Abstract
Makerspaces are environments where individuals use technologies to make physical artifacts within a community of fellow Makers. There has been growing interest in the educational potential of Making activities which has resulted in many schools procuring tools and technologies to set up their Makerspaces. However, there is scant research investigating the efficacy of Making these newly emerging Makerspaces intended for learning. In our work, we narrow this gap in knowledge between the claimed educational potential of Making and its attainment. By synthesizing prior work and publically available data on Makerspaces, we introduce a framework to situate the educational considerations for Makerspaces and recommend directions for future research on educational Makerspaces. Being cognizant of the Maker culture having emerged outside of the academic literature, we synthesize publically available data from 53 untraditional but relevant sources. These sources include definitions of Making forwarded by 3 well-established Maker initiatives (Makerspace, Hackerspace, and Fab Lab), 18 relevant sites of Making activities across the United States, 17 sites from other countries (namely, China, India, Morocco, and Spain), and 15 Maker initiatives at schools in the United States. After proposing and detailing the framework, we recommend directions for future research to attain the potential of educational Making.
Highlights
Makerspaces are emerging as educational spaces in schools, libraries, and museums all over the world
As Reich writes [34], “we want the Maker movement to inspire changes in schools, that change will come through challenging conversations not purchases.” us, where there exist many potential benefits of Making, there exist challenges that require attention and action by researchers and educators. ere is a need for critical work that addresses these challenges before we make decisions regarding the adoption of these spaces more commonly. e conceptual framework we introduce below serves as a way to frame the various consideration educators can work through as they develop educational Makerspaces for their unique contexts and settings
All Maker experiences can be educational. e 15 Maker initiatives at school represent formal in-school experiences, and the other sources represent informal experiences. is inquiry into the nature of educational Making yielded the conceptual framework we present in the paper, the framework of people, means, and activities
Summary
Makerspaces are emerging as educational spaces in schools, libraries, and museums all over the world. We synthesize 53 sources representing Makerspaces in informal and formal settings to propose a conceptual framework to make meaning of educational Making. Feisel and Rosa [48] synthesized the available literature on the history of laboratory education in engineering, assessment, introduction of computers, and hands-off laboratory learning, to propose fundamental objectives for laboratory education for undergraduate engineering students, and possible future directions for research Given these examples and the relative lack of the academic literature on the topic of Makerspaces as educational learning environments, we believe there is sufficient justification to embark on the development of such a conceptual framework that can continue to be tested and evaluated as more research is published
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