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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Comput. Sci.
Sec. Human-Media Interaction
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcomp.2024.1387202
This article is part of the Research Topic From Child-Centered to Family-Centered Design for New Technology View all 3 articles

Invitations to Play: Designing for Family Engagement Through STEAM Exhibits in Community Settings

Provisionally accepted
Paul N. Reimer Paul N. Reimer 1*Celeste Moreno Celeste Moreno 2
  • 1 AIMS Education Foundation, Fresno, United States
  • 2 University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Intergenerational play between children and their family members provides a rich context that can inform family-centered interaction design. Despite research on the roles and perspectives in adultchild interactions, less is known about the design elements and features of voluntary interaction settings that provide opportunities for family members to collaborate and play in joint, balanced ways. To this end, we report the qualitative results of our design and implementation of three interactive STEAM exhibits installed in an early childhood education center over a six-month period. Our findings surface insights and tensions related to the design features' impact on supporting family engagement in STEAM exhibits, emergent aspects of family-centered play, and supports needed to implement family-centered STEAM exhibits. Other designers, such as those who design with new technologies or explore human-computer interactions, can learn from our process of iteration and adjustment based on family interactions.

    Keywords: Constructionism in learning, Exhibit design, Family centered approaches, STEAM (enriched with arts), Playful learning environment

    Received: 16 Feb 2024; Accepted: 24 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Reimer and Moreno. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Paul N. Reimer, AIMS Education Foundation, Fresno, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.