Multi-Generational STEM Makerspaces in Affordable Housing: Co-Designing a Model with the Community

创客空间是一种学习环境，让参与者参与真正的科学和工程实践，采用动手和协作的方式来支持培养创造力、兴趣和技能发展的活动和项目。最近，在学校和博物馆、图书馆和社区中心等非正式场所，创客空间的数量迅速增长。然而，并非所有社会成员都能进入这些空间。该项目将为专注于增加访问的STEM创客空间提供一个模型。该模式有四个关键组成部分：经济适用房、非正式STEM学习、创客教育和多代学习。该项目将开发和研究以社区为基础的多代创客空间模式，这是一个位于康涅狄格州的200套经济适用房综合体。多代STEM创客空间项目汇集了非营利性教育研究组织CAST、国家经济适用房提供商NHP基金会/运营路径和波士顿大学社会学习实验室，该实验室研究STEM学习的社会背景。该项目将制作一个多代Maker手册，包括一系列围绕不同主题和制作模式的为期四周的研讨会的教育指南。该手册还将作为一个项目模型，指导类似的社区如何创建和运行他们自己的可持续和繁荣的创客项目。湾景塔社区的家庭将通过参与现场创客空间，建立对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）概念的理解。家庭将把他们正在做的事情与STEM学习、教育和职业相关的长期目标联系起来。该项目还将使个人参与共同设计（个人提供创造性贡献），并将其转化为支持可持续创客空间的社区结构和价值观。经济适用房环境将提供对影响学习者STEM认同感的个人和其他社会因素的理解。该项目将通过将STEM学习作为驻地服务的一部分来支持贫困人口的流动。该研究将考察低收入社区如何在创客空间中获取、参与和学习，并将他们的学习与相关目标联系起来。该团队将使用基于设计的研究（DBR），即参与者和研究人员共同设计旨在通过制定，分析和修订周期探索理论的干预措施。DBR研究将回答以下问题：1)该模型以何种方式（如果有的话）支持居民将STEM学习作为结果性学习？2)住院医师设定了什么样的制作目标，他们如何将STEM嵌入这些目标中？3)如果居民通过研讨会体验到STEM学习的结果，他们是否也看到了他们的制定目标和长期目标之间的关系？4)那些更频繁使用创客空间的居民在后续STEM学习方面是否体验到更积极的结果？5)各种创客空间的结构——引导者培训、专用空间和设备、Playbook——如何支持这种模式？6)创客空间中是否有定期参与的居民群体，如果有，这些群体中有哪些人？这些群体是否开始认同为创客社区？社区是否找到了有价值的创客空间？7)创客空间的组织和运营以何种方式支持建立一个可持续的多代学习模式？参与者将包括来自湾景塔居民社区的90名青少年和90名成年人。收集的研究数据包括开放式回应措施，用于评分居民对每个工作坊要素的解释、分析和理解。此外，访谈协议将用于指导Multi-Gen Maker Playbook功能的改进，并分析Multi-Gen Maker Playbook在平台中的可用性、可行性、参与度和用户体验。该项目将对参与者的目标和STEM身份使用半结构化访谈协议，并对社区创客价值观和创客空间结构使用焦点小组协议。此外，李克特式的STEM身份调查也将改编自科学身份量表。项目评估将检查项目目标和目的的总体成就。项目成果将通过传统的传播方式传达给学者和实践者。该团队还将创建有针对性的数字媒体，包括在线文章、播客采访和博客文章，以吸引更广泛的受众。该奖项由推进非正式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学习体验的机会。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Makerspaces are learning environments that engage participants in authentic science and engineering practices, using hands-on and collaborative approaches to support activities and projects that foster creativity, interest, and skill development. Recently there has been a rapid growth of makerspaces in schools and in informal places like museums, libraries, and community centers. However, many of these spaces are not accessible to all members of society. This project will produce a model for a STEM makerspace that focuses on increasing access. The model has four critical components that operate together: affordable housing, informal STEM learning, maker education, and multi-generational learning. This project will develop and study the community-based, multigenerational makerspace model for Bayview Towers, a 200-unit affordable housing complex in Connecticut. The Multi-Gen STEM Makerspaces project brings together CAST, a non-profit education research organization, the NHP Foundation/Operation Pathways, a national affordable housing provider, and the Boston University Social Learning Lab, which researches the social context for STEM learning. The project will produce a Multi-Gen Maker Playbook comprised of an educational guide for a series of four-week workshops around different themes and modes of making. The Playbook will also serve as a program model that guides similar communities on how to create and run sustainable and thriving maker programs of their own. Families in the Bayview Towers community will build an understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts through participation in an onsite makerspace. Families will relate what they are doing through making to longer-term goals connected to STEM learning, education, and careers. The project will also enable the engagement of individuals in the co-design (individuals provide creative contributions) of making that can be translated into community structures and values that support a sustainable makerspace. The affordable housing context will provide understanding of individual and other social factors that impact learners' sense of STEM identity. The project will support mobility from poverty by including STEM learning as part of the resident services. The research will examine how low income communities access, engage, and learn in makerspaces, and relate their learning to relevant goals. The team will use design-based research (DBR) whereby participants and researchers work together to design interventions intended to explore theory through cycles of enactment, analysis, and revision. The DBR research will answer the following questions: 1) In what ways, if any, does the model support residents experiencing STEM learning as consequential? 2) What kind of making goals do residents set and how do they embed STEM in these goals? 3) If residents experience STEM learning as consequential through the workshops, do they also see the relationship between their making goals and longer term goals? 4) Do those residents that use the makerspace more frequently experience more positive outcomes in terms of consequential STEM learning? 5) How do the various makerspace structures - training of facilitators, dedicated space and equipment, Playbook - support the model? 6) Are groups of residents participating regularly in the makerspace and if so, who is in these groups? Do these groups start to identify as a maker community? Is the community finding the makerspace of value? 7) In what ways does the organization and operations of the makerspace support building a sustainable model for multigenerational and consequential learning? Participants will include 90 youth and 90 adults from the resident community at Bayview Towers. Research data to be collected includes open-ended response measures for scoring residents' interpretation, analysis and understanding of each workshop elements. Also, interview protocols will be used to guide the refinement of the Multi-Gen Maker Playbook features and analyze usability, feasibility, engagement and user experience of the Multi-Gen Maker Playbook within the platform. The program will use semi-structured interview protocols on participants' goals and STEM identity and focus group protocols on community maker values and makerspace structures. Additionally, a Likert-style survey on STEM identity will also be adapted from the Science Identity Scale. Project evaluation will examine the overall achievement of program goals and objectives. Project results will be communicated by traditional means of dissemination to scholars and practitioners. The team will also create targeted digital media, including online articles, podcast interviews, and blog posts, to reach a broader audience. This award 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.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.