EAGER: MAKER: The origins of making: A Data Science Approach to Investigating Cognitive and Affective Basis of Learning through Constructing

拟议中的工作评估幼儿制作的功效，以确定制作的功效：它是否引起享受？这种享受与有意义的学习有关吗？教师和发展心理学家一直提倡儿童游戏在学习中的重要性，但直到最近，科学家才指出幼儿的积极探索有助于学习的方式。就像因果干预非正式科学一样，在游戏过程中，孩子们自发地去混淆变量，探索意想不到的结果，并采取反映假设检验的行动。这项工作利用了“制造”的核心假设--儿童的游戏--通过开发一个“移动的制造中心”（MMC），可以带到当地的科学博物馆、公园、动物园，或图书馆来研究儿童与STEM相关玩具的互动。这项工作使用了一种新的方法来收集数据，在制造商的空间，数据库，以捕捉学生的参与。MMC的设计是为了促进适合儿童发展的探索主题，例如带杠杆和按钮的玩具（教儿童因果关系和假设检验），带可拆卸部件的齿轮玩具（教儿童电机设计和工程解释），以及平衡块（教儿童质量和长度在尺度和预测中的作用）。

The proposed work assesses the efficacy of making among young children to determine the efficacy of Making: does it elicit enjoyment? Is that enjoyment related to meaningful learning? Teachers and developmental psychologists have advocated the importance of children's play in learning, but only relatively recently have scientists pointed to ways in which the active exploration of very young children supports learning. Like causal interventions informal science, in the course of play children spontaneously de-confound variables, explore unexpected outcomes, and take actions that reflect hypothesis testing.The work leverages the core assumptions of Making -- children's play -- through the development of a "Mobile Maker Center" (MMC) that can be brought to local science museums, parks, zoos, or libraries to study children's interactions with STEM related toys. The work uses a novel approach to data gathering in the maker space, Databrary, to capture student engagement. MMC's are designed to facilitate developmentally appropriate themes for exploration, such as toys with levers and buttons (which teaches children about causality and hypothesis testing), a gear toy with removable parts (which teaches children about motor design and engineering explanations), and balance blocks (which teach children about the role of mass and length in scales and prediction).