Making for Change: Becoming Community Engineering Experts through Makerspaces and Youth Ethnography

全国各地的许多社区都在开发“创客空间”，这种环境结合了联合收割机物理制造设备、人们共同工作的社会社区以及学习如何设计和创造物品的教育活动。 越来越多的创客空间和创客技术被设计用于为学龄青年提供扩展学习机会。 不幸的是，很少有代表性不足的年轻人有机会参与这些创客空间。这个概念验证项目是密歇根州立大学和北卡罗来纳州大学格林斯伯勒的教师与兰辛和格林斯伯勒男孩女孩俱乐部的工作人员合作的，将解决来自工程专业代表性不足背景的中学青年面临的两个挑战：1）缺乏有意义地学习工程并将其应用于理解和解决现实世界问题的机会（即学习），和2）很少的经验，培养自己作为一个重要的能力，有贡献的生产者和消费者的工程（即身份）。 该团队将开发和研究一种非正式（校外）STEM学习模式，让来自代表性不足背景的中学生参与与可持续社区工程相关的经验。该模式让青年参与创客空间和社区人种学研究，以确定当地问题，然后为他们设计潜在的解决方案。参与者还将连接到更广泛的专家社交网络。 使用基于设计的研究方法，并应用社会实践理论和系统理论，工作将确定学习环境的关键方面如何塑造身份工作。 这将产生关于将产生的教学工具的价值和影响的信息。该团队假设，随着时间的推移，通过在创客空间活动和社区人种学研究之间交替，年轻人将a）反思他们所知道的和需要知道的，以定义问题和设计解决方案，B）发展更强大的工程身份，以及c）实现他们在社区中做出改变的潜力。 教育和工程专业人士将受益于更多的经验证据，证明身份如何随着时间的推移，在学习环境中展开，以及它如何促进在工程中学习的机会。

Many communities across the country are developing "maker spaces," environments that combine physical fabrication equipment, social communities of people working together, and educational activities for learning how to design and create objects. Increasingly, maker spaces and maker technologies are being designed to provide extended learning opportunities for school-aged young people. Unfortunately few youth from under-represented populations have had the opportunity to participate in these maker spaces. This proof-of-concept project, a collaboration of faculty from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina, Greensboro with staff of the Boys and Girls Clubs in Lansing and Greensboro, will address two challenges faced by middle school youth from backgrounds underrepresented in engineering professions: 1) a lack of opportunities to learn engineering meaningfully and to apply it to understanding and solving real-world problems (i.e. learning), and 2) few experiences that foster the ability to see oneself as an important, contributing producer and consumer of engineering (i.e. identity). The team will develop and study an informal (out-of-school) STEM learning model to engage middle school youth from underrepresented backgrounds in experiences related to engineering-for-sustainable-communities. The model engages youth both in maker spaces and in conducting community ethnography studies to identify local problems and then to design potential solutions for them. The participants will also be connected into a broader social network of experts. Using a design-based research approach and applying social practice theory and systems theory, the work will identify how critical aspects of the learning environment shape identity work. This will yield information on the value and affect of the instructional tools that will be produced. The team hypothesizes that, by alternating over time between maker spaces activities and community ethnography studies, youth will a) reflect upon what they know and need to know to define problems and design solutions, b) develop stronger engineering identities, and c) realize the potential they have to make change in their community. Professionals in education and engineering will benefit from additional empirical evidence for how identity unfolds over time, across learning contexts, and how it promotes opportunities to learn in engineering.