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1. Making Inspired by Nature: Engaging Preservice Elementary Teachers and Children in Maker-centered Learning and Biomimicry.

   Williams, D. (May 2019, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE))

   This exploratory project, Making Inspired by Nature, brings together the art of making and the creative practices of biomimicry to engage preservice teachers and children in building innovative solutions to real-world problems. To achieve this, this project is (a) building and evaluating digital resources and hands-on activities for engaging elementary children in innovation through the application of biomimicry and design thinking in a maker context and (b) evaluating models for deepening preservice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge for supporting student learning in maker-centered classrooms. Introduction This exploratory project, Making Inspired by Nature, brings together the act of “making” with the innovative practices of biomimicry to engage preservice 

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2. Exploring Teachers’ Approaches to Standards-Based Making in Elementary Classrooms

   Jocius, R. (January 2020, D. Schmidt-Crawford (Ed.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference)

   In this paper, we explore how standards-based Making activities offer opportunities for teachers to address interdisciplinary concepts and encourage students to tinker, collaborate, create, and design. This qualitative study draws on results from a two-year, NSF-funded research project that involved the integration of standards-based Mobile Maker Kits into 15 elementary schools within a suburban-rural Southern school district. Specifically, we examine teachers’ goals for using Mobile Maker Kits, as well as how the hook, brainstorm, prototype, share, synthesize framework supported them in integrating Making into their existing standards and curricula. 

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3. Analyzing Youth’s Problem Solving in Computational Making through a Community-Engaged Maker Program

   https://doi.org/10.3102/2017500  

   Zhang, E. (April 2023, American Educational Research Association)

   This paper describes preliminary findings from NSF-funded research conducted at the New York Hall of Science with an established after school maker education and social entrepreneurship program called Innovation Institute. Using social entrepreneurship (Peredo & McLean, 2006) and hands–on making activities in a maker space environment, participants address community-focused problems they identify on their own in low-income neighborhoods in Queens,, New York. This project studied whether and how specific aspects of this nine-month, after-school computational making (defined by Rode, et al [2015] as combining computational thinking with skills in aesthetics, creativity, constructing, visualizing multiple representations, and understanding materials) program for 13–17-year-olds from recent immigrant populations may influence participants’ perceptions of the relevance, usefulness and accessibility of computer science and engineering as potential academic and career pathways. 

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4. Best of Both Worlds: Developing an Innovative, Integrated, Intelligent, and Interactive System of Technologies Supporting In-Person and Digital Experiences for Early Mathematics

   https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2024.2410903  

   Clements, Douglas H; Guss, Shannon S; Sarama, Julie; Alvarez-Vargas, Daniela (January 2025, Computers in the Schools)

   NA (Ed.)

   Mathematics is a core component of cognition. Unfortunately, most young children and teachers cannot access research-based early childhood mathematics resources. Building on a quarter-century of research, we are developing and evaluating an innovative, integrated, intelligent, and interactive system of technologies based on empirically validated learning trajectories that provide the best personal and digital tools for assessing and supporting children's mathematics learning. This article reviews the research that guided us, then describes the design principles of the new project, justifying their selection using theory and research, and shares how the design principles helped address challenges in development. The goal is to provide teachers, caregivers, and children with high-quality resources to support early mathematics learning in the context of meaningful, motivating, challenging, and achievable experiences. 

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5. "Making" Science Relevant for the 21st Century: Early Lessons from a Research-Practice Partnership

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3311890.3311910  

   Fancsali, Cheri; Mirakhur, Zitsi; Klevan, Sarah; Rivera-Cash, Edgar (March 2019, FabLearn 2019 proceedings)

   The Maker Partnership Program (MPP) is an NSF-supported project that addresses the critical need for models of professional development (PD) and support that help elementary-level science teachers integrate computer science and computational thinking (CS and CT) into their classroom practices. The MPP aims to foster integration of these disciplines through maker pedagogy and curriculum. The MPP was designed as a research-practice partnership that allows researchers and practitioners to collaborate and iteratively design, implement and test the PD and curriculum. This paper describes the key elements of the MPP and early findings from surveys of teachers and students participating in the program. Our research focuses on learning how to develop teachers’ capacity to integrate CS and CT into elementary-level science instruction; understanding whether and how this integrated instruction promotes deeper student learning of science, CS and CT, as well as interest and engagement in these subjects; and exploring how the model may need to be adapted to fit local contexts. Participating teachers reported gaining knowledge and confidence for implementing the maker curriculum through the PDs. They anticipated that the greatest implementation challenges would be lack of preparation time, inaccessible computer hardware, lack of administrative support, and a lack of CS knowledge. Student survey results show that most participants were interested in CS and science at the beginning of the program. Student responses to questions about their disposition toward collaboration and persistence suggest some room for growth. Student responses to questions about who does CS are consistent with prevalent gender stereotypes (e.g., boys are naturally better than girls at computer programming), particularly among boys. 

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