This paper describes a series of making activities developed for entry-level engagement in selected learning contexts. We describe the goals of each activity and reflections on development and delivery. We use our reflections from the design and implementation to develop a set of dimensions along which to talk about important similarities and differences between these kinds of making workshops. These dimensions enable us to highlight and discuss some of the challenges and tradeoffs. The activities discussed focus on a middle-school audience, but the findings illustrate themes that are relevant to the design of making activities more generally.
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Designing for Shifting Learning Activities
Existing approaches to instructional design each have a core focal unit of analysis; some focus on developing a specific tool, some focus on a sequence of tasks, and more recently, some approaches have focused more broadly on activities. However, we find that these don’t go far enough as real-world implementations require that learners move through a shifting sequence of activities with teachers attending to these shifts. We therefore propose and illustrate an approach to design grounded in focusing on how the design of activities, including tools, necessarily need to shift over time to support learning.
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- PAR ID:
- 10419608
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Applied Instructional Design
- ISSN:
- 2160-5289
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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