News Archives
Inquirium's "Take a Stand" exhibit premieres at Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
April 17, 2009
Inquirium debuts an exhibit to teach children aged 9-11 the universal lessons of the Holocaust, as part of the grand opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center’s newly constructed museum in Skokie, Illinois. The museum opens its doors April 19, 2009.
A one-of-a-kind exhibit, Take a Stand uses invisible motion tracking to immerse young people in a rich environment in which they can safely explore the challenges, risks, and rewards of taking action to impact society. Over the past three years, Inquirium conceived, designed and produced the exhibit.
Take a Stand teaches about the value of helping others and the power of your actions to make a difference in the world. As you explore its playful, interactive virtual world, you encounter situations that cause you to reflect, make choices, and take actions in order to make your community a better place.
When you enter the exhibit, you become a frog, part of an unfolding story that takes place in a virtual pond. As you move around the exhibit space, you control, through your movements, the actions of your frog. Through your interactions with other frogs, you explore your role in the pond and your relationship to the other frogs.
The exhibit is a permanent installation within the Miller Family Youth Exhibition.
Inquirium's Matt Brown publishes book chapter on Teacher's Use of Curriculum Materials
January 16, 2009
Inquirium’s Matt Brown wrote a chapter for a just released book on teachers’ use of classroom curriculum materials. The chapter is titled “The Teacher-Tool Relationship: Theorizing the Design and Use of Curriculum Materials.” Based on Matt’s dissertation, it examines the different ways teachers use curriculum materials in the course of their everyday practice (some rely on them as-is, some adapt them to suit their needs, and some use them as jumping off points for their own improvisations), and how designers can create materials that foster creative, dynamic teaching.
The chapter frames teaching as a process of design, in which teachers use tools in various creative ways to realize their goals. Borrowing the metaphor of jazz, where musicians rely on sheet music but no two performances are alike, the chapter highlights both the common and unique processes by which teachers translate inert curriculum materials into dynamic practice. The chapter’s key contribution is the concept of pedagogical design capacity, which calls attention to the skills by which teachers work with available resources as they craft instruction to suit their local needs.