Turning on minds with computers in the kitchen: supporting group reflection in the midst of engaging in hands-on activities

How can we promote the kinds of reflection needed for deep and lasting learning and the development of disposition toward scientific reasoning in the context of an informal learning community? In our research, we’ve discovered that learners have a greater appreciation of what they are learning when we give them the goal of helping others outside their community. This appreciation is demonstrated by their willingness to jot down notes during activities and later write articles for an online cooking “magazine.” The online cooking magazine has the potential to support learning and development of disposition toward scientific reasoning in several ways. It provides a place to hang scaffolding that promotes recognizing what’s been learned, what led to successes, and how science contributed to those successes. It also provides a context for knowledge building in which learners create concrete artifacts they can share outside of the Kitchen Science Investigators community. We found that with computers in the kitchen and an online magazine to contribute to, participants were stopping and reflecting in ways that we had only seen previously when a facilitator was prompting them.