Maybe a maker space? How an out-of-school center engaged in expansive learning around maker education within the context of a regional educational network proc. (original) (raw)
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Maker Education scholarship is accumulating increasingly complex understandings of the kinds of learning associated with maker practices along with principles and pedagogies that support such learning. However, even as large investments are being made to spread maker education, there is little understanding of how organizations that are intended targets of such investments learn to develop new maker related educational programs. Using the framework of Expansive Learning [9], focusing on organizational learning processes resulting in new and unfolding forms of activity, this paper begins to fill this gap through a case study of a community organization serving non-dominant youth that engaged in an 18-month learning process to create its own maker- space. Utilizing interviews, field observations and diverse forms of documentation, findings show that (1) regional organizational networks play infrastructural roles involving inspiration, validation and orientation in expansive learning through providing access to expertise and partnerships, (2) organizational learning around maker education involves dimensions of not only pedagogy and technology but also of social geography, institutional logics and organizational design processes, and (3) processes of object transformation within expansive learning around maker education by organizations rooted in non-dominant communities can act as sites of critique and, potentially, contributions maker education culture in ways that address issues of broadening participation and increasing equity.
The Maker Movement: a Global Movement for Educational Change
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2019
Educators have been interested in the global maker movement as it provides handson learning opportunities for youths to enhance their knowledge and skills of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study aims to understand the maker movement from the perspective of frame analysis and collective action frames. Based on 33 interviews with makers from China, Europe, and the USA, we use diagnostic and prognostic frames to analyze the problems related to makerspaces and how makers solve these problems. The results highlight that makerspaces are deeply rooted in local communities as they both integrate local expectations with their ideal of making and depend on communities to solve internal problems. Makers also proactively change the mindset of what constitutes and defines making of other actors (e.g. public). Discussion focuses on the roles of governments and the inequity of resource mobilization in terms of STEM learning in the movement.
Expanding Informal Maker-Based Learning Programs for Urban Youth
2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2020
This Research Full Paper contributes to research on creating maker-based learning experiences for youth in diverse informal learning settings. A key research question in this space is how to efficiently and effectively setup maker learning spaces and train educators to deliver high-quality maker curriculum in diverse sites. To study this question, we developed and deployed a multi-phase maker educator training program that included makerspace setup, educator training, and youth program deployment. We deployed three models of the program at three participating sites over roughly nine months. We analyzed data from educator pre-and post-interviews and found that the programs generated considerable interest in the youth and resulted in positive shifts in career aspirations and social and technical skills. Participants emphasized the importance of creating hybrid online and offline resources and training materials. Our participants also identified logistical challenges related to recruiting educators and youth attendance. Finally, participants described possibilities for content localization and the inclusion of participatory approaches to keep youth and educators engaged.
The Maker Movement in Education
Harvard Educational Review, 2014
In this essay, Erica Halverson and Kimberly Sheridan provide the context for research on the maker movement as they consider the emerging role of making in education. The authors describe the theoretical roots of the movement and draw connections to related research on formal and informal education. They present points of tension between making and formal education practices as they come into contact with one another, exploring whether the newness attributed to the maker movement is really all that new and reflecting on its potential pedagogical impacts on teaching and learning.
Understanding a Maker Space as a Community of Practice
2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
conducting research to understand how learning happens in makerspaces. Through research, he desires to understand the mechanisms of learning in community in order to democratize the experience of self-efficacy experienced in makerspaces. He hopes to apply his gained understanding to the product development industry in African countries and in the United States, particularly in black communities.
2020 AERA Annual Meeting
This qualitative study examined the thinking and practices of three New Jersey teachers facilitating maker education with 4th-8th grade students in three different school environments. Interviews and observations uncovered how each teacher interacted with the school context. Collaboration is a Maker Movement practice valued by educators, but the extent to which K-12 maker educators can formally engage and encourage collaboration is somewhat dependent on the culture and structural attributes of their schools. However, due to a relative lack of administrative supervision of maker education compared with standardized-tested subjects, maker teachers in this study envisioned their classes as sanctuaries for students, or informal settings where students could develop communicative and collaborative skills by socializing about their work. Keywords: Maker Education, Maker Movement, makerspaces, collaboration; maker teachers, maker educators, informal learning, design thinking, Partnership Operation Model, STEM
Educational technology research and development, 2024
This special issue aims to sketch the present state of maker learning research, reveal possible tensions, and present future possibilities to articulate principles for learning through design in the era of maker education. The special issue was announced in 2022 in ETR&D, a leading academic journal in educational technology. Of the 50 submissions to the special issue, eighteen (18) were accepted for publication. The editors favored a robust inclusion of papers to help define the contours of the field at present. Four clusters of topics are identified in this collection of papers: (i) STEM+ disciplinary and transdisciplinary learning spaces; (ii) Digital technologies in making, opportunities and challenges; (iii) Assessment practices and frameworks; (iv) Representation, inclusion, and tensions around makercentered initiatives and reforms. The editors of the special issue believe that these clusters reflect the current state-of-the-art in the field as well as significant questions to guide near future research. Reflecting on these papers but also the overall editorial process, the editors identified several opportunities and provide suggestions on how the field might expand moving forward.
Youth Conceptions of Making and the Maker Movement
2013
1. ABSTRACT In this paper, we report on how young people involved in an outof-school “maker” club think about making, the maker movement, and themselves as makers. The paper draws from interviews of seventeen young club members. The data are drawn from a larger, ongoing study on youth making. Specifically, we consider how these young people responded to questions that asked them if they are makers, and what kinds of making they like to do. Preliminary results suggest three themes from youth responses: 1) the maker community is open, but requires active participation; 2) making is an activity that is out of the ordinary; and 3) making and learning about making are integrated across contexts. Given these themes, we caution against narrow views of the value of making, and instead advocate a holistic, youth-centered view of making as an educative experience. We conclude with a description of future research plans.