Investigating STEM Literacies in Maker Spaces

调查创客空间中的 STEM 素养

• 批准号: 1422532
• 负责人: Eli Tucker-Raymond
• 金额: $ 97.81万
• 依托单位: TERC Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1422532&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Investigating; STEM; Literacies; Maker; Spaces

Many communities across the country are developing "maker spaces," environments that combine physical fabrication equipment, social communities of people working together, and educational activities for learning how to design and create works. Increasingly, maker spaces and maker technologies provide extended learning opportunities for school-aged young people. In such environments participants engage in many forms of communication where individuals and groups of people are focused on different projects simultaneously. The research conducted in this project will address an important need of those engaged in the making movement: evidence leading to a better understanding of how participants in maker spaces engage with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as they create and produce physical products of personal and social value. Specifically, this research will generate new knowledge regarding how participants: pose and solve problems; identify, organize and integrate information from different sources; integrate information of different kinds (visual, quantitative, and verbal); and share ideas, knowledge and work with others.To understand and support STEM literacies involved in making, the investigators will study a number of different informal learning sites that self-identify as maker spaces and serve different-aged participants. The project will use ethnographic and design research techniques in three cycles of qualitative research. In Cycle One, the researchers will investigate two adult-oriented maker spaces in order to generate case studies and develop theories about how more experienced adult makers use the spaces and to create case studies of adult maker spaces, and to develop methodological techniques for understanding literacy in maker spaces. In Cycle Two, the study will expand into two out-of-school time youth-oriented maker spaces, building two new case studies and initiating design-based research activities. In Cycle Three, the team will further apply their developing theories and findings, through rapid iterative design-based research, to interventions that support participants' science literacy and making practices in two maker spaces that exist in schools. Through peer-reviewed publications, briefs, conference presentations, presence on websites of local and national maker organizations, project findings will be widely shared with organizations and individuals that are engaged in broadening the base of U.S. science and mathematics professionals for an innovation economy.

全国各地的许多社区正在开发“创客空间”，将物理制作设备、人们一起工作的社会社区和学习如何设计和创作作品的教育活动结合在一起的环境。创客空间和创客技术越来越多地为学龄青年提供了更多的学习机会。在这样的环境中，参与者参与多种形式的交流，个人和群体同时关注不同的项目。在这个项目中进行的研究将解决那些参与制造运动的人的一个重要需求：更好地理解创客空间的参与者在创造和生产具有个人和社会价值的实物产品时如何参与科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的证据。具体来说，这项研究将产生关于参与者如何提出和解决问题的新知识；识别、组织和整合来自不同来源的信息；整合不同类型的信息（视觉、定量和口头）；并与他人分享想法、知识和工作。为了理解和支持参与制作的STEM素养，研究人员将研究许多不同的非正式学习场所，这些场所自我认定为创客空间，并为不同年龄的参与者提供服务。该项目将在三个定性研究周期中使用人种学和设计研究技术。在第一个周期中，研究人员将调查两个以成人为导向的创客空间，以产生案例研究并发展理论，以了解更有经验的成人创客如何使用这些空间，并创建成人创客空间的案例研究，并开发方法技术来理解创客空间中的读写能力。在第二个周期中，研究将扩展到两个校外青年创客空间，建立两个新的案例研究，并启动基于设计的研究活动。在第三个周期，团队将通过快速迭代的基于设计的研究，进一步将他们的发展理论和发现应用于支持参与者科学素养和在学校中存在的两个创客空间中进行实践的干预措施。通过同行评议的出版物、简报、会议报告，以及在地方和国家创客组织的网站上的出现，项目成果将广泛分享给致力于扩大美国科学和数学专业人员基础的组织和个人，以促进创新经济。