People, Means, and Activities: A Conceptual Framework for Realizing the Educational Potential of Makerspaces

Abstract

Makerspaces are environments where individuals use technologies to make physical artifacts within a community of fellow Makers. ere has been growing interest in the educational potential of Making activities which has resulted in many schools procuring tools and technologies to set up their Makerspaces. However, there is scant research investigating the efficacy of Making these newly emerging Makerspaces intended for learning. In our work, we narrow this gap in knowledge between the claimed educational potential of Making and its attainment. By synthesizing prior work and publically available data on Makerspaces, we introduce a framework to situate the educational considerations for Makerspaces and recommend directions for future research on educational Makerspaces. Being cognizant of the Maker culture having emerged outside of the academic literature, we synthesize publically available data from 53 untraditional but relevant sources. ese sources include definitions of Making forwarded by 3 well-established Maker initiatives (Makerspace, Hackerspace, and Fab Lab), 18 relevant sites of Making activities across the United States, 17 sites from other countries (namely, China, India, Morocco, and Spain), and 15 Maker initiatives at schools in the United States. After proposing and detailing the framework, we recommend directions for future research to attain the potential of educational Making.

Affective Learning in Digital Education—Case Studies of Social Networking Systems, Games for Learning, and Digital Fabrication

“…The last case example turned the focus toward the teachers' and facilitators' point of view, investigating how they see making activities and how they understand what kind of support students need from them during these activities. This study, through the design principles of the Fab Lab activities, characterized the important factors that help teachers and facilitators to engage and support students' learning, such as implementing complex tasks, using digital tools, highlighting students' own roles and responsibilities, providing opportunities for reflection, encouraging trial and error, and providing flexibility in the timeframe (Blikstein, 2013;Georgiev et al, 2017;Hira and Hynes, 2018;Iwata et al, 2019). In addition to these principles, this study pointed out that adequate scaffolding is needed to improve opportunities for cognitively effortful and affectively meaningful learning.…”

“…In such spaces, learners are free to choose (a) what activities to engage in with respect to the problem at hand and (b) how they want to perform those activities (Kollar et al, 2007). Modern social networking systems, games for learning, and contexts for digital fabrication and making can be categorized into open problem spaces where learning is often supported without tightly structured sociotechnological instructional design (Laru et al, 2015;Hira and Hynes, 2018).…”

“…In the context of digital fabrication and Fab Labs, complex, undefined, open-ended, and unstructured problemsolving activities are typical (Halverson and Sheridan, 2014;Chan and Blikstein, 2018). Prior studies in educational contexts have found that maker culture activities hold great potential for developing a sense of personal agency, improving selfefficacy and self-esteem, and supporting learners in becoming an active member of a learning community (Halverson and Sheridan, 2014;Chu et al, 2017;Hira and Hynes, 2018). Taylor (2016) has concluded that the activities in "makerspaces" can be transformed into classroom projects that match the goals of twenty-first-century education.…”

Bridging distance: Practical and pedagogical implications of virtual Makerspaces

“…The theoretical construct of the educational makerspace conceptual framework involving people, means, and activities (Hira & Hynes, 2018) is used to examine the establishment of an international PLC and avirtual makerspace, and to explore the experiences of virtual making.…”

“…Depending on the purpose, it will influence the people, the means and the activities of the makerspace. Hira and Hynes (2018) argued the framework can be used as a tool by educators and facilitators to be more purposive about the Makerspaces they are initiating or working within …. For example, a Makerspace in a school should procure means informed by the educational activities they want to undertake, which might not always necessitate the purchase of expensive equipment.…”