Recent discussions of making have focused on developing out-of-school makerspaces and activities to provide more equitable and enriching learning
opportunities for youth. Yet school classrooms present a unique opportunity
to help broaden access, diversify representation, and deepen participation in
making. In turning to classrooms, we want to understand the crucial practices
that teachers employ in broadening and deepening access to making.
In this article, we investigate two high school teachers’ approaches in implementing a novel eight-week, electronic textiles unit within the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, where students designed wearable electronic textile projects with microcontrollers, sensors, and LEDs.We share teachers’emergent practices in transforming their classrooms into makerspaces, including valuing student expertise and promoting connections in personalized work. We discuss the ways these practices succeeded in broadening access to making while deepening participation in computing and establishing home-school connections.
more »
« less
Teaching practices for making e-textiles in high school computing classrooms.
Recent discussions have focused on rich STEM learning opportunities and various equity challenges in setting up and researching out-of-school makerspaces and activities. In turning to school classrooms, we want to understand the critical practices that teachers employ in broadening and deepening access to making. In this paper, we investigate two high school teachers’ approaches in implementing the Exploring Computer Science curriculum using a novel 8-week, electronic textiles unit where students designed wearable textile projects with a microcontroller, sensors and LED lights. Drawing on observations and interviews with teachers and students, we share emergent practices that teachers used in transforming their classrooms into a makerspace, including modeling in-progress artifacts, valuing expertise from students, and promoting connections in personalized work. We discuss in which ways these teaching practices succeeded in broadening access to making while deepening participation in computing and establishing home-school connections.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1743195
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10072904
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- FabLearn’17, Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on Creativity and Fabrication in Education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
more » « less
Abstract This study explores the process of teacher scaffolding student engagement in epistemic tools from the critical sensemaking perspective. Epistemic tools are contextual artifacts manipulated to investigate and evaluate ideas to construct knowledge within the constraints of a disciplines' representational means. The main sources of our data are ~50 min‐long semistructured, responsive interviews with the 14 secondary school science teachers who participated in our professional learning environment (PLE) and implemented the activities from the PLE in their classrooms. We utilized the tools of discourse analysis to explore teacher sensemaking while they learned to teach science with epistemic tools. We then looked at intertextualities of meaning across multiple sets of data such as students' artifacts, pre/postsurveys, audio and video recordings of the workshops, and teachers' written implementation feedback forms. As a result, we recognized a pattern across different classrooms. Teachers would begin with a contextualized goal, and use a pedagogical strategy to scaffold their students as they worked to achieve that goal. Then, all teachers reported they faced some sort of ambiguity (such as grappling with failure, different levels of students). When faced with an ambiguity, teachers would then revise either their contextualized goal or their initial pedagogical strategy to help their students to reach their goals. Finally, we utilized constant‐comparative analysis to identify themes for teachers' contextualized goals. Four major themes emerged, including communicating connections to core ideas of science, making sense of how science works, assessing students' learning process outcomes, and fostering students' epistemic agency. The findings of the study have implications for future research and professional development activities on the use of epistemic practices and tools in classrooms with unique contextual characteristics.
-
In this BoF we discuss the tenets of culturally responsive computer science and how teachers, professors and providers of professional development can include culturally responsive perspectives in their classes. In contrast to other academic fields, which typically include rigid curricular tracks ostensibly based on academic performance, talent, or ability that pose structural barriers to access to rigorous academic instruction for underrepresented students, the field of computer science education is explicitly focused on broadening participation, as evidenced by the SIGCSE community's consistent emphasis on equitable representation. Culturally responsive computing (CRC) is founded on culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and on CRT's three tenets: asset building (in contrast to deficit approaches), reflection, and connectedness. CRC frames these tenets for the specifics of computing education. CRC's tenet that all students are capable of digital innovation should drive teachers' interactions and relationships with students. CRC also requires that teachers be continually reflective about their privilege and constraints and how those are connected with our worldviews. This topic is significant because teachers must be connected to their students in non-traditional ways that prize diversity as an asset to innovation. The participants are expected to include professors, lecturers, high school teachers and industry experts who are interested in employing culturally responsive computing approaches in their own teaching and professional development activities. A major goal of the BoF is to establish connections among the participants to promote the sharing of resources and best practices.more » « less
-
Facility with foundational practices in computer science (CS) is increasingly recognized as critical for the 21st century workforce. Developing this capacity and broadening participation in CS disciplines will require learning experiences that can engage a larger and more diverse student population (Margolis et al., 2008). One promising approach involves including CS concepts and practices in required subjects like science. Yet, research on the scalability of educational innovations consistently demonstrates that their successful uptake in formal classrooms depends on teachers’ perceived alignment of the innovations with their goals and expectations for student learning, as well as with the specific needs of their school context and culture (Blumenfeld et al., 2000; Penuel et al., 2007; Bernstein et al., 2016). Research is nascent, however, about how exactly to achieve this alignment and thereby position integrated instructional models for uptake at scale. To contribute to this understanding, we are developing and studying two units for core middle school science classrooms, known as Coding Science Internships. The units are designed to support broader participation in CS, with a particular emphasis on females, by expanding students’ perception of the nature and value of coding. CS and science learning are integrated through a simulated internship model, in which students, as interns, apply science knowledge and use computer programming as a tool to address real-world problems. In one unit, students gain first-hand experience with sequences, loops, and conditionals as they program and debug an interactive scientific model of a coral reef ecosystem under threat. The second unit engages students in learning concepts related to data analysis and visualization, abstraction, and modularity as they code data visualizations using real EPA air quality data. A core goal for both units is to provide students experience with some of the increasingly prevalent ways that computer science is integrated into the work of scientists.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract This paper presents an implementation of Connected Spaces (CxS)—an ambient help seeking interface designed and developed for a project‐based computing classroom. We use actor network theory (ANT) to provide an underutilized posthumanist lens to understand the creation of collaborative connections in this Computational Action‐based implementation. Posthumanism offers an emerging and critical extension to sociocultural perspectives on understanding learning, by pushing us to decenter the human, and consider the active roles that human and non‐human entities play in learning environments by actively shaping each other. We analyse how students in this class adjusted their help‐seeking and collaborative habits following the introduction of CxS, a tool designed to foster (more inter‐group) collaboration. ANT proposes generalized symmetry—a principle of considering human, non‐human and more than human entities with equivalent and comparable agency, leading to describing phenomena as networks of actors in different evolving relationships with each other. Analysing collaborative interactions as fostered by CxS using an ANT approach supports design‐based research—an iterative design revision process highlighting understandings about design as well as learning—by providing a temporal and informative lens into the relationship between actors and tools within the environment. Our key findings include a framing of technologies in classrooms as bridging
agentic gaps between students and becoming actors engaging in different behaviours; learners enacting new agencies through technologies (for instance a more comfortable non‐intrusive help seeker), and the need for voicing and teachers to connect help networks in CxS equipped classrooms.Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic
Collaborative learning is a valuable skill and practice; opportunities to mentor others are critical in empowering minoritized learners, especially in STEM and computing disciplines.
School norms solidify a power and expertise hierarchy between teachers and learners and fail to productively support learners in learning from each other.
Additionally, lack of awareness about peers' knowledge is a common hindrance in students knowing who to ask for help and how.
What this paper adds
An example of a designed interface called Connected Spaces with potential to foster more inter‐student collaboration, especially outside of mandated within‐group collaboration—in the form of cross‐group help seeking and help giving.
A design based research study using actor network theory highlighting the limitations of Connected Spaces in sparking notable behaviour change among students by itself but being retooled as a teacher support tool in enabling cross‐group collaborations.
Presenting conceptions of collaboration through technologies as bridging agentic gaps and acting with new agencies in performing help‐seeking related actions.
Provoking the idea of testing emerging technologies in classrooms along with sharing our analyses and reflections with the classroom as a key idea in computing education—surfacing the gap between designed intentions and the different kinds of extra social work needed in the on‐ground success of different technologies.
Implications for practice and/or policy
Designers and researchers should create and test more interfaces alongside teachers across different classrooms and contexts aimed at supporting different kinds of voluntary collaborative interactions.
Curricula, standards and school practices should further center providing students with opportunities to engage as mentors and build communities of learning across disciplines to empower minoritized students.
Researchers engaging in design based research should consider using more posthumanist lenses to examine educational technologies and how they affect change in learning environments.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
