EAGER: Maker: Engaging Parents as Makers to Build Capacity for Community-Based Making

在过去的十年中，创客运动在美国和国际上都有了长足的发展。 已经开发了几种不同的“制造”，但仍然有许多重要的问题要问，并进行研究，如何不同的程序结构可能涉及到潜在的影响，制造商计划可以对个人和社区。 作为当地社区更大的长期计划的一部分，科学的纽约大厅提议利用制造者运动的理念和活动，采取重要的第一步，实现他们的最终目标，即发展家庭和社区范围内的承诺，并改善STEM教育。该项目将建立基础和实践知识，了解父母如何选择参与，贡献和学习创客编程，这些编程是为低收入家庭和背景的儿童设计的，在STEM专业中代表性不足。其目的是建立他们的价值的理解，使之成为通往更深层次的STEM学习的途径。该项目的特点是“高风险，潜在的高回报。“它采用社区心理学方法（而不是个人心理学）来研究制作，它侧重于父母作为潜在的学习者和领导者。虽然在该领域已经做了一些关于父母在Maker环境中的作用的工作，但这是一种研究制作及其对社区中更广泛的STEM学习文化的潜在影响的新方法。 该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深入学习的理解。两个非正式学习环境将在纽约科学馆开发和研究：一起学习，一个桌面，最低限度的工作人员在大厅的科学图书馆便利的设置，和家庭制作，一个高科技和工作人员在大厅的制造商设施便利的经验。本研究提出了两个研究问题：（1）如何，以及在何种程度上，一起学习和家庭制作节目吸引和维持父母的参与，父母促进儿童的活动，和父母自己的探索？(2)从社区心理学的角度来看，什么样的社会结构，资源，社会过程和周围的制度条件支持或阻碍这些父母的途径探索和理解使作为一种途径，以干学习？ 该研究将涉及大厅的创客空间工作人员和研究团队之间的持续合作，并将寻求产生有关如何设计吸引和保留低收入，服务不足的家庭群体的创客编程的指导，以及有关外部结构和实践如何塑造这种观众的看法和兴趣的新知识。

The Maker movement has grown considerably over the past decade, both in the USA and internationally. Several varieties of "making" have been developed, but there are still many important questions to ask and research to conduct about how different programmatic structures may relate to the potential impact Maker programs can have on individuals and communities. As part of a larger, long-range initiative in their local community, the New York Hall of Science proposes to leverage the philosophy and activities of the Maker movement to take important first steps toward realizing their eventual goal of developing family and community-wide commitment to and improvement of STEM education. The project would build both foundational and practical knowledge about how parents with little or no prior knowledge of or experience with Making choose to engage with, contribute to, and learn from Maker programming designed for families with children from low-income households and backgrounds that are under-represented in the STEM professions. The intent is to build their understanding of the value of Making as a pathway toward deeper STEM learning. The project is characterized as "high-risk with potentially high-payoff." It applies a community psychology approach (rather than individual psychology) to the study of Making, and it focuses on parents as potential learners and leaders. While some work has been done in the field with respect to the role of parents in Maker environments, this is a new approach to the study of Making and its potential influence on the broader culture of STEM learning in a community. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.Two informal learning environments will be developed and studied at the New York Hall of Science: Learning Together, a table-top, minimally staff-facilitated setting in the Hall's science library, and Family Making, a high-tech and staff-facilitated experience in the Hall's maker facility. The study poses two research questions: (1) How, and to what extent, do the Learning Together and Family Making programs attract and sustain parental engagement, parental facilitation of children's activity, and parents' own explorations of Making? (2) From a community psychology perspective, what social structures, resources, social processes, and surrounding institutional conditions support or impede these parental pathways into exploring and understanding Making as a pathway toward STEM learning? The study will involve sustained collaborations between the Hall's Maker Space staff and research team, and will seek to generate guidance about how to design Maker programming that attracts and retains low-income, under-served family groups and new knowledge about how external structures and practices shape this audiences' perceptions of and interest in Making as a mode of STEM learning.