Week 7: Constructionism and the Maker Movement - Learning through Creation

Constructionism as a pedagogical approach suggests that students learn and construct knowledge through the process of meaningful design (Hong & Cho, 2019). One way to promote this learning through meaningful design is in Makerspaces.

Makerspaces are places where students design or create projects in a space using physical or digital tools (Salisbury & Nichols, 2020). Put simply, makerspaces promote creativity for ‘makers’ to ‘make’ things (Salisbury & Nichols, 2020). What likely comes to mind when considering this are Design and Technology (D&T) spaces such as a Woodwork room or a Food Tech kitchen; but these can be formal or informal, as long as they promote learning through exploration and creation (Li, 2021; Sheridan et al, 2014).

Figure 1: Makerspaces learning and teaching framework (Bower et al, 2020).

One prominent technology to engage in this process is 3-D printing, such as through 3-D pens or programs such as Tinkercad. A positive of these transferrable technologies on devices to engage in constructionism means that any classroom can be transformed into a makerspace. As discussed in previous blog posts, Tinkercad can be employed in lessons where students design an object to be 3-D printed. This process can be used in a variety of subject areas; such as students creating a cell cross section in Biology to creating and printing a copy of an artefact in History.

Figure 1: Gif of Tinkercad Animal Cell Cross-Section (nickcipolla, 2018).

Another website where people can share their designs for 3-D printing is Thingiverse. Like Tinkercad, people can share their designs for others to print and use in the classroom. For example, this frog dissection kit by MakerBot that students can take apart and use to learn anatomy perhaps before to prepare for the same lesson with an actual frog, or to use instead of an actual frog if students or teachers have a phobia of blood or for younger students.

Figure 2: Thingiverse Frog Dissection Kit (MakerBot, 2014).

Makerspaces can be any place or activity that fosters design thinking in the classroom with students as problem solvers that engage in constructive feedback throughout this process. A way to do this in a humanities KLA is for students to be given a project-based learning (PBL) task where they will, for example, a documentary on iMovie over the course of a term. In this task, students can be given bi-weekly check ins where students as designers can get feedback, and then alter their task to meet the criteria. This gives students the chance to undertake inquiry-based creative learning and be designers.

References

Bower, M. & Sturman, D. (2015). What are the educational affordances of wearable technologies? Computers and Education, 88, 343–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.07.013

Hong, K.C., & Cho, Y.S. (2019). A Novel Engineering and Creative Learning Process Based on Constructionism. Journal of Information and Communication Convergence Engineering, 17(3), 213 - 220. https://doi.org/10.6109/jicce.2019.17.3.213

Li, X. (2021). Young people’s information practices in library makerspaces. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 72(6), 744–758. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24442

Salisbury, K. & Nichols, T. P. (2020). School makerspaces: Beyond the hype. Phi Delta Kappan, 101(8), 49–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721720923792

Sheridan, K., Halverson, E. R., Litta, B., Brahms, L., Jacobs-Priebe, L. & Owens, T. (2014). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84, 505-532.