"Making and Tinkering" links science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning (STEM) to the do-it-yourself "maker" movement, where people of all ages "create and share things in both the digital and physical world" (Resnick & Rosenbaum, 2013). This paper examines designing what Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013) call "contexts for tinkerability" within the social design experiment of El Pueblo Mágico (EPM) -- a design approach organized around a cultural historical view of learning and development. We argue that this theoretical perspective reorganizes normative approaches to STEM education
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Lisa SchwartzDaniela DigiacomoKris Gutierrez
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, focusing on organizational learning processes resulting in new and unfolding forms of activity, this paper begins to fill
This is an extended discussion of the question that appeared in the Viewpoints department of the May/June 2015 issue of Dimensions magazine. It presents perspectives from science center and museum professionals about the role of 3D printing in their institutions.
The Common Core's higher academic standards are forcing schools into a false dichotomy of reducing playtime in favor of more time to learn math and literacy. But play can deepen learning even in core content areas.
The Maker Movement is a community of hobbyists, tinkerers, engineers, hackers, and artists who creatively design and build projects for both playful and useful ends. There is growing interest among educators in bringing making into K-12 education to enhance opportunities to engage in the practices of engineering, specifically, and STEM more broadly. This article describes three elements of the Maker Movement, and associated research needs, necessary to understand its promise for education: 1) digital tools, including rapid prototyping tools and low-cost microcontroller platforms, that
Through a study of 14 preschool classrooms serving low-income children from diverse ethnic backgrounds, the authors illustrate how carefully incorporating play-based learning into curricula can improve both literacy and social competence skills. The results illuminate how to more deeply engage learners with informal science education.
As Maker and Tinkering programs expand, educators are in need of new ways of noticing and capturing learning. In particular, because maker programs are so facilitation-heavy, and physically active, there is a need for ways for educators to monitor learning in situ. In this paper, Bevan, Gutwill, Petrich and Wilkinson explore how jointly negotiated research led to new insights about what counts as learning in the context of STEM-rich tinkering in ways that can support formative, embedded, and naturalistic assessments.
In order to reframe how learning is organized in traditionally male-dominated areas of STEM education, the authors show how collaborative girl-boy pairs engaged with an “e-textiles” making activity. E-textiles are circuit activities combining needles, fabric, and conductive thread, challenging traditional gender practices related to both sewing and electronics.
Afterschool continues to be promoted as a complementary setting to school for strengthening science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education (for example, Krishnamurthi, Bevan, Rinehart, & Coulon, 2013). This is a reasonable idea: 10.2 million children and youth in the U.S. participate in structured afterschool programs (Afterschool Alliance, 2014), and the flexibility of afterschool settings allows for innovative approaches to STEM exploration and engagement.
Since 2012, the Maker Education Initiative (Maker Ed) has worked with over 72 organizations to host their Maker Corps program. In 2015, 39 organizations participated with 72 Maker Corps Members.
The goals of the program are:
1. Support and train partner organizations to establish and develop making programs.
2. Diversify and expand the network and community of maker educators.
These goals speak to Maker Ed’s commitment to helping people and organizations grow their capacity to deliver maker programming in the ways that is most relevant to them. For individuals, that may mean gaining
Since 2012, the Maker Education Initiative (Maker Ed) has worked with over 72 organizations to host their Maker Corps program. In 2015, 39 organizations participated with 72 Maker Corps Members.
The goals of the program are:
1. Support and train partner organizations to establish and develop making programs.
2. Diversify and expand the network and community of maker educators.
To evaluate these experiences for Sites and Members, all were invited to complete a pre and a post survey. This report describes survey results from both Maker Corps Members and site staff, taken at the beginning
Georgetown County Library will improve the digital-age critical workforce skills of local young people through STEM-related digital activities. Classes relating to online STEM resources, digital video production, and app development will result in increased skills and interpersonal abilities, as well as an appreciation for the public library as a dynamic and informative place. By working with a number of community organizations, the library seeks to reach a local youth community that has historically experienced high rates of poverty and low rates of high school completion, and build on previous efforts to provide job fairs, skills training, and other initiatives.