Conferencing

The conference (CSCL - computer supported collaborative learning: you can download the full proceedings if interested) is friendly and not overly large. It is interesting to see so many presentations and posters on a similar wavelength, looking at the material conditions for learning. Both major authors of two papers I based my PhD proposal on were chatting with me at the BBQ this evening. I'm presenting my poster tomorrow afternoon.

I'm taking notes and considering how I might do some posts for the Learning and Teaching Centre blog. Here's a first draft of one:

On Monday, I attended a half day workshop on the maker movement. It didn't start off with a definition of what that meant, but worked up to something like one eventually. I think that a lot of workshops are about stimulating an inner monologue around ideas as much as an external dialogue.

I'm not an expert on the maker movement, but I don't think anyone really is. It seems to be an amalgamation of older educational ideas such as those propounded by Papert, linked to a modern ideal of hands-on, self-motivated creativity, where aesthetics are part of the mix. For me, the basic idea is to make something for a purpose other than showing what you have learned. This might be to solve a real world problem or to teach someone else a concept. It is often very personal and has been associated more with informal rather than formal learning. In an online article it has been described as 'hard fun.' Motivation through student agency is a major focus of the maker movement. And motivation is different if you are making something to help someone or achieve a practical goal rather than trying to pass a test or a subject.

How to bring this informal sphere into formal education was the theme of the workshop, though we didn't get many answers. The more you bring constraints or assessment criteria, the more you seem to lose the agency that feeds motivation. The maker movement uses technology in the service of problem solving and embraces iterative design thinking. Central to this is the ability to 'fail fast.' How do you design the ability to fail into formal units of study? When students' time is at a premium, as well as staff's, how do you find the space for tinkering and trial-and-error? And where, within prescribed assessment criteria, is there space for students to follow their interests? No wonder there are no pat answers.

The maker movement is about an open space, not a packaged and well-worn trail to prescribed knowledge. I think it is as much about ways of thinking and processes rather than declarative knowledge. It is still about knowledge insofar as it is an application of it to a practical problem.

An acknowledged weakness was that this type of project did not 'systematize' or 'standardize' knowledge, though I would suggest that there is room for a variety of approaches to learning that cover both declarative knowledge and the more procedural knowledge or ways of thinking supported by working on an open-ended task. The maker movement and its close relative, project-based learning, allow the student to change their identity to that of a 'doer' and insider in their area of study, rather than a passive consumer, outside the experts' circle.

There were some interesting examples of projects in this area by participants in the workshop: a 'dev camp' of five days in which students work to a brief to create a solution together. Another participant talked about how her students in a traditionally African-American female university are scaffolded in an introductory algorithms class by collecting, sharing and cooking family recipes as an 'in' to the way of thinking about constructing algorithms. This was an example of how lived experience of students, what a participant called 'the funds of knowledge,' can be introduced to activities. The workshop leaders were working with teachers who are collaborating with their students to create curriculum for maths class using video-based content, replacing static textbooks. At the core is often a physicality, activation of existing knowledge and empowerment of learners to build a new identity.

There was some short discussion of how a 'maker' approach may privilege some students over others, be they high achievers or male students who may have a preference for construction over abstract ideas. My response is an 'it depends.' I think there are as many approaches to bringing the 'maker' into formal education that allows it to mould to your needs - and the level of scaffolding or student support can also be adjusted - though how that can be adjusted for a range of abilities and knowledge levels in a large class is a challenge.