Rafi Santo
Indiana University, Learning Sciences, Graduate Student
- Indiana University, Center for Research on Learning and Technology, Graduate Studentadd
- New Media, Critical Pedagogy, Social Justice, Video Games and Learning, Informal Learning, Social Justice in Education, and 19 moreNew Literacies, Civic Engagement, Educational Equity and Justice, New literacy studies, Civic Education, Social Justice Issues, Digital Media And New Literacies, New Literacy Studies (Education), Critical Media Literacy, Youth Civic Engagement, Learning in Informal Settings, Critical Literacy Studies, Design of informal learning environments, Digital Media & Learning, Learning Sciences, Open Source and Free Software Studies, Social Network Analysis (SNA), Design-based research, and Organizational Learningedit
- Kylie Peppleredit
“Back with another video. I got a glitch for y’all. Imaboutta bless, Imaboutta bless.” On the second day of a city-wide early work program for low-income youth in one of America’s largest municipalities, a teen experiencing yet another... more
“Back with another video. I got a glitch for y’all. Imaboutta bless, Imaboutta bless.” On the second day of a city-wide early work program for low-income youth in one of America’s largest municipalities, a teen experiencing yet another remote learning set-up took to YouTube to share a “glitch” that offered a shortcut to meeting mandated use requirements of a program-wide learning app. A basketball game played on a TV in the background, sneakers squeaking on floorboards as the narrator trained his phone’s camera on an iPad and explained the workaround he’d discovered. He ranged from sharing irritation at what he saw as a cookie-cutter learning experience (“it’s so dumb bro, this is so annoying”) to feigning deference to an off-screen authority figure (“yessir, yessir”) as he tapped through the interface, to excitement as he shared his discovery with his teen audience. A telling comment under the video expressed deep gratitude: “You deadass saved my life, this shit had me stressed fr [for real].”
Research Interests:
Equity is arguably an agreed upon value within the Computer Science education (CSed) community, and perhaps even more so within efforts to universalize access to CSed within K12 settings through emerging ‘CS for All’ initiatives. However,... more
Equity is arguably an agreed upon value within the Computer Science education (CSed) community, and perhaps even more so within efforts to universalize access to CSed within K12 settings through emerging ‘CS for All’ initiatives. However, stakeholders often mean different things when referring to equity, with important implications for what CS teaching and learning looks like in schools. In this paper, we explore the question of how K12 school district actors’ conceptualizations of equity manifest within their planning and implementation of district-wide CSed initiatives. Based on a research-practice partnership aimed at supporting and researching district-wide CSed initiatives, data presented - interviews with district faculty, district planning documents, meeting transcripts and field observations - were drawn from five participating school districts as they made decisions and enacted activities over 11 months in areas including vision-setting, curriculum, professional development, leadership efforts and use of formative data about implementation. Analyzing these data through equity frameworks found in CSed literature, we highlight three distinct but interconnected ways that district actors conceptualized equity within their CSed initiatives: (1) equity in who Computer Science is for, (2) equity in how Computer Science is taught, and (3) equity in what Computer Science is taught. Data show that these varied conceptualizations resulted in different kinds of decisions about CSed in districts. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of their relevance to equity-oriented CS education researchers, and what lessons they hold for policy-makers and education leaders engaged in their own efforts to support equitable computer science education.
Research Interests:
Purpose – This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect you to... more
Purpose – This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect you to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they pursue various goals. The paper aims to describe three critical levers for brokering well in informal settings: creating learning environments that allow trust to form between youth and educators and enable educators to develop an understanding of a young person’s interests, needs and goals; attending to a young person’s tendency (or not) to reach out to educators after a program is over to solicit assistance; and enabling potential brokers to efficiently locate appropriate future learning opportunities for each young person who approaches them. The authors also include a set of program practices for providers who wish to increase their brokering impact, as well as recommendations geared primarily toward organization leaders. The authors hope that this paper brings clarity and enhanced significance to the practice of brokering as a strategy to support youth pathways toward meaningful futures.
Design/methodology/approach – Insights presented here are the result of a participatory knowledge building and sharing process with a community of after-school providers known as the Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network. The topic of discussion was how these providers might continue to support young people in their intensive project-based programs after the program was over. The authors of this article, acting as embedded research partners to Hive NYC, contributed insights to these discussions based on ethnographic fieldwork and case studies of high-school-age youth in the Hive NYC context. Findings – The authors articulate a set of brokering practices and a conceptual model that communicates how brokering might lead to valued long-term outcomes for youth, including increased social capital.
Originality/value – The intent is that information and perspectives from this article will inform youth-serving practice and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and activities geared toward promoting youth pathways of learning and identity development.
Keywords- Professional development, Brokering, Cross-setting learning, Interest-driven learning, Youth pathways
Paper type- Case study
Design/methodology/approach – Insights presented here are the result of a participatory knowledge building and sharing process with a community of after-school providers known as the Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network. The topic of discussion was how these providers might continue to support young people in their intensive project-based programs after the program was over. The authors of this article, acting as embedded research partners to Hive NYC, contributed insights to these discussions based on ethnographic fieldwork and case studies of high-school-age youth in the Hive NYC context. Findings – The authors articulate a set of brokering practices and a conceptual model that communicates how brokering might lead to valued long-term outcomes for youth, including increased social capital.
Originality/value – The intent is that information and perspectives from this article will inform youth-serving practice and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and activities geared toward promoting youth pathways of learning and identity development.
Keywords- Professional development, Brokering, Cross-setting learning, Interest-driven learning, Youth pathways
Paper type- Case study
This case study considers how educational researchers and practitioners can work together to engage in participatory knowledge building, a process rooted in both empirical research and the lived practices and expertise of on-the-ground... more
This case study considers how educational researchers and practitioners can work together to engage in participatory knowledge building, a process rooted in both empirical research and the lived practices and expertise of on-the-ground educators that produces knowledge relevant to both educational theory and practice. The method shared was used as part of a broader approach called research-practice partnerships (RPPs), a model of collaboration between researchers and practitioners that departs from and counters traditional assumptions of “research translation” that suppose a unidirectional relationship where researchers simply share findings with educators, administrators, and youth. Instead, research-practice partnerships are characterized by joint work, mutuality, and a focus on persistent problems of practice across stakeholder groups. Within research-practice partnerships, we propose participatory knowledge building as one method that indexes these values.
Rooting our case in the production of collaborative white papers addressing shared issues between researchers and practitioners, we first focus on practical techniques associated with participatory knowledge building, then discuss the outcomes of this approach for research- practice partnerships, and finally make recommendations for utilizing this approach. In discussing techniques to develop collective knowledge through participatory processes, we detail topic emergence and selection, leveraging community contexts as spaces for knowledge building, integrating basic research data, synthesizing and creating an initial draft of the paper, and engaging in community-based feedback and dissemination. We then detail the outcomes that such a process has for those engaged in research-practice partnerships, including development of shared language, fostering a collective knowledge-building orientation, surfacing practitioner expertise, implicit renegotiation of the focus of joint work, and catalyzing new educational experiments and shifts in practice. We close with lessons learned from our experience in this area and recommendations for others who are looking to engage in this practice. Broadly, the case highlights both the practicalities and affordances of using collaborative, participatory methods of knowledge production when the goal is first and foremost to improve educational practice.
Rooting our case in the production of collaborative white papers addressing shared issues between researchers and practitioners, we first focus on practical techniques associated with participatory knowledge building, then discuss the outcomes of this approach for research- practice partnerships, and finally make recommendations for utilizing this approach. In discussing techniques to develop collective knowledge through participatory processes, we detail topic emergence and selection, leveraging community contexts as spaces for knowledge building, integrating basic research data, synthesizing and creating an initial draft of the paper, and engaging in community-based feedback and dissemination. We then detail the outcomes that such a process has for those engaged in research-practice partnerships, including development of shared language, fostering a collective knowledge-building orientation, surfacing practitioner expertise, implicit renegotiation of the focus of joint work, and catalyzing new educational experiments and shifts in practice. We close with lessons learned from our experience in this area and recommendations for others who are looking to engage in this practice. Broadly, the case highlights both the practicalities and affordances of using collaborative, participatory methods of knowledge production when the goal is first and foremost to improve educational practice.
Research Interests: Participatory Research, Participatory Action Research, Research Methodology, Participatory Design, Design-based research, and 6 moreKnowledge building, Knowledge Building Communities, Collaborative Knowledge Building, Design Based Implementation Research, research practice partnerships, and participatory knowledge buidling
Research Interests:
We can see how games can support civic behaviors by taking a closer look at the engagement involved in games that kids already play. Many of the most successful commercial games don't just involve a game, but also broader ecologies... more
We can see how games can support civic behaviors by taking a closer look at the engagement involved in games that kids already play. Many of the most successful commercial games don't just involve a game, but also broader ecologies surrounding the game-communities of players posting on discussion forums, creating resources like level walk-throughs and tips, designing user-generated game “mods” or modifications, and engaging in a range of activities characterized by collaboration, debate and production of ...
Research Interests:
Purpose – This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to... more
Purpose – This article makes a case for the importance of brokering future learning opportunities to youth as a programmatic goal for informal learning organizations. Such brokering entails engaging in practices that connect youth to events, programs, internships, individuals and institutions related to their interests to support them beyond the window of a specific program or event. Brokering is especially critical for youth who are new to an area of interest: it helps them develop both a baseline understanding of the information landscape and a social network that will respond to their needs as they pursue various goals. The paper aims to describe three critical levers for brokering well in informal settings: creating learning environments that allow trust to form between youth and educators and enable educators to develop an understanding of a young person’s interests, needs and goals; attending to a young person’s tendency (or not) to reach out to educators after a program is over to solicit assistance; and enabling potential brokers to efficiently locate appropriate future learning opportunities for each young person who approaches them. The authors also include a set of program practices for providers who wish to increase their brokering impact, as well as recommendations geared primarily toward organization leaders. The authors hope that this paper brings clarity and enhanced significance to the practice of brokering as a strategy to support youth pathways toward meaningful futures. Design/methodology/approach – Insights presented here are the result of a participatory knowledge building and sharing process with a community of after-school providers known as the Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network. The topic of discussion was how these providers might continue to support young people in their intensive project-based programs after the program was over. The authors of this article, acting as embedded research partners to Hive NYC, contributed insights to these discussions based on ethnographic fieldwork and case studies of high-school-age youth in the Hive NYC context.
Findings – The authors articulate a set of brokering practices and a conceptual model that communicates how brokering might lead to valued long-term outcomes for youth, including increased social capital. Originality/value – The intent is that information and perspectives from this article will inform youth-serving practice and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and activities geared toward promoting youth pathways of learning and identity development.
Findings – The authors articulate a set of brokering practices and a conceptual model that communicates how brokering might lead to valued long-term outcomes for youth, including increased social capital. Originality/value – The intent is that information and perspectives from this article will inform youth-serving practice and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and activities geared toward promoting youth pathways of learning and identity development.
Research Interests:
Purpose – This article makes the case that the education community can learn from professional learning and innovation practices, collectively called “Working in the Open” (or “Working Open”), that have roots in the free/open source... more
Purpose – This article makes the case that the education community can learn from professional learning and innovation practices, collectively called “Working in the Open” (or “Working Open”), that have roots in the free/open source software (F/OSS) movement. These practices focus on values of transparency, collaboration and sharing within communities of experimentation. This paper aims to argues that Working Open offers a compelling approach to fostering distributed educational professional networks that focus on co-constructing new projects and best practices. Design/methodology/approach – Insights presented here are based on three sources: expert perspectives on open source work practices gleaned through interviews and blog posts, a qualitative case analysis of a collaborative project enacted by a group of informal learning organizations within the Hive NYC Learning Network, a community of over 70 youth-facing organizations in New York City, as well as an overview of that network’s participation structures, and, finally, knowledge-building activities and discussions held within the Hive NYC community about the topic in situ. From these sources, the authors derived general principles to guide open work approaches.
Findings – The authors identify five practices deemed as central to Working Open: public storytelling and context setting, enabling community contribution, rapid prototyping “in the wild”, public reflection and documentation and, lastly, creating remixable work products. The authors describe these practices, show how they are enacted in situ, outline ways that Hive NYC stewards promote a Working Open organizational ecosystem and conclude with recommendations for utilizing a Working Open approach. Originality/value – Drawing from the F/OSS movement, this article builds on standard practices of professional learning communities to provide an approach that focuses on pushing forward innovation and changes in practice as opposed to solely sharing reflections or observing practices.
Findings – The authors identify five practices deemed as central to Working Open: public storytelling and context setting, enabling community contribution, rapid prototyping “in the wild”, public reflection and documentation and, lastly, creating remixable work products. The authors describe these practices, show how they are enacted in situ, outline ways that Hive NYC stewards promote a Working Open organizational ecosystem and conclude with recommendations for utilizing a Working Open approach. Originality/value – Drawing from the F/OSS movement, this article builds on standard practices of professional learning communities to provide an approach that focuses on pushing forward innovation and changes in practice as opposed to solely sharing reflections or observing practices.
Research Interests:
We propose a distinctive method, Situated Action Networks (SANs), rooted in socio-cultural theories of learning that affords visualization and analysis of learning in a way that is theoretically robust yet scalable to large data sets.... more
We propose a distinctive method, Situated Action Networks (SANs), rooted in socio-cultural theories of learning that affords visualization and analysis of learning in a way that is theoretically robust yet scalable to large data sets. While visualization is increasingly looked to as a key means of understanding learning, there are few tools at learning scientists' disposal that are simultaneously scalable yet also aligned with sociocultural perspectives. Situated Action Networks attempt to address this by appropriating techniques from social network analysis while aligning them with Cultural Historical Activity Theory. They accomplish this by (1) elevating learning activities to the forefront of learning visualizations, allowing for rich qualitative analyses of learning and (2) creating theoretically aligned indices that afford quantitative analyses within and across learning environments. Using data on collaborative learning dynamics between informal learning organizations as they engage in joint projects, we show the affordances of this method for understanding learning.
Research Interests:
As a learning network, Hive NYC is continually in the process of understanding what its potential is, what its purposes could be, and how organizations can achieve more together than they could apart. Within that, it’s imperative that we... more
As a learning network, Hive NYC is continually in the process of understanding what its potential is, what its purposes could be, and how organizations can achieve more together than they could apart. Within that, it’s imperative that we think about how we can be ‘a network that learns’, a community that is continually generating, circulating and accumulating knowledge relevant to accomplishing our goals around serving youth in a connected world.
In the summer of 2014, a group of Hive NYC members and stakeholders came together to think about how the idea of ‘working open’ might play a role in addressing key knowledge management issues that members had expressed as important to them at the State of the Hive meeting in March 2014. Issues such as
locating expertise, capturing best practices and accumulating collective wisdom were central to these
discussions. As a way of working that values collaboration, failing early and often, ongoing storytelling,
community building and an experimental and flexible spirit, we believe that working open can be considered
an important mode of engagement that allows Hive members to progress both individually and collectively.
However, it’s first critical to understand what’s meant by this term and what it looks ke in practice. In this
community white paper, synthesized from the perspectives of many Hive stakeholders, we outline the
contours and tensions of what it might mean to work open in Hive NYC, aiming to provide a vision for
collective organizational learning within the network.
In the summer of 2014, a group of Hive NYC members and stakeholders came together to think about how the idea of ‘working open’ might play a role in addressing key knowledge management issues that members had expressed as important to them at the State of the Hive meeting in March 2014. Issues such as
locating expertise, capturing best practices and accumulating collective wisdom were central to these
discussions. As a way of working that values collaboration, failing early and often, ongoing storytelling,
community building and an experimental and flexible spirit, we believe that working open can be considered
an important mode of engagement that allows Hive members to progress both individually and collectively.
However, it’s first critical to understand what’s meant by this term and what it looks ke in practice. In this
community white paper, synthesized from the perspectives of many Hive stakeholders, we outline the
contours and tensions of what it might mean to work open in Hive NYC, aiming to provide a vision for
collective organizational learning within the network.
Research Interests: Organizational Theory, Knowledge Management, Organizational Change, Organizational Learning, Organizational Culture, and 12 moreSociology of Knowledge, Open Source Software, Management of Innovation, Technological Innovation, Innovation Networks, Open Innovation, Innovation and Creativity (Business), Open Source and Free Software Studies, Organizational Development, Open Source, Open Source Culture, and Organizational Networks
Since summer of 2013, Hive Research Lab (HRL), an applied research partner of Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network, has engaged in a range of activities that include both basic research and applied design activities geared toward advancing... more
Since summer of 2013, Hive Research Lab (HRL), an applied research partner of Mozilla Hive NYC Learning Network, has engaged in a range of activities that include both basic research and applied design activities geared toward advancing the community’s collective understanding of how to support youth interest-driven learning pathways. Our activities have included developing case studies of high school students and recent high school graduates who participate in Hive network programs and events, leading consensus-building discussions during Hive community meetings and calls around youth pathway issues, facilitating the design of initiatives that target specific barriers to supporting youth pathways1, and providing formative design research support to members2.
In reviewing community members’ accounts of successful examples of youth pathway support in the Hive, one youth development practice emerged as central—educator activity linking their youth to other programs and opportunities, a practice we call brokering. At the same time, it was evident that efforts around brokering future learning opportunities were often time-consuming and constrained by factors such as awareness of opportunities at any given moment. HRL used this understanding as a starting point for asking: What if we as a network were able to collectively and systematically think about the issues and opportunities around brokering future learning opportunities to our youth? How might that enhance our impact on young people’s lives and on our abilities to address entrenched issues of equity, opportunity, and empowerment?
This white paper, representative of collective work between Hive Research Lab, Hive network members, and the administrators of the Hive NYC network3, attempts to bring more clarity to the practice of brokering as a way to support youth pathways towards meaningful futures. In the fall of 2014, HRL facilitated discussions in the Hive community around how the network as a whole can more effectively broker opportunities to our youth, and worked with members to collectively formalize our collective understandings and definition of brokering as a promising youth development practice. Based on those community conversations, in this paper we articulate who are (or could be) learning opportunity brokers, how brokering is achieved, and some precise goals the Hive community could work towards. While many Hive educators already engage in brokering to some degree, our goal here is to bring more attention to what we do and what we can do to formalize this as a valued practice in our community. We aim to more actively give it consideration in a way that allows us to discover how to do it better as both individual educators but also as a collective. HRL facilitated many of these discussions and also attempted to connect our discussions to existing research whenever it seemed to be illustrative to do so. This paper represents the culmination of our collective knowledge building efforts and should be considered a product of joint research and action that emerged from the community as a whole.
In reviewing community members’ accounts of successful examples of youth pathway support in the Hive, one youth development practice emerged as central—educator activity linking their youth to other programs and opportunities, a practice we call brokering. At the same time, it was evident that efforts around brokering future learning opportunities were often time-consuming and constrained by factors such as awareness of opportunities at any given moment. HRL used this understanding as a starting point for asking: What if we as a network were able to collectively and systematically think about the issues and opportunities around brokering future learning opportunities to our youth? How might that enhance our impact on young people’s lives and on our abilities to address entrenched issues of equity, opportunity, and empowerment?
This white paper, representative of collective work between Hive Research Lab, Hive network members, and the administrators of the Hive NYC network3, attempts to bring more clarity to the practice of brokering as a way to support youth pathways towards meaningful futures. In the fall of 2014, HRL facilitated discussions in the Hive community around how the network as a whole can more effectively broker opportunities to our youth, and worked with members to collectively formalize our collective understandings and definition of brokering as a promising youth development practice. Based on those community conversations, in this paper we articulate who are (or could be) learning opportunity brokers, how brokering is achieved, and some precise goals the Hive community could work towards. While many Hive educators already engage in brokering to some degree, our goal here is to bring more attention to what we do and what we can do to formalize this as a valued practice in our community. We aim to more actively give it consideration in a way that allows us to discover how to do it better as both individual educators but also as a collective. HRL facilitated many of these discussions and also attempted to connect our discussions to existing research whenever it seemed to be illustrative to do so. This paper represents the culmination of our collective knowledge building efforts and should be considered a product of joint research and action that emerged from the community as a whole.
Research Interests: Digital Literacy, Digital Media & Learning, Social Support, Digital Media And New Literacies, Digital Literacies, and 9 moreDigital Media and Learning, Information Brokering, Afterschool Programming/Early Childhood, Learning Across Settings, Knowledge Brokering, Interest Driven Learning, Connected Learning, Afterschool Intervention, and Afterschool Programs
Maker Education scholarship is accumulating increasingly complex understandings of the kinds of learning associated with maker practices along with principles and pedagogies that support such learning. However, even as large investments... more
Maker Education scholarship is accumulating increasingly complex understandings of the kinds of learning associated with maker practices along with principles and pedagogies that support such learning. However, even as large investments are being made to spread maker education, there is little understanding of how organizations that are intended targets of such investments learn to develop new maker related educational programs. Using the framework of Expansive Learning [9], focusing on organizational learning processes resulting in new and unfolding forms of activity, this paper begins to fill this gap through a case study of a community organization serving non-dominant youth that engaged in an 18-month learning process to create its own maker- space. Utilizing interviews, field observations and diverse forms of documentation, findings show that (1) regional organizational networks play infrastructural roles involving inspiration, validation and orientation in expansive learning through providing access to expertise and partnerships, (2) organizational learning around maker education involves dimensions of not only pedagogy and technology but also of social geography, institutional logics and organizational design processes, and (3) processes of object transformation within expansive learning around maker education by organizations rooted in non-dominant communities can act as sites of critique and, potentially, contributions maker education culture in ways that address issues of broadening participation and increasing equity.
Research Interests: Organizational Behavior, Organizational Theory, Organizational Change, Organizational Learning, Participatory Design, and 20 moreOrganizational Culture, Inter/intra-organizational Relationships and Networks, Cultural Historical Activity Theory, Cultural-historical Theory, Innovation Networks, Open Innovation, Equity, STEM Education, Organizational Development, Expansive Learning, K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and outreach, Makers and D.I.Y. technology, Maker Culture, Organizational Networks, Broadening STEM Participation, Maker Spaces, Cultural Historical Activity Theory Research, Inter organizational Innovation Networks, Maker Movement, and Maker Education
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Why is all of this relevant to a conversation about games for impact? Because right now a great deal of energy is going into thinking about how we can be making games that aim to teach about traditional disciplinary content in areas such... more
Why is all of this relevant to a conversation about games for impact? Because right now a great deal of energy is going into thinking about how we can be making games that aim to teach about traditional disciplinary content in areas such as math, science and literacy. And while the movement to teach these areas with games gathers steam, little attention is being given to emerging research showing that games can promote forms of participation and outcomes related to citizenship that are vital to our current and future democracy.
Abstract Today's youth inhabit new digital spaces that seem foreign to many adults. These spaces offer unprecedented opportunities for interpersonal connection, but community can break down when people are emboldened by anonymity through... more
Abstract Today's youth inhabit new digital spaces that seem foreign to many adults. These spaces offer unprecedented opportunities for interpersonal connection, but community can break down when people are emboldened by anonymity through pathways that are fast and highly public. Interested in how teens and adults view these ethically charged issues, our partner organizations convened a three-week long series of online conversations with more than 150 parents, teachers, and teens.
To many, a classroom that felt like a playground would be viewed as a failure. In Second Life, however, especially in the teen grid, it is the norm. SL is already a game-like environment, where residents can not help but play with... more
To many, a classroom that felt like a playground would be viewed as a failure. In Second Life, however, especially in the teen grid, it is the norm. SL is already a game-like environment, where residents can not help but play with concepts of self representation, with alternative physics, and more. But the workplace of the educator, who may be on a schedule with serious content to address, need not be in conflict with the playspace of the learner, who wants to have fun and bring a creative dynamic to their interactions.
Research Interests: Design education, Engineering Education, Systems Thinking, Physical Computing, Design-Based Learning, and 11 moreDesign thinking, STEM Education, Constructionism (Education), K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and outreach, Systems Thinking in Education, Makers and D.I.Y. technology, Maker Culture, Maker Spaces, Maker Movement, Makerspaces and Learning Labs, and Maker Education
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Maker Education scholarship is accumulating increasingly complex understandings of the kinds of learning associated with maker practices along with principles and pedagogies that support such learning. However, even as large investments... more
Maker Education scholarship is accumulating increasingly complex understandings of the kinds of learning associated with maker practices along with principles and pedagogies that support such learning. However, even as large investments are being made to spread maker education, there is little understanding of how organizations that are intended targets of such investments learn to develop new maker related educational programs. Using the framework of Expansive Learning [9], focusing on organizational learning processes resulting in new and unfolding forms of activity, this paper begins to fill this gap through a case study of a community organization serving non-dominant youth that engaged in an 18-month learning process to create its own maker-space. Utilizing interviews, field observations and diverse forms of documentation, findings show that (1) regional organizational networks play infrastructural roles involving inspiration, validation and orientation in expansive learning through providing access to expertise and partnerships, (2) organizational learning around maker education involves dimensions of not only pedagogy and technology but also of social geography, institutional logics and organizational design processes, and (3) processes of object transformation within expansive learning around maker education by organizations rooted in non-dominant communities can act as sites of critique and, potentially, contributions maker education culture in ways that address issues of broadening participation and increasing equity.