Learning Environment Design: the Penn Museum's Imagine Africa exhibit

Yesterday I had the fortune of tagging along with my supervisor, chair of the Sociology Department Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, as he led a tour of the Imagine Africa exhibit at the Penn Museum.  Imagine Africa is an interactive project about African culture and traditions that includes multimedia aspects visitors can engage either in the exhibit at the museum or online.  The video below explains it more:

Dr. Zuberi led the tour for 4th, 5th and 6th grade students who are in the Bright Lights Intitiative. This program’s mission is to enhance educational outcomes for marginalized African American students in the city. They specifically study African culture and traditions, so this trip was perfect for the children.

Dr. Tukufu Zuberi with the Bright Lights at the Penn Museum

As I walked through the exhibit with the students and got to talk to a few of them, I realized how much the design of the environment of this exhibit encouraged learning.  

One of my big study interests is learning environment design.  I want to look into what ways can we design formal and informal learning environments to best serve students of all ages.  This stems from my belief that too many classrooms still use the “Teacher/Professor talks in front of the class to rows full of students” method.  I believe that there was a time when this method was the right way to go, but from what I notice, students today (of all ages) are apt to get distracted by anything (especially technology) when the learning environment is shaped this way.

Imagine Africa creates a learning environment about some of the culture and traditions of Africa that serves as an alternative to the traditional method of museum exhibition.  Instead of going the traditional museum exhibit route and having pieces of art on the wall or in cases with brief descriptions, Imagine Africa aims for a truly rich, interactive multimedia experience.  From allowing visitors to write questions on large display dry-erase walls that are integrated into the exhibit, to enabling the viewer to watch videos or control images that are displayed on mini flat-screen monitors, Imagine Africa essentially flattens and expands the learning environment.  Visitors can engage with every station, creating their own spin on a theme introduced by, for example, articles of religious clothing that people in Africa used to wear. And throughout the exhibit, there are questions for the visitors to see to prompt their imaginative thinking.   There are also display monitors where visitors can type in their feedback; and one consistant message throughout the exhibit is that it’s not “done” and the visitors are helping to “complete” it. To further all of this learning, the Imagine Africa website provides another area for the discussion to continue around the themes examined in the exhibit.

Now imagine (pardon the pun) if a grade school or college classroom was designed in the same way.  Every day would be an interactive learning experience where the environment would stimulate the learning, and the teacher would supplement this with his or her knowledge and expertise.  At this point, the pressure is not so much on the teacher who speaks in front of the rows of students.  Instead, the responsibility of information distribution comes from the design of the classroom, the multimedia components littered throughout the classroom, student questions, answers and dialogue, and finally a well-versed teacher or professor who can wrap it all up. After all of this, the class can continue their learning at home through a website which asks additional questions and provides more multimedia resources. 

In this case, knowledge is not just received passively by the students, but it can also be discovered, created, molded and shaped. I do understand that for this type of learning environment to become more normal in the classroom, more of today's scholars would have to study the design of formal/informal and online/offline learning environments and actually put those studies into applicable practice. At the moment, I do not know many scholars that do this, but I plan to do some research and looking around to find out.

If you are interested in education and specifically, how the classroom environment may evolve in future years, I recommend checking out the Imagine Africa exhibit to see just how the Penn Museum turned an exhibit into an extraordinary learning environment. I actually recommend everyone in GSE take a quick look at the exhibit if you can - this could be a template of sorts for the normal classroom of the future.

Skyfall - Good. Really Good.

As a part-time student/full - time employee/all the time husband, it’s nice to catch a movie to relax sometimes.  Going to the movies has been one of my favorite pastimes, but with rising costs and quick DVD/On-Demand turnaround, it takes a pretty big movie for me to go nowadays.  Skyfall fit that bill perfectly, so me and my wife went to the IMAX theater at the Franklin institute to check it out.  I was excited for this one because the marketing campaign just made this movie look so...intriguing.

I know, the James Bond series is all about intrigue.  But in my generation of Bond movie-viewing (which has been Pierce Bronsan and Danielle Craig) I can’t recall the marketing of a Bond movie making it seem like there was as much at stake as was done for Skyfall.  The James Bond character is renowned for being cool, calm and collected and finding a way out of no way.  But the marketing for this movie made it look like his cool, his calm, and his collected would be severely tested.  That made for a more intriguing hook than usual, which I think was a major factor into the massive amount of money this film has made so far worldwide (and will continue to make).  The good news for everyone pouring their money into this film is that Skyfall is a well-rounded, solid, and very worthy chapter in the Bond legacy.  

Bond is as vulnerable as I’ve ever seen him.  Daniel Craig plays an obviously weary Bond (whether this is because he’s weary of the role in real life doesn’t matter, it works!) who must deal with the usual pitfalls of being a spy - you could be lied to, betrayed, etc. - along with his own physical and mental setbacks.  One of the recurring questions this movie wants the viewers to ask themselves: “Is Bond too old?  Has he lost it?”  It’s a turn on the character that might be considered too serious and self-aware for some Bond fanatics, but I found it very interesting.  So interesting, that I wish they would have explored it a little more in the movie.

Judi Dench does a great job as M and has significant screen time and importance to the story arc.  Unfortunately, her character is so stoic that the emotional arc they take with her and the relationship she has with other characters in the movie (including the mother-like relationship with Bond) doesn’t quite hit home as much as it could have.  Nonetheless, watching her character struggle through the threats of being fired, losing her top agents, and being targeted for death is an adventure from the start.

The reason for most of these threats to M come from the movie’s villain, Silva, played by Javier Bardem.   Bardem puts a unique spin on the “psychopath who wasn’t that bad before he was made this way” villain, and he does it progressively.  When he first appeared on screen, I thought to myself “Bond is going to wipe this guy out immediately! He’s a wimp!” But by the end of the movie, I was concerned for everyone in his path because he was truly a loose cannon.  His character seemed to be inspired by Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.  This is not a bad thing.  I’ve read a few reviews that say that he should get an Oscar nomination... I wouldn’t be mad about that at all.

The other characters are okay in this, but it’s really all about Bond, M, and Silva.  The computer whiz Q (played by Ben Whishaw)  is entertaining in his small role as he makes his mark a little later in the movie.  I wish that the movie would have given Naomi Harris (as Eve) more to do.

What really makes this film stand out is how it is put together.  From the very first shot in the movie (with the familiar Bond music note), this movie draws you in with its composition.  The cinematography and the set pieces are great (I especially like the last set piece, which is drab, gritty, and enhances the story).  The lighting is excellent.  The sound is great and so is the music.  The movie is very well paced and by the end, it doesn’t feel like it was nearly 3 hours at all.  This is a SOLID movie.  The director Sam Mendes took this Bond movie and made it a true tale worth diving into.  

This one could stand out in a lot of ways as a template for the future Bond movies.  The marketing campaign made it look and sound like a lot of heavy things were truly at stake, the direction and cinematography of the movie is inspired, and right now, Daniel Craig IS James Bond (took him a couple movies to get there, it would be a shame if he stopped now).

A solid movie all around, I recommend you see it and in IMAX if you can.

Skyfall Report Card:

Story - B+

Characters - B

Cinematography - A

Sound - A

Music - A

Extra Credit: Great, Great opening sequence.  The first 20 minutes of the film plus the intro will have you hooked.

Final Grade: A

Advice from the Friendly Face of GSE

When entering into any public building, it’s always nice to see a friendly face.  Penn GSE has that in the form of the security officers who sit at a desk near the entrance of the building.

One security officer I’ve gotten to know a little more than the others is Officer Edwin Ramos.  Normally he sees me flying  to class, but we manage to say hello to each other anyway.   A soft-spoken and insightful individual, Officer Ramos takes time to help the GSE students and to connect with them.  I caught up with Officer Ramos to get his perspective on some of the things he sees from perhaps the best seat in the house at GSE.

***********

MW: How is it working at GSE?  What is your favorite part?

ER: It’s a feel good environment at GSE.  My favorite part is meeting diverse people with different ethnic backgrounds.

MW:   What things about the GSE student community stand out to you?

ER: Just the fact that it’s so diverse.  It’s good to see the different cultures and get exposed to them.  Everyone is different in their own way.  The international students put a lot of effort in learning the culture and the American ways of communication. 

Officer Ramos at the security desk in GSE

MW: What advice do you have for students who are new to Penn (or who are considering Penn)?

ER: Absorb the diversity and the culture.  It’s something you can expand on.  You never know where you’re going to go.  Learning about them [the cultures] opens doors wherever you go.  Make it an initiative to absorb the cultures and keep them, putting them into practice.  The International students put in the time to learn the American culture.  I think American students should try to give the International students that same courtesy.

*****************

As this was my first interview for this blog and I was expecting something really brief, I ran out of questions (!).  But additional questions weren't really needed.  Our interview turned into a conversation about the career choices GSE students make and how there’s a desire that builds within the students to truly go out into the world and help.  “The past 3 semesters,” Officer Ramos stated, “I’ve seen students study for something but take it in a totally different direction.  They wanted to make a bigger difference and make a bigger impact.  They wanted to educate and be educated.  Absorbing the cultures is a pathway to a lot of these things.” 

At the end of our conversation, Officer Ramos told me the story of a former GSE student who was having a bit of trouble with his papers, and how he guided him to the people in GSE who could help.  That student has now graduated and obtained a job working as an Academic Advisor, and has been consistently grateful to Officer Ramos for the assistance. 

Officer Ramos’ role at GSE, and his character, can be perfectly summed up by one of the last things he told me: “I try to help out everybody.”

It’s characters like this that can make all the difference in a large institution like Penn.