The maker movement is fundamentally changing the way educators and educational researchers envision teaching and learning. This movement contends making — an active process of building, designing, and innovating with tools and materials to produce shareable artifacts — is a naturally rich and authentic learning trajectory (Martinez & Stager, 2013). Makerspaces are places where making happens in community. I craft my dissertation to explore these two defining characteristics of makerspaces through a comparative case study (Stake, 1995) and a design experiment (Brown, 1992). In the comparative
There is a widely acknowledged, urgent need for improving and increasing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills among our citizenry and students to navigate the modern world and access the opportunities it affords. The need for a more STEM literate workforce has been discussed in respected reports such as “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” from the National Academies, and data on the workforce show clear benefits of a STEM‐related post secondary education in the current job market. This brief from the Afterschool Alliance explores the impacts and outcomes of afterschool STEM
There can be a mistaken impression that the new vision for K-12 science education is only relevant to classroom science instruction. But youth frequently engage in powerful science and engineering activities that take place after or outside-of-school. They learn STEM content, engage in STEM practices, and develop an understanding of how STEM is used in the world. To capitalize on those assets, educators and other stakeholders should learn about, leverage, and broker connections for youth across the STEM learning experiences available in and out of school.
Based on work in media studies, new literacy studies, applied linguistics, the arts and empirical research on the experiences of urban youths’ informal media arts practices we articulate a new vision for media education in the digital age that encompasses new genres, convergence, media mixes, and participation. We first outline the history of how students’ creative production has been used to meet the goals of media educators and highlight new trends in media education that are instructive for creative production. Our goal is to introduce and situate the new ways in which youth are
In this paper we articulate an alternative approach to look at video games and learning to become a creator and contributor in the digital culture. Previous discussions have focused mostly on playing games and learning. Here, we discuss game making approaches and their benefits for illuminating game preferences and learning both software design and other academic content. We report on an ongoing ethnographic study that documents youth producing video games in a community design studio. We illustrate how video game making can provide a context for addressing issues of participation
In today's rapidly changing world, people must continually come up with creative solutions to unexpected problems. Success is based not only on what one knows or how much one knows, but on one's ability to think and act creatively. In short, people are now living in the Creative Society. Unfortunately, few of today's classrooms focus on helping students develop as creative thinkers. In addition, the proliferation of new technologies is quickening the pace of change, accentuating the need for creative thinking in all aspects of people's lives. In this article, the author discusses two
This paper presents ten guiding principles for designing construction kits for kids: design for designers; low floors and wide walls; make powerful ideas salient - not forced; support many paths, many styles; make it as simple as possible - and maybe even simpler; choose black boxes carefully; a little bit of programming goes a long way; give people what they want - not what they ask for; invent things that you would want to use yourself; and iterate, iterate - then iterate again.