Makerspaces vs Engineering Shops: Initial Undergraduate Student Impressions

Youmans, Kate; Villanueva, Idalis; Nadelson, Louis S.; Bouwma-Gearheart, Jana; Lenz, Adam; Lanci, Sarah

doi:10.1109/fie.2018.8658609

Cited by 6 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Preparing students for professional careers [10]; 9. Improving students' academic success and GPAs [18,19]; 10.…”

Section: What Is a Makerspace?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Workshops and protocols are organized to keep the equipment functional and mitigate the loss of makerspace knowledge after student graduation. This safety culture encourages and enforces personal accountability and promotes dialogue among community members [7,10,25]. Makerspace encourages safe experimentation to build students' confidence while practicing peer-to-peer community-based training [1].…”

Section: Makerspace Safetymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

2019

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Langara College, as one of the leading undergraduate institutions in the province of British Columbia (BC), offers the “Applied Science for Engineering” two-year diploma program as well as the “Engineering Transfer” two-semester certificate program. Three project-based courses are offered as part of the two-year diploma program in Applied Science (APSC) and Computer Science (CPSC) departments: “APSC 1010—Engineering and Technology in Society”, “CPSC 1090—Engineering Graphics”, and “CPSC 1490—Applications of Microcontrollers”, with CPSC 1090 and CPSC 1490 also part of the Engineering Transfer curriculum. Although the goals, scopes, objectives, and evaluation criteria of these courses are different, the main component of all three courses is a group-based technical project. Engineering students have access to Langara College’s Makerspace for the hands-on component of their project. Makerspaces expand experiential learning opportunities and allows students to gain a skillset outside the traditional classroom. This paper begins with a detailed review of the maker movement and the impact of makerspace in higher education. Different forms of makerspace and the benefits of incorporating them on first-year students’ creativity, sense of community, self-confidence, and entrepreneurial skills are discussed. This paper introduces Langara’s engineering program and its project-based design courses. Langara’s interdisciplinary makerspace, its goals and objectives, equipment, and some sample projects are introduced in this paper in detail. We then explain how the group-project component of APSC 1010, CPSC 1090, and CPSC 1490 are managed and how using makerspace improves students’ performance in such projects. In conclusion, the paper describes the evaluation of learning outcomes via an anonymous student survey.

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“…Preparing students for professional careers [10]; 9. Improving students' academic success and GPAs [18,19]; 10.…”

Section: What Is a Makerspace?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Makerspace Safetymentioning

confidence: 99%

Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

2019

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“…In formal education environments, including in K-12 schools and colleges and universities, makerspaces are more recent structures [4]. In the last two decades, postsecondary institutions have seen a notable increase in makerspaces on their campuses, as well as the integration of these spaces into university engineering programs [5][6][7][8][9]. Although differing in exact focus, staffing, and accessibility, a university-based makerspace, generally speaking, can "serve as a meeting place for a university's maker community, and provides resources to design, fabricate, and evaluate engineered systems" [9] (p. 2).…”

Section: Makerspaces In (Stem) Education Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Undergraduate Students Becoming Engineers: The Affordances of University-Based Makerspaces

et al. 2021

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In the last decade, postsecondary institutions have seen a notable increase in makerspaces on their campuses and the integration of these spaces into engineering programs. Yet research into the efficacy of university-based makerspaces is sparse. We contribute to this nascent body of research in reporting on findings from a phenomenological study on the perceptions of faculty, staff, and students concerning six university-based makerspaces in the United States. We discuss the findings using a framework of heterogeneous engineering (integration of the social and technical aspects of engineering practice). Various physical, climate, and programmatic features of makerspaces were read as affordances for students’ development of engineering practices and their continued participation and persistence in engineering. We discuss the potential of makerspaces in helping students develop knowledge, skills, and proclivities that may support their attending to especially wicked societal problems, such as issues of sustainability. We offer implications for makerspace administrators, engineering program leaders, faculty, and staff, as well as those developing and delivering professional development for faculty and staff, to better incorporate makerspaces into the university engineering curriculum.

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“…In spaces designed for making within undergraduate engineering education (e.g., makerspaces, prototyping centers, machine shops), individuals that work in these spaces help students learn about design and development [1,2] of products and prototypes. Through sustained interactions with students, leadership, management and staff in these spaces anticipate that space users (students) will apply what they learn in their coursework and develop workplace skills connected to prototyping [3][4][5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At universities, spaces for making are designed for learning and instruction and may vary by their home disciplinary department or college. For example, in engineering, these types of spaces are used to support classroom instruction and aid students in career preparation via prototyping experiences and activities [1]. It is also anticipated that when students engage with these types of career-forming activities, there is a greater likelihood that students will persist in their degrees [3,6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light Blue Walls and Tan Flooring: A Culture of Belonging in Engineering Making Spaces (or Not?)

et al. 2021

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The motivation for this exploratory qualitative study is to understand what a culture of belonging may look like across six engineering education making spaces in institutions of higher education in the U.S. The research question for this study was: In what ways are the management, instructors, and staff operating engineering education making spaces influencing a culture of belonging (if any) for engineering students? We examined the transcripts of semi-structured interviews of 49 faculty members and 29 members of management/staff of making spaces, using thematic coding. From the data, we identified four themes that described the culture of belonging being created in these six engineering making spaces: (a) a ‘closed loop’ culture for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access; (b) a ‘transactional, dichotomous’ culture; (c) a ‘band-aid, masquerading’ culture; (d) a potential ‘boundary-crossing’ culture. Our primary conclusion was that created cultures in engineering making spaces are extensions of normative cultures found in traditional engineering classrooms. Additionally, while making spaces were attempting to change this culture in their physical infrastructures, it was deemed that the space leadership needs to expand hiring strategies, the nature of making activities, the ambient/physical appearance of the space, disciplines, and required expertise, to create a truly inclusive and equitable culture of belonging.

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Makerspaces vs Engineering Shops: Initial Undergraduate Student Impressions

Cited by 6 publications

References 13 publications

Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

Makerspaces in First-Year Engineering Education

Undergraduate Students Becoming Engineers: The Affordances of University-Based Makerspaces

Light Blue Walls and Tan Flooring: A Culture of Belonging in Engineering Making Spaces (or Not?)

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