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This study builds on posthumanist and new materialist orientations to examine the role of material properties and the gendered identity texts of educational tools as active agents in STEM learning. Over 200 youth, ages 5–15, were randomly assigned to 90-minute introductions to one of five commercial circuitry toolkits. Youth took a pre- and post-assessment; we analyzed results using quantitative tests of significance. We used an established sorting task to gather youth perspectives of the tools as identity texts through design markers of gendered identities within the toolkits. We examined the relationship between learning outcomes and the gendered design components of the toolkits. Toolkits that privilege feminine or artistic elements significantly impacted learning more than traditional toolkits used in schools, which showed little to no significant learning gains. We relate this to the inextricability of materiality and the gendered identities of these tools and materials. This study shows how arts-based or feminine-coded tools can be more effective for teaching and learning, serving as a counter to common resistance to adopting such tools and materials for STEM learning. We outline design implications for toolkits and educational experiences to disrupt stagnant social, cultural, and historical norms in STEM education. We would like to thank the participants for their generous participation in this work, as well as our partner schools and organizations who helped make this possible. We would also like to thank members of the Creativity Labs—past and present—who helped to serve as thought partners and sounding boards at various points in the process. 

This article challenges an over‐reliance on language as the primary means to communicate knowledge by adopting a languagelessness approach to maker pedagogies and maker literacies. Having conducted makerspace and design‐based research for some time, we separately and together noticed a productive relationship between wordless relational makerspace and making moments focused on craft, tools, technologies, and materials, and ways that an absence of verbal and written communication opens possibilities within learning environments. After meetings and discussions, we co‐wrote the article to examine ways that language‐light, even language‐free pedagogical spaces allow for a different quality of design work that motivates and fosters innovation. There are three international research projects that serve as research vignettes to investigate the efficacy of languagelessness. The theory foregrounded to anchor and interpret the three vignettes draws from maker literacies research and sociomaterial orientations to knowledge development. 

We draw on constructionism to design a group rope weaving activity as an illustration of concepts in matrix algebra. The study, conducted in an undergraduate Informatics class, involved a rope-weaving activity to assess the concept of cloth separability and the matrix representation of weaving patterns. Results showed significant learning gains, with distinct approaches observed: one group emphasizing physical manipulation, the other relying on mathematical principles. This study underscores the value of tangible engagement in understanding abstract concepts. 

Abstract This exploratory study compares how young people (ages 15–16) learn circuitry concepts and layout design principles important to electrical engineering using one of two educational circuitry toolkits: paper circuits and traditional solderless breadboards. Paper-based prototyping kits are representative of a trend that incorporates new materials and approaches to integrating arts into traditional STEM disciplines. Extending prior research on how non-traditional toolkits enhance learning of electrical engineering outcomes, including basic circuitry concepts (i.e., current flow, polarity, and connections), this study examines the material affordances and design choices of the kits that contribute to youth’s understanding of more advanced circuitry layout design principles, including space allocation, placement of electronic components, and routing. Results indicate that paper circuits better afford the learning of layout design principles for printed circuit boards (PCBs) with large effect sizes. This study illuminates how the materials of educational toolkits uniquely solicit body- and material-syntonic patterns of activity, and thus differentially engage learners’ powerful ideas around circuitry and design principles. This investigation encourages careful consideration of the material affordances of some toolkits over others for learning purposes. 

Weaving is a fabrication process that is grounded in mathematics and engineering: from the binary, matrix-like nature of the pattern drafts weavers have used for centuries, to the punch card programming of the first Jacquard looms. This intersection of disciplines provides an opportunity to ground abstract mathematical concepts in a concrete and embodied art, viewing this textile art through the lens of engineering. Currently, available looms are not optimized to take advantage of this opportunity to increase mathematics learning by providing hands-on interdisciplinary learning in collegiate classrooms. In this work, we present SPEERLoom: an open-source, robotic Jacquard loom kit designed to be a tool for interweaving cloth fabrication, mathematics, and engineering to support interdisciplinary learning in the classroom. We discuss the design requirements and subsequent design of SPEERLoom. We also present the results of a pilot study in a post-secondary class finding that SPEERLoom supports hands-on, interdisciplinary learning of math, engineering, and textiles. 

This article examines how fiber crafting can develop mathematics learning and learners. Extending the constructionist paradigm with relational materialist principles, this paper advances the notion of “materialized action,” which describes the natural inquiry process that results through emergent patterns between learners and the materialized traces of their actions. This paper takes a qualitative approach, combining a design and intervention phase examine fiber crafts (here knitting) and engagement in a “powerful idea” (i.e., unitizing in multiplicative proportional reasoning) as an illustration of how we can better understand micro-developmental learning processes, and advance constructionist theory. 

There is tremendous excitement around makerspaces for deepening and enriching curricula across subjects, as well as engaging traditionally marginalized learners in new ways. To address the lack of translation of maker education projects to mathematics learning, we propose that educators aspire to create a “Mathland” when designing maker educational activities. Mathlands are environments envisioned by Seymour Papert where mathematics are learned alongside ways of doing mathematics in self-selected contexts, leading to an epistemology and natural language of mathematics that pervades all experiences. To imagine a Mathland where women’s participation in mathematics is lifelong and lifewide, we explore traditionally female-dominated fiber crafts where long-term engagement, mathematics, and heritage intersect. As part of a longitudinal embedded multi-year ethnographic study, we conducted cohort analyses as well as grounded, iterative, and thematic coding of semi-structured interview data, augmented with crafting artifacts from 65 adult fiber crafters. Using qualitative analytical techniques, we asked: How does math occur in craft? How do crafters observe the intersection between math and craft in process? Fiber crafts were found to present a “Mathland,” a lifelong context for immersive math engagement. We present crafters’ math insights in the craft, as well as multiple aspects of the crafts and surrounding communities that supported the crafters in sustaining their engagement with mathematics throughout their lifetime. This study has implications for the design of inclusive and lifelong maker educational environments for mathematics learning. 

Our work aims to increase the collaborative ability of college students in computer science classrooms where students must work towards a shared goal with peers from different backgrounds and abilities. Our work focuses specifically on leveraging high-quality collaborative design to bridge the gap between fiber arts and robotics by enlightening students to their shared foundations in mathematics and computational thinking. We achieve this goal through the design of SPEERLoom (Semi-automated Pattern Executing Educational Robotic Loom), a new open-source Jacquard loom kit designed to foster students' exploration of weaving, mechatronics, mathematics, and computational thinking. In this demonstration we present SPEERLoom and allow the exploration of a sample lesson using the loom.