Teaching & learning in makerspaces: equipping teachers to become justice-oriented maker-educators

Abstract

Making and makerspaces are becoming increasingly popular in K-12 schools. However, professional development on making for practicing teachers is under researched. We present case studies of two teachers' sensemaking of making in a one semester graduate course on teaching and learning in makerspaces. The course was designed around three course tenets; maker as learner, as iterative, and as equitable and consequential. We utilize third generation cultural historical activity theory to analyze teachers' course work to understand their sensemaking of course tenets within their school context. We found that teachers made sense of the course content through their lens as a classroom teacher and that teachers surfaced and attempted to work through contradictions related to school routines related to high-stakes assessment and a history of stratifying youth within and across schools. These findings have implications for how we design for teacher professional learning about making and makerspaces.

Promoting maker‐centred instruction through virtual professional development activities for K‐12 teachers in low‐income rural areas

“…Therefore, to help teachers implement maker-centred instruction in a meaningful way, PD activities should be tied to classroom curricula (Hjorth et al, 2016). Similar to the previous research (eg, Heredia & Tan, 2021;Hjorth et al, 2016), the current study showed that having teachers design lessons for their instructional practices could help them understand the connections between making and their specific curricula needs. In our study, teachers reported that making artefacts and designing lessons for their classrooms were beneficial, through which teachers experienced how making could facilitate the learning of subject-specific topics.…”

“…The PD activities included an initial face‐to‐face meeting, maker project and final sharing of projects. Heredia and Tan (2021) presented case studies of two teachers in a graduate course on exploring making as a pedagogical practice. The classes were held face‐to‐face in a university makerspace, including the activities of an embroidery project, designing a maker lesson and observing students' making in an afterschool programme.…”

“…Second, designing lessons as teachers/designers for their classrooms is another popular PD design feature. This strategy asks teachers to create plans for integrating making into their professional practice (Alimisis, 2019;Cairns et al, 2018;Heredia & Tan, 2021), or implement the maker lesson plans they designed in classrooms (Hjorth et al, 2016;Kanstrup et al, 2021;Stevenson et al, 2019). In the study by Kanstrup et al (2021), lesson studies were conducted when teachers put ideas into action.…”

“…First, providing hands‐on opportunities in making is a common strategy to help teachers learn about maker technology and pedagogy. The studies implemented a variety of making activities with teachers, such as creating E‐textile artefacts (eg, a temperature‐sensing lunchbox) (Nakajima & Goode, 2019; Tofel‐Grehl et al., 2018), fabricating an arcade game (Cohen et al., 2017), 3D‐printing projects for learning about 3D‐design‐based teaching (Cairns et al., 2018; Milara et al., 2020; Stevenson et al., 2019), robotics projects for exploring constructivism teaching (Alimisis, 2019), and embroidery projects for understanding hands‐on making (Heredia & Tan, 2021). These studies emphasized the importance of having teachers experience making as learners.…”

Linking Budgeting with Computational Thinking Pedagogy: Program Theory, Performance, and Budgeting

“…Naturally, then reducing the influence of learning limitations would be important to integrating program theory into a budget course or, any analytic course for that matter. One way to do so, would be what Heredia and Tan (2021) working with a graduate course: create a context for learning using active learning or learning by doing.…”