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

该项目得到了STEM+Computing（STEM+C）计划的支持，该计划推进了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，并通过高中（preK-12）进行幼儿教育。开发高科技，低成本制造项目以加强计算教学和学习（ECTL）将设计一种新的低成本，高科技制造商项目，以帮助学生在物理和数字设计中工作，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，推动以公平为导向的科学。技术，工程和数学（STEM）和计算实践的青年和社区的成员是代表性不足的STEM;和3）确定未来的研究和发展领域，将扩大公民，文化和科学的参与。ECTL将设计认可社区专业知识的数字制作项目，而不是向教育工作者提供计算机科学家的数字设计，并要求他们在课后实施新项目。这种专业知识与艺术家，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。该项目建立在植根于边缘化社区内制作活动历史的计算实践基础上，并将新的数字计算实践引入到现有的材料丰富的制作计划中。在项目研究的指导下，ECTL将使用低成本，高科技工具（如工艺切割机和电子纺织品）结合熟悉的对象，工具和教育工作者已经在他们的制造商计划中使用的活动来设计活动。该项目将使用低成本/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，也不花哨，也不像实验室。项目研究成果和实用的教育资源，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分享。ECTL旨在确保数字制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社区的独创性融入计算思维教育计划的设计和扩展中。 该项目将首先研究计算实践如何在创客项目中得到支持，然后利用高科技/低成本数字技术补充现有实践，以创建一种新的文化持续数字创客项目类型。三个研究问题将指导发展过程：1）年轻人如何通过与文化实践和创造性发挥高科技，低成本的材料在三个课外活动连接的活动学习计算思维实践？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的材料来提高年轻人的计算思维实践？3)艺术家、教育家、计算机科学家和研究人员如何共同开发新项目，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后环境中开始，研究人员将观察和收集计算实践的视频数据，教育工作者已经通过开发制造商项目在他们的课后环境中提供支持。下一阶段将是视频分析这些计算思维的做法出现在每个网站。课外教育工作者和他们的研究合作伙伴团队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+实践伙伴关系，艺术家和计算机科学家的研讨会中达到高潮，以开发和原型数字制造项目，这些项目以现有实践为基础，重点更加关注文化上可持续的数字设计。ECTL将通过关注文化实践和身份发展，种族，阶级和性别身份如何作为资源利用的未充分研究的方式，为分布式认知和协作学习的文献做出贡献，该项目将增加有限但不断增长的研究在高科技低成本制造商项目的设计和实施。

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.