Third-Party Evaluations of Educational Programs
October 2017 – Re-envisioning the Streets of San José Exhibit Design Brief
By Gehl
Download Design Brief (.pdf via Google Drive – 102 MB)
The Children’s Discovery Museum wants to rethink its core exhibit. Streets of San Jose has successfully served as a centerpiece of the museum’s experience for several years, but while its theme remains as relevant today as when the exhibit opened for the first time, its specific content has progressively lost bearing on the rapidly changing urban realm it intends to represent. It is now time to reimagine the exhibit, making it a more contemporary experience, one in tune with the present reality of the Capital of Silicon Valley.
March 2016 – Food as Discovery: Curating Culinary Experience for Mission Alignment
By Karen Karp & Partners along with Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose
This report is designed to help other museums and family-serving attractions join in the effort to serve healthy food to families. We have documented our process – successes and challenges – and pulled to the forefront some of the remarkable members of our community who were early adopters and ardent supporters. We are hopeful that you will be able to use the resources provided to move more quickly and efficiently based upon the learning we have shared.
October 2015 – Family Foodways Evaluation Results
By Garibay Group
Presentation of Evaluation Results (.pdf)
The Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose’s (CDM) Family Foodways project intends to positively impact children and families by enhancing Museum spaces with activities that enable children to experience the “hows and whys” of making healthy and sustainable food choices. Garibay Group conducted an evaluation of the project.
Fall 2015 – Voyage to Vietnam Project Evaluation
By Garibay Group
Summative Report (.pdf) | Summative Report Addendum (.pdf)
The Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) contracted Garibay Group to conduct an evaluation of the Voyage to Vietnam: Celebrating the Tet Festival exhibition. The evaluation focused on remediation but also served as a summative study. This report discusses summative findings.
Winter 2014 – Family Foodways Front-end Evaluation Brief
By Garibay Group
The Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose’s (CDM) Family Foodways project intends to positively impact children and families by enhancing Museum spaces with activities that enable children to experience the “hows and whys” of making healthy and sustainable food choices. Garibay Group conducted front-end evaluation to inform the project.
May 2014 – BioSITE Project Evaluation
By Bernadette Chi, Ph.D. and Leah Reisman
Executive Summary followed by Full Report (.pdf)
Overall, the BioSITE program structure creates a potential pathway to provide students in fourth and tenth grade opportunities to deepen and/or expand their understanding of science and the environment in San Jose. At the high school level in particular, the program draws high school students to the program for different reasons, and also allows them to gain from the learning experiences in different ways. For example, as evidenced by the pre and post survey findings, the program attracts students already interested in science, but some students also reported being initially interested in BioSITE because of an interest in the environment or in teaching younger students.
2012 Evaluation Report – Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative, Summative Evaluation
Garibay Group
Children’s Discovery Museum, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, launched Phase II of the Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative (VADI). Building on the strong foundation and success of the first phase of VADI, the goals of the second phase included building internal staff capacity regarding diversity and inclusion and developing external communications strategies that effectively reach first- and second-generation Vietnamese families. Garibay Group worked with Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) to evaluate internal capacity-building efforts, to develop and test key messages to communicate the values of CDM to Vietnamese families, and to evaluate outreach efforts. This report presents evaluation findings for this initiative.
Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative Evaluation
Garibay Group
Fall/Winter 2008
The Children’s Discovery Museum launched the Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative (VADI) with the goal of better serving the Vietnamese community in San Jose. CDM contracted with Garibay Group to conduct an evaluation of the Initiative. The primary goals of the evaluation were to determine the degree to which the project achieved its goals and to identify “lessons learned” that could inform future strategic planning and outreach methods to better bridge the CDM with Vietnamese families.
2005 Evaluation Report – Summer of Service
John Nash
Summer of Service (SOS) is a summer camp for youth entering 7th-10th grades designed and managed by the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. SOS operates four two week camps between June and August providing five teams of youth an opportunity to work in the museum, mentor young children, participate in environmental service activities, engage in community outreach, and develop specialized media skills. Youth may enroll in one or all four sessions.
Goals of the Evaluation
To identify the impact that SOS has on participants, especially related to certain developmental assets, and key
program activities via youth and parent opinion;
To explore the role SOS plays in increasing museum capacity through its staff training and youth development
programming.
Discovery Youth Evaluations
Dan Gilbert, 2001-2003 Evaluations, and Sepehr Moghadam, 2003-2004 evaluation
2003-2004 Report
2002-2003 Report
2001-2002 Report
2001-2002 Summary
Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose has served youth ages 10-14 for over three years through the comprehensive after school and summer program, Discovery Youth. The program takes young adolescents’ healthy physical and emotional development as its theme, while using multimedia production, service learning, and inquiry-based methods as its approach, while fully utilizing the Museum’s unique learning environment. The program’s overarching goal promotes the healthy emotional development of young adolescents by strengthening opportunities for youth to participate in meaningful and productive out-of-school hours programming; to develop skills in technology; to gain confidence in social skills with peers and adults and help prepare them for the future; and to prove to themselves and to adults that they are important resources to the community.