This Innovations in Development project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants. The Design Squad Maker project, a collaboration of WGBH Public Television (WGBH) and the New York Hall of Science (NySci), will research and develop engineering design projects that provide evidence for how to integrate informal learning spaces with digital public media assets. The project will be designed to provide accessible, motivating pathways for children aged 8-11 in pursuing and completing ambitious, fully realized engineering design projects. The project will build on WGBH's existing Design Squad model for using media to engage kids in informal engineering activities and NySCI's expertise in facilitating children's unique design processes in museum settings. By developing and studying new strategies for supporting children's use of the design process, Design Squad Maker will address critical issues in engineering education and informal learning that remain relatively unexplored. Project research will contribute to the emerging literature on "connected learning" by building new knowledge about how children's design activities can be sustained and supported over time and across multiple contexts, such as science museums and homes. Drawing on existing research in the learning sciences and engineering education, the project seeks to advance knowledge about the role of museums, maker spaces, and digital technology in sustaining children's learning in engineering. The project will use a design-based research approach, a research and development process whereby educational designers collaborate with learning scientists. Museum practitioners will collaborate with research staff and media developers to design, test, and improve digital resources, facilitation strategies, and parent engagement strategies to support children through an entire design process. The research and development process will result in digital resources and approaches in a flexible toolkit, which will be used when assessing the project's scale-up potential at 10 museum/maker spaces. The project will conduct a summative evaluation, assessing the project's intended impacts with children, parents, and staff at museums/maker spaces across the country. The toolkit will be nationally disseminated through national partners that include the Association of Science-Technology Centers, Maker Education, the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement, and engineering education organizations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
This report, from the "Tinkering EU: Building Science Capital for All" project, provides a theoretical rationale for understanding the relationship between Tinkering as a pedagogical approach, students’ individual science capital, and inclusive STEM teaching approaches. By exploring the relationship between these three areas, it invites professionals to reflect on the ways in which Tinkering can be used a teaching tool for building science capital.
“Tinkering EU: Building Science Capital for All” aims to develop activities and resources that support a learner-centred culture, improve science education and develop 21st century skills - all of which are fundamental for active citizenship, employability, and social inclusion. To do this, it adopts ‘Tinkering’, an innovative pedagogy developed in the USA, which is used by museums, and has proven able to create a lifelong engagement with science for everyone. Tinkering works particularly well for people who argue that “they are not good at science” or are disaffected from any formal teaching and learning process. It can be a powerful tool to tackle disadvantage. The project integrates Tinkering into the school curriculum to develop the science capital of disadvantaged youth through the use of museums. It addresses students from 8 to 14 years old (primary and junior high schools).
Coordinator: National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci
Partners:
University of Cambridge – UK
NEMO Science Museum – The Netherlands
Science Gallery Dublin – Ireland
CosmoCaixa – Spain
Science Center Network – Austria
NOESIS – Greece
The concept of connected learning proposes that youth leverage individual interest and social media to drive learning with an academic focus. To illustrate, we present in-depth case studies of Ryan and Sam, two middle-school-age youth, to document an out-of-school intervention intended to direct toward intentional learning in STEM that taps interest and motivation. The investigation focused on how Ryan and Sam interacted with the designed elements of Studio STEM and whether they became more engaged to gain deeper learning about science concepts related to energy sustainability. The
As the maker movement is increasingly adopted into K-12 schools, students are developing new competences in exploration and fabrication technologies. This study assesses learning with these technologies in K-12 makerspaces and FabLabs.
Our study describes the iterative process of developing an assessment instrument for this new technological literacy, the Exploration and Fabrication Technologies Instrument, and presents findings from implementations at five schools in three countries. Our index is generalizable and psychometrically sound, and permits comparison between student confidence
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Paulo BliksteinZaza KabayadondoAndrew P. MartinDeborah A. Fields
Increased emphasis on K-12 engineering education, including the advent and incorporation of NGSS in many curricula, has spurred the need for increased engineering learning opportunities for younger students. This is particularly true for students from underrepresented minority populations or economically disadvantaged schools, who traditionally lag their peers in the pursuit of STEM majors or careers. To address this deficit, we have created the Hk Maker Lab, a summer program for New York City high school students that introduces them to biomedical engineering design. The students learn the
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Aaron Matthew KyleMichael CarapezzaChristine Kovich
This report introduces a framework to support learning in library and museum makerspaces. The framework demonstrates how we can create the conditions for ambitious learning experiences to unfold within the making experience.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Children's Museum of PittsburghInstitute of Museum and Library ServicesPeter Wardrip
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.
In this chapter, we explore making as a learning process in the context of a museum-based maker space designed for family participation. In particular, we focus on young children, and their adult learning partners, as an important demographic to consider and for which to design making environments and experiences. Importantly, we take a close look at the evolving role of museum educators in supporting young children's meaningful participation in making as an informal learning process. Through the presentation of a single case of a child's making in the museum, we identify key factors that
In considering the integration of technology in the classroom it is necessary to factor in the ways in which teachers design for their use. Makerspaces and their use of digitally-based rapid prototyping tools such as laser cutters and 3D printers are serving as new models for technology integration in learning environments. While there has been some research on the educational affordances of such technologies little research has been done to understand their use in the traditional classroom environment by teachers. This paper explores the design of curricular and instructional activities by
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Christian McKayTarrence BanksScott Wallace
In this essay, Shirin Vossoughi, Paula Hooper, and Meg Escude advance a critique of branded, culturally normative definitions of making and caution against their uncritical adoption into the educational sphere. The authors argue that the ways making and equity are conceptualized can either restrict or expand the possibility that the growing maker movement will contribute to intellectually generative and liberatory educational experiences for working-class students and students of color. After reviewing various perspectives on making as educative practice, they present a framework that treats