EAGER Maker: Developing High-Tech, Low-Cost Making Projects to Enhance Computational Teaching and Learning

该项目得到STEM计算(STEM C)计划的支持，该计划将计算思维和计算活动整合到学科科学、技术、工程和数学教学中的应用研究，从幼儿教育到高中(Pre K-12)。正在开发的旨在增强计算教学(ECTL)的高科技、低成本制造项目将设计一种新的低成本、高科技制造项目，帮助学生跨越物理和数字设计，将他们的计算思维实践扩展到新的方向。该项目的目标是：1)建立知识和教学实践，为年轻人探索数字计算创造新的切入点；2)开发与文化相关的数字制作项目，促进以公平为导向的科学。技术、工程和数学(STEM)：为其成员在STEM中代表性不足的青年和社区提供技术、工程和数学(STEM)和计算实践；以及3)确定将扩大公民、文化和科学参与的未来研究和发展领域。ECTL不会给教育工作者提供计算机科学家的数字设计，并要求他们在课外环境中实施新的项目，而是设计认可社区专业知识的数字制作项目。这些专业知识与艺术家、计算机科学家和学习科学家的专业知识相结合，将使项目团队能够开发新的高科技/低成本项目，以促进有色人种工人阶级社区年轻人的计算思维实践。这个项目建立在植根于边缘化社区制作活动历史的计算实践之上，并将把新的数字计算实践引入他们现有的丰富素材制作计划中。在项目研究的指导下，ECTL将使用低成本的高科技工具，如工艺切割器和电子纺织品，结合教育工作者已经在其Maker计划中使用的熟悉的物品、工具和活动来设计活动。该项目将使用一种低成本/高科技的方法，明确地将学生的文化世界与数字计算思维实践联系起来，这些实践既不昂贵，也不浮华，也不像实验室那样。项目研究成果和实用教育资源，如低成本/高科技项目的活动/教育者指南，将与研究人员和教育工作者广泛共享。ECTL旨在确保数字创造者运动中的变革性学习是公平的，并将有色人种工人阶级的独创性纳入计算思维教育倡议的设计和扩展。该项目将首先研究计算实践如何已经在Maker程序中得到支持，然后利用高科技/低成本数字技术来补充现有的实践，以创建一种新的具有文化可持续性的数字Maker项目类型。三个研究问题将指导开发过程：1)年轻人如何通过与文化实践相联系的活动来学习计算思维实践，并在三个课外项目中创造性地使用高科技、低成本材料？2)教育工作者如何在现有的课外环境中使用高科技低成本材料来增强年轻人的计算思维实践？3)艺术家、教育工作者、计算机科学家和研究人员如何合作开发新的项目，以吸引年轻人的计算思维并随着时间的推移深化实践？每个研究和设计周期都将在三个课外环境中开始，研究人员将在那里观察和收集计算实践的视频数据，教育工作者已经在课外环境中通过开发人员项目支持这些实践。下一阶段将对每个站点中出现的这些计算思维实践进行视频分析。课后教育工作者团队和他们的研究伙伴将分析和展示他们在当地网站上捕获的例子、挑战和创造性突破。每个周期的最后阶段将在与研究实践合作伙伴、艺术家和计算机科学家一起举办的研讨会上达到顶峰，以开发建立在现有实践基础上的数字制造者项目的原型，并更加关注文化上可持续的数字设计。ECTL将为分布式认知和协作学习的文献做出贡献，重点关注文化实践和身份发展的未被研究的方式，如何将种族、阶级和性别身份作为资源加以利用，该项目将增加对高科技低成本Maker项目设计和实施中有限但不断增长的研究。

This project is supported by the STEM+Computing (STEM+C) program, which advances applied research integrating computational thinking and computing activities within disciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teaching and learning in early childhood education through high school (preK-12). The Developing High-Tech, Low-Cost Making Projects to Enhance Computational Teaching and Learning (ECTL) will design a new genre of low-cost, high-tech maker projects to help students work across physical and digital designs to expand their computational thinking practices into new directions. The project objectives are to: 1) build knowledge and pedagogical practices that create new entry points for young people to explore digital computation; 2) develop culturally relevant digital making projects that advance equity-oriented Science. Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and computational practices for youth and communities whose member are underrepresented in STEM; and 3) identify future areas of research and development that will expand civic, cultural, and scientific participation. Rather than giving educators the digital designs of computer scientists and asking them to implement new projects in afterschool settings, ECTL will design digital making projects that recognize community expertise. This expertise combined with that of artists, computer scientists, and learning scientists will allow the project team to develop new high-tech/low-cost projects to advance the computational thinking practices of young people in working-class communities of color. This project builds on the computational practices rooted in histories of making activities within marginalized communities and will introduce new digital computing practices into their existing material-rich making programs. Guided by project research, ECTL will design activities using low-cost, high-tech tools like craft cutters and e-textiles in combination with familiar objects, tools, and activities that educators are already using in their maker programs. The project will use a low cost/high tech approach to explicitly connect students' cultural worlds to digital computational thinking practices that are not expensive, flashy, or laboratory-like. Project research findings and practical educational resources, such as activity/educator guides to low-cost/high-tech projects, will be widely shared with researchers and educators.ECTL is designed to ensure that transformative learning in the digital maker movement is equitable and incorporates the ingenuity of working class communities of color in the design and expansion of computational thinking education initiatives. The project will first study how computational practices are already supported in maker programs, and then complement existing practices with the use high-tech/low-cost digital technology to create a new genre of culturally sustaining digital maker projects. Three research questions will guide the development process: 1) How do young people learn computational thinking practices through activities that connect to cultural practices and creative play with high-tech, low cost materials in three afterschool programs? 2) How do educators enhance young people's computational thinking practices using high tech low cost materials in existing afterschool settings? 3) How do artists, educators, computer scientists, and researchers work together to develop new projects that draw out young people's computational thinking and deepen practices over time? Each cycle of research and design will begin in the three afterschool settings where researchers will observe and collect video data of computational practices that educators are already supporting through the development maker projects in their afterschool settings. The next phase will be video analysis of these computational thinking practices emerging in each site. Teams of afterschool educators and their research partners will analyze and present examples, challenges, and creative breakthroughs they capture in their local site. The final phase of each cycle will culminate in workshops with research + practice partnerships, artists, and computer scientists to develop and prototype digital maker projects that build on existing practices with a focus sharper focus on culturally sustaining digital designs. ECTL will contribute to the literatures on distributed cognition and collaborative learning by focusing on the understudied ways in which cultural practices and identity development, how race, class, and gender identities can be can be leveraged as resources, The project will add to the limited but growing research on in the design and implementation of high-tech low-cost maker projects.