Becoming a Maker Teacher: Designing Making Curricula That Promotes Pedagogical Change

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the case of a Canadian teacher and her students who engaged with a researcher in a year-long design-based research study exploring the implementation of curriculum within a makerspace context. Together, the grade six teacher and researcher co-designed, co-enacted, and co-reflected on three curricular making cycles, one related to sky science, another to mathematical transformations, and a third focused on core concepts of democratic systems. The twofold purpose of this DBR was to promote pedagogical change through designs for making and to articulate design principles that could be utilized when engaging with curriculum for making. Findings show that the makerspace as learning environment and design-based research as methodology provided a double helix scaffold that compelled the teacher to reconsider her frame when enacting curriculum. For this teacher, collaboration on design-based research and designs for learning in the makerspace promoted a shift in pedagogy and led the teacher and her students to rethink notions of curriculum while questioning what is important to know. An expansion of the intervention to engage multiple teachers in multiple sites to determine scalability is recommended. Study findings point to the makerspace as a promising design frame for rethinking curriculum and pedagogical practice.

Exploring design discourses and liminality as features of professional learning in an elementary makerspace

“…black holes, satellites, the solar system) to explore a personal question of interest about the night sky (Authors, 2019). In Cycle 2, conducted in March–April, the students created stop animations in a focus on geometric transformations (Authors, 2020, 2021). In Cycle 3, conducted in May, with a focus on democratic systems, the students created physical metaphors of concepts such as freedom and equity (Authors, 2020, 2021), using digital design software (e.g.…”

“…In Cycle 2, conducted in March–April, the students created stop animations in a focus on geometric transformations (Authors, 2020, 2021). In Cycle 3, conducted in May, with a focus on democratic systems, the students created physical metaphors of concepts such as freedom and equity (Authors, 2020, 2021), using digital design software (e.g. Tinkercad and Easel) and three-dimensional (3D) printing and computer numerical control (CNC) milling machines.…”

“…Making can support conceptual understanding; participating in making also has the potential to develop those dispositions critical for success in creative collaborative environments while also building personal agency (Chu et al , 2015; Hira and Hynes, 2018; Kumpulainen, and Kajamaa, 2020) and identity (Authors, 2021; Fasso and Knight, 2020). Designing learning activities in school makerspaces offers teachers opportunities to integrate curriculum design and professional development (Wardrip and Brahms, 2016), which provides ways for them to think differently about curriculum (Authors, 2021) and promote learning that is interdisciplinary, deeply personal and bridges student learning inside and outside school (Authors, 2020).…”

Becoming a Maker Pedagogue

“…Therefore, we see that municipality makerspaces in the long haul face problems with issues of generalizability, scalability and sustainability. Here [5] suggest a continuous dialogue by addressing makerspaces as learning environments, the use of a maker frame to implement curriculum and using design-based research methodology that links practitioners work with empirical research. To scale up and spread the maker mindset further is a challenge and question remains to what extent it is possible and even desirable.…”

“…They argue that learners and teachers are best supported by 'playshop models' and the inclusion of play-enriched maker literacy curricula that empowers children's creativity to collaboratively engage with the new materials and tools [49, p. 217]. Also relevant is Becker and Jacobsen [5] who have used a makerspace and a design based research approach as context to rethink curriculum together with a teacher (active in grade six however). Through "engaging with curricular designs for making, the enactment of designs in the makerspace, and reflections on the learning that occurred using an interactive process which affected her planning, acting and evaluating were reciprocally related and integrated; in short, Riley…”