skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: I Played a Song with the Help of a Magic Banana: Assessing Short-term Making Events
Purpose Designers of learning experiences are concerned with how people learn across a range of timescales from a semester to a single moment in time. And just as designing experiences at different timescales requires unique goals, tools, and processes, measuring what people learn from their interactions is also timescale-specific. The aim of our work is twofold: 1) To understand how learners describe their experiences with short-term, introductory maker experiences and; 2) To test a method for assessing learners’ experiences authentic to short-term learning. Design We collected written responses from participants at a two-day event, STEM Center Learning Days. Through an analysis of 707 unique instances of learner responses to participation in drop-in maker activities, we examined how participants describe their short-term learning experiences. Findings We found that although some activities appear to onlookers to create passive experiences for learners, these seemingly passive moments have a significant impact on learners. In addition, some learners described themselves as working in tandem with tools to make something work and other learners viewed the tools as working autonomously. We found that our assessment method allowed us to gain an understanding of how learners describe their experiences offering important implications for understanding short-term learning events. Originality/ Implications Our findings provide researchers studying short-term learning in its natural setting a new method to understand how learners make sense of their individual experience. Further, designers of short-term learning experiences may gain insights into their unique activities and indications of where additional guidance and scaffolds will improve small learning moments. Keywords Makerspaces, STEM, assessment  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1639915
PAR ID:
10219804
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Information and learning sciences
ISSN:
2398-5348
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; (, Visitor Studies)
    null (Ed.)
    Many studies have documented the impact of maker experiences on children's learning, but few have examined how caregivers participate in maker activities in museums, both as facilitators of their children's learning and as learners in their own right. This qualitative study involved observations and interviews with 88 caregivers participating in a range of making and tinkering activities at a science museum. Aspects of the physical setting (including the arrangement and familiarity of tools and materials) and social setting (including facilitators' interactions with children versus caregivers) influenced whether families participated and the roles that caregivers played (observing, facilitating, or making). Across these roles, caregivers described benefitting as learners -- by noticing their children's abilities and interests, learning new ways to support their children's learning, or fostering their own creativity. The results highlight strategies that museums can use to create inclusive maker activities that recognize caregivers' many roles and motivations during family visits. 
    more » « less
  2. (, Cognition and Instruction)
    N/A (Ed.)
    Teachers can play critical roles in challenging or reinscribing dominant narratives about what counts as STEM, who is seen within STEM disciplines, and how these disciplines should be taught. However, teachers have often experienced STEM in limited ways in their own education and are thereby provided with few resources for re-imagining these disciplines. While teacher educators have designed learning environments that engage teachers in new forms of disciplinary activities, there have been few accounts that describe how teachers make connections between these experiences and dominant narratives that impact their own and their students’ learning. In this study, I report on the experiences of Alma, a white, working-class, female elementary teacher in an online graduate certificate program for K-12 engineering educators. Through her engagement in engineering design in the program, Alma appropriated—transformed and made her own—discourse of the engineering design process in ways that trouble some of the narratives that restrict her, her family, and her students in STEM and in school. Alma’s experiences emphasize the need to consider not just what teachers learn about disciplinary tools and discourses, but how they transform these for their own purposes and contexts. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, FabLearn '20: Proceedings of the FabLearn 2020 - 9th Annual Conference on Maker Education)
    Given the proliferation of makerspace experiences in K-12 education, there is a growing need to ensure accessibility for all learners, including those with disabilities and those at risk of academic failure. The limited research on these populations suggests that it is essential to examine how a broader range of learners participate in K-12 maker activities and any barriers that they face. We employed a cross-case qualitative methodology to investigate issues of participation and engagement by collaborating with four teachers who incorporated maker activities into STEM or science classes in four different middle schools. Across the four schools, teachers reported multiple challenges faced by learners including student-specific, instructional, and systemic barriers. Despites these challenges, however, we found evidence of students with disabilities meaningfully participating in maker activities. Implications for future research and practices are discussed from an ecological model perspective. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, Journal of Research in Science Teaching)
    Abstract How individuals come to perceive themselves in STEM is predicated on their understanding of what it means to be a member of the STEM community. This association is consequential when considering the perpetuation of white male ownership of STEM knowledge and power that forces learners identifying with groups systemically marginalized by racial and gender discrimination to adopt particular norms, values, and behaviors to gain recognition. In effect, these expectations help to maintain masculinized Discourses as STEM professionals are encultured to apply the same recognition criteria to which they were judged themselves. We examine how these Discourses are maintained even as learners who identify with groups that carry histories of systemic marginalization by racist, sexist, and elitist practices gain access to STEM communities. Specifically, we explore how university STEM students attending a Hispanic Serving Institution in the United States articulate gendered expectations of STEM membership through their characterization of themselves and others as (not) STEM people. Drawing from theories in Discourse, social identity, and feminist critiques of science, we describe how students implicitly recognize STEM identity in gendered ways. We discuss how our findings illuminate the mechanisms by which STEM recognition is afforded by pointing to its dependence on masculinized displays of STEM performances, competence, and interests, leading to a cycle of marginalization as learners are encultured to perpetuate existing STEM Discourses in their recognition of others. We discuss research implications for measurements of STEM identity that do not account for gendered Discourses and offer practical implications for the design of learning experiences that co‐opt existing Discourses to inoculate gendered perceptions of a STEM person prototype. Lastly, we present a case for elevating the role of maternal caregivers and family immigration histories in STEM identity construction. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; (, American Educational Research Association)
    Previous research has documented the benefits of making for young learners, but few studies have examined how parents engage in maker activities during family visits to museums, both as facilitators of their children’s learning and as makers in their own right. In this study, we asked how caregivers participate in making and tinkering programs, how parents describe the benefits of making (for their children and themselves), and what aspects of the physical and social setting influence parents’ engagement. Data included observations of 88 family groups participating in various making and tinkering activities at a science center (including woodworking, fashion design, virtual reality drawing, circuit blocks, etc) and exit interviews with a subset of 66 caregivers. Qualitative data analysis connected observed qualities of the physical and social setting with caregivers’ observed and reported engagement. Through this analysis, we identified specific aspects of the physical environment, tools/materials, and facilitation strategies that invited family participation in general and that were associated with specific caregiver roles, including observing children’s learning, facilitation of children’s learning, and engagement as a maker alongside children. The implications of the findings for the design and facilitation of maker programs are discussed. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email