Collaborative Research: The Notion of Failure and Maker Programming for Youth: Supporting the Professional Development, Reflection, and Learning of Informal Educators

近年来，人们对Making and Makerspace的兴趣稳步增长。Making and Makerspace是一种协作工作空间，人们可以在这里参与到用不同的元素(使用高科技工具或不使用高科技工具)创造东西的过程中。虽然这些空间为个人和多代群体提供了合作的机会，但人们对涉及制作人相关活动和内容的结构化青年方案也有更广泛的兴趣。然而，专注于非正式教育工作者如何在失败时刻实施、计划和处理持续的、及时的支持的研究知情的专业发展是稀缺的。先前的研究支持失败在Maker编程中提高学习、韧性、自我效能感和其他技能(如独立性)的重要作用。该项目将通过调整、实施和完善非正式教育工作者的专业发展计划来解决这一差距，以便有效地参加、解释和回应青少年在参与Maker计划时遇到的失败经历。这项研究的背景是提供Maker编程的博物馆。这一发展创新项目使用培训培训者的方法来进行专业发展。在第一阶段，每个合作机构的最多两名首席协调员将参加为期三天的初始研讨会和持续的支持会议。在第二阶段，主要促进者支持他们机构的其他非正式教育工作者实施青年Making方案。该项目将加强研究和教育的基础设施，因为将在各种非正式学习机构之间建立合作和专业学习社区。核心合作伙伴包括：科技创新博物馆、巴肯博物馆、蒙特希尔科学博物馆、明尼阿波利斯艺术学院、Thinkery和Amazeum儿童博物馆。这项工作的核心假设是，一个专注于支持非正式教育工作者关于如何应对青少年失败经历的教学实践的专业发展计划，将对培养参与者发展围绕失败的教育实践，以及培养年轻人在完成任务时的韧性和强烈的作为创造者的自我意识方面产生积极影响。该项目利用了基于强项的复原力观点，使团队能够考虑帮助青年克服失败的负面影响的促进因素或变量。该项目的研究突出了专业发展对教师知识和信念、课堂实践和学生结果的积极影响，使Borko、Koellner和Swackhamer的问题解决周期模式适应于博物馆的背景。具体的研发目标是：(1)调查专业发展模式的特点，以最好地支持主要辅导员支持非正式教育者在从事任务时关注、解释和回应青少年的失败经历；(2)通过参与专业发展模式，调查非正式教育者围绕青少年失败经历的教学实践的变化；以及(3)考察青少年的复原力和对失败的感知的变化。这项工作的一个目标是提高失败在整个学习过程中的重要性。该项目的迭代性质将通过收集和分析促进Maker计划的专业发展会议和非正式教育工作者的视频数据、反思日记、关于专业发展的调查以及参与Maker计划的青年的岗前调查来了解。传播将面向多个利益相关者，包括非正式教育者、项目开发人员、评估者、研究人员和公众观众。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括为扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验提供多种途径，在非正式环境中推进对STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及加深参与者对更深层次学习的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Interest in making and makerspaces -- collaborative workspaces where people can engage in a process of creating something from separate elements (using high and no tech tools) -- has grown steadily in recent years. While these spaces offer opportunity for individuals and multi-generational groups to work together, there is also more broad interest in structured youth programming that involves maker-related activities and content. Yet, research-informed professional development that focuses on how informal educators implement, plan, and handle ongoing, just-in-time support during moments of failure is scarce. Prior research supports the important role of failure in maker programming to increase learning, resilience, self-efficacy and other skills such as independence. This project will address the gap through adapting, implementing, and refining a professional development program for informal educators to productively attend, interpret, and respond to youths’ experiences with failure while engaged in maker programs. The contexts for this research are museums that provide maker programming. This Innovations in Development project uses a train-the-trainer approach to professional development. Up to two lead facilitators at each partnering institution experience an initial three-day workshop and ongoing support meetings during the first phase. In the second phase, the lead facilitators support other informal educators at their institution implementing making programs for youth. This project will enhance the infrastructure for research and education as collaborations and professional learning communities will be established among a variety of informal learning institutions. Core partners include: The Tech Museum of Innovation, The Bakken Museum, Montshire Museum of Science, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Thinkery, and Amazeum Children’s Museum. The central hypothesis framing the work is that a professional development program focused on supporting informal educators' instructional practices on ways to respond to youths' experiences with failure will have a positive impact on developing participants developing pedagogical practices around failure, as well as developing youths' affinity for resilience during making tasks and a strong sense of self as a maker. The project utilizes a strengths-based perspective of the resilience that allows the team to consider promotive factors or variables that help youth overcome negative effects of failures. The project draws from research highlighting the positive impact of professional development on teacher knowledge and beliefs, classroom practice, and student outcomes adapting the Problem-Solving Cycle model of Borko, Koellner, and Swackhamer to the context of museums. The specific R&D aims are to: (1) Investigate features of the professional development models that best support lead facilitators in supporting informal educators in attending, interpreting, and responding to youths' experiences with failure while engaged in making tasks; (2) Investigate changes of informal educators' pedagogical practice around youths' experiences with failures through engaging in the professional development models; and (3) Examine shifts in youths' resiliency and perception of failure. A goal of the work is to raise the importance of failure in the overall learning process. The iterative nature of this project will be informed by the collection and analysis of video data of professional development sessions and informal educators facilitating maker programs, reflective journaling, surveys regarding the professional development, and pre-post surveys from youth engaged in the maker programs. Dissemination will address multiple stakeholders, including informal educators, program developers, evaluators, researchers, and public audiences.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.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.