A Crafts-Oriented Approach to Computing in High School

Kafai, Yasmin B.; Lee, Eun‐Kyoung; Searle, Kristin A.; Fields, Deborah A.; Kaplan, Eliot; Lui, Debora

doi:10.1145/2576874

Cited by 209 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…Making is not a unitary activity, and the particular learning outcomes from a robotics club (Cejka, Rogers, & Portsmore, 2006) will likely differ from those found in a sewing circle (Kafai et al, 2014), just as learning outcomes from a half hour making experience at a museum (Bevan et al, 2015) will differ from a multi-year engagement in making in an out-of-school setting (Dixon & Martin, 2017). As such, there is no simple answer to the question, what do youth learn from making, in general.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning through making: The development of engineering discourse in an out‐of‐school maker club

Martin

Betser

2020

J of Engineering Edu

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Background Learning to be an engineer means learning to participate in engineering discourse: the words, visuals, routines, and narratives through which engineers think and communicate. An important goal for engineering education is uncovering the processes by which young people take up and become fluent in engineering discourse, and how teachers and mentors can aid them in this process. Growing evidence suggests that participation in out‐of‐school maker activities—a class of informal design and build activities—holds promise to help youth gain interest and skill in engineering design. Purpose/Hypothesis This study investigates how youth learn engineering design through participation in a maker club. It is theoretically grounded in Sfard's (2008) commognition framework, an approach that views learning to be an engineer as learning to participate in engineering discourse. Design/Method The study employed case study methods of interaction analysis of video‐recorded observations. The analysis closely examines interactions to uncover the mechanisms of discourse development. Results Findings showed that a newcomer to the discourse could show substantive growth within a single work session. The analysis examined how the youth and a mentor collaborated within a hands‐on learning environment to create opportunities for discourse development. Such growth is not inevitable as seen in an analysis of a missed opportunity. Conclusions This article shows that making can be a fruitful context for the development of engineering discourse, and it illustrates mechanisms through which that learning can occur, including explorative imitation of engineering discourse routines within hands‐on learning environments. It shows that professional engineers can play an important role in youth learning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning through making: The development of engineering discourse in an out‐of‐school maker club

Martin

Betser

2020

J of Engineering Edu

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“…Makerspaces serve different audiences across the life span and vary quite widely in terms of media/project emphasis areas, the length of time a maker will work on a given project, and the structure of the community (Sheridan et al, 2014). Makers engage with varied media and technologies to create different products such as programmed e-textiles (Kafai et al, 2014), programmed robots (Fitton, Read, & Dempsey, 2015), 3D-printed or laser-cut building models (McKay, Banks, & Wallace, 2016), multimodal compositions and stories (McGrath & Guglielmo, 2015), and more.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing a Virtual Makerspace for an Online Graduate Course: A Design Case

Oliver

Moore

Evans

2017

IJDL

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This design case discusses key steps taken to establish a virtual makerspace for students enrolled in an online graduate course on informal learning. Two key design decisions are elaborated around (a) the selection of appropriate projects and packaged materials that distance education students can receive by mail to participate in making, and (b) the choice of an online platform for distance education students to document their design processes for assessment purposes and peer interaction and learning. This design case is relevant to a variety of online communities who may wish to engage in maker activities as well as isolated face-to-face communities or individuals who may not have local mentors to support informal making and could, therefore, benefit from online connectivity to an expert or peer support. To promote replication of the design, materials and community tools to support making among geographically dispersed makers are detailed.

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“…Besides, such assessments typically focus on individual outcomes. For example, adopting Brennan and Resnick's (2012) three-dimensional framework, Kafai et al (2014) assessed individual students' understanding of core CT concepts. They found that remixing (i.e., including segments of existing code into their own design projects) played the most prominent role in CT competence development.…”

Section: Ct and Programmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing computational thinking in collaborative programming: A quantitative ethnography approach

Ruis

et al. 2019

Computer Assisted Learning

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Computational thinking (CT), the ability to devise computational solutions for real‐life problems, has received growing attention from both educators and researchers. To better improve university students' CT competence, collaborative programming is regarded as an effective learning approach. However, how novice programmers develop CT competence through collaborative problem solving remains unclear. This study adopted an innovative approach, quantitative ethnography, to analyze the collaborative programming activities of a high‐performing and a low‐performing team. Both the discourse analysis and epistemic network models revealed that across concepts, practices, and identity, the high‐performing team exhibited CT that was systematic, whereas the CT of the low‐performing team was characterized by tinkering or guess‐and‐check approaches. However, the low‐performing group's CT development trajectory ultimately converged towards the high‐performing group's. This study thus improves understanding of how novices learn CT, and it illustrates a useful method for modeling CT based in authentic problem‐solving contexts.

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A Crafts-Oriented Approach to Computing in High School

Cited by 209 publications

References 23 publications

Learning through making: The development of engineering discourse in an out‐of‐school maker club

Learning through making: The development of engineering discourse in an out‐of‐school maker club

Establishing a Virtual Makerspace for an Online Graduate Course: A Design Case

Analysing computational thinking in collaborative programming: A quantitative ethnography approach

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