
Dec 20, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 4
On this week’s podcast, I talk with Eileen Garcia-Sanchez of the San Antonio Zoo in Texas . It’s a fully-accredited preschool that takes a lot of its inspiration from the world of outdoor education. At the school, children spend a majority of their time outdoors, on both the school’s outdoor campus and in the zoo itself. Eileen and I talk about nature-based learning experiences and of all things, moss balls! Ball moss is a fascinating Texas epiphyte – I’ve put some pictures and info up on the We...
Dec 13, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 3
This week, I talk with Jim DePompei of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in Los Angeles. We talk about visitor engagement during the pandemic and, of course, doing the grunion dance. Grunion are small fish and pretty unremarkable except for this one thing: they dance. Grunion visit wide, sandy beaches in Southern California and use wavelets to coast as high up the beach as possible. Then they make burrows. Females wriggle backwards into the sand, nestle vertically into the sand, and wait for the male...
Dec 06, 2022•20 min•Season 1Ep. 2
For our inagural podcast, I talk with science educator Kady Yeomans of the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. The small city is the museum hotspot of rural Georgia, and the 100,000-foot Tellus is their crown jewel. Kady and I talk about techniques for working a museum floor and also, what happens when controversial topics come up, like evolution and cosmology? Connections... Kady relates a story about how she got interested in archaeology in the first place by finding an ancient pot...
Nov 29, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Hey, are you an Informal Educator? Museum Guide? Naturalist? Coach? Music Teacher? Zoo Teacher? The Classroom Beyond, an informal education podcast, launches next week! For our very first episode, we talk with Kady Yeomans, a science museum educator in Georgia. Listen in for a little taste! Every Tuesday, we'll talk with a different informal educator about issues and challenges -- also what fun it is to be an informal educator! Subscribe to The Classroom Beyond, an Informal Education Podcast, on...
Nov 15, 2022•51 sec
Coming soon: The Classroom Beyond, the podcast for informal educators! We'll be chatting with naturalists, coaches, music teachers, museum guides, and docents -- all of us who teach outside of the classroom! We're dropping our first episode on November 29th. Here's a little taste of what's to come -- subscribe now and stay tuned! Site: https://www.theclassroombeyond.com
Nov 02, 2022•1 min
Coming soon: The Classroom Beyond, the podcast for informal educators! We'll be chatting with naturalists, coaches, music teachers, museum guides, and docents -- all of us who teach outside of the classroom! We're dropping our first episode on November 29th. Here's a little taste of what's to come -- subscribe now and stay tuned! Episode: http://theclassroombeyond.com/podcasts/s01/episode-00-teaser/
Oct 28, 2022•1 min
