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

近年来，人们对制作和创客空间的兴趣稳步增长。在创客空间中，人们可以参与从不同元素（使用高科技和非科技工具）创造东西的过程。虽然这些空间为个人和多代群体提供了合作的机会，但也有更广泛的兴趣参与到与创客相关的活动和内容中。然而，关注非正式教育者如何在失败时刻实施、计划和处理持续的、及时的支持的研究信息专业发展是稀缺的。先前的研究支持了失败在创客编程中增加学习、恢复力、自我效能和其他技能（如独立性）的重要作用。该项目将通过调整、实施和完善一项专业发展计划，使非正式教育者能够有效地参与、解释和回应年轻人在创客项目中的失败经历，从而弥补这一差距。本研究的背景是提供创客编程的博物馆。“发展创新”项目采用培训培训师的方法进行专业发展。在第一阶段，每个伙伴机构最多有两名主要协调员参加为期三天的讲习班和持续的支持会议。在第二阶段，首席辅导员支持所在机构的其他非正式教育者实施青少年制作项目。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：创新科技博物馆、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。本研究的核心假设是，一个专业发展项目专注于支持非正式教育者的教学实践，以应对青少年的失败经历，这将对发展参与者、发展围绕失败的教学实践、以及发展青少年在完成任务时对弹性的亲和力和作为创造者的强烈自我意识产生积极影响。该项目利用基于优势的弹性视角，允许团队考虑促进因素或变量，帮助年轻人克服失败的负面影响。该项目借鉴了强调专业发展对教师知识和信念、课堂实践和学生成绩的积极影响的研究，将Borko、Koellner和Swackhamer的问题解决周期模型应用于博物馆的背景下。具体的研发目标是：(1)调查专业发展模式的特征，这些模式最能支持领导辅导员支持非正式教育者参与、解释和应对青少年在完成任务时的失败经历；(2)通过参与专业发展模式，考察非正式教育者围绕青年失败经历的教学实践变化；(3)考察青年对失败的适应能力和感知的变化。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。本项目的迭代性质将通过收集和分析专业发展会议和非正式教育者促进创客计划的视频数据、反思日志、关于专业发展的调查以及参与创客计划的青年的前后调查来了解。传播将涉及多个利益相关者，包括非正式教育工作者、项目开发人员、评估人员、研究人员和公众。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，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，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度学习的理解。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。

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.