Make First, Teach Second? Tensions Amid Implementing a FabLab at a High School

• In Event: Research on Digital Media, Games, and Simulations in Teacher Education

Abstract

In recent years designing, or “making,” has come to the forefront of work on digital media as a productive area for learning. Interest in “making” with new media (Kafai & Peppler, 2011) has opened up new doors to introduce student-centered design practices in schools, often through the inclusion of technical content alongside students’ creative productions such as programming video games (Kafai, 1995) and creating with “fabrication” technologies like 3D printing (Blikstein, 2013). What happens during implementation of such design-centered experiences within the complexity of the public educational system? In this poster we highlight tensions between different school- and research-based stakeholders in the context of implementing a new design-centered education in a local high school and middle school. The tensions emerge within various new developments, including a new “FabLab” physical space, student courses, and teacher professional development.
Design-based implementation research (for example, Penuel, Fishman, Cheng & Sabelli, 2011) is at the foundation of our research, highlighting theory development in relation to practical interconnections between classroom learning, teacher preparation and administrative implementation and coordination of programs (Confrey, Castro-Filho, &Wilhelm, 2000). The collaborative nature of this type of research involves practitioners as co-designers of innovations, often leading to the development of approaches that educators are willing to adopt (Penuel, Roschelle, & Shechtman, 2007). We turned to design-based implementation research as a model for collaboration between researchers and practitioners in developing the new space, curricula, and instructors for the FabLab.

The goal of the project was to provide professional development for design-centered instruction for teachers across a high school and middle school. The project was originally dreamed to include close to 100 percent design-based learning experiences, but was curtailed to 30 percent design-based learning experience and 70 percent unit planning time amidst the needs of different school stakeholders that added to the complexity and requirements of the program from the school, district, and state levels. While unit planning allows for the implementation of new curriculum standards and school/district initiatives, it also reduces freedom and creativity in design.

Our analyses focused on teachers, the ones who experience the most tensions between designing pedagogies and meeting district requirements. We used mixed methods to analyze and triangulate between pre/post surveys, teacher interviews, classroom observations, review of teachers’ media/FabLab designs, and several pre/post assessments related to the design activities. Mixed method analyses included statistical tests (ANOVAs, t-tests) on surveys and assessments as well as constant comparative analysis of coded interviews, design artifacts, and observations (Charmaz, 2003). To this end we will share observed innovative instructional approaches from interviews and classroom observations, documented changes in design-based thinking over time through surveys and review of design products, and relationships between engagement with this new space and changes in outcomes (achievement, beliefs, and interests) based on data collected through surveys and assessments.

This worked example provides an opportunity for researchers and educators to engage in a discussion about theory in practice as we provide a transparent look into the challenges of implementation of a design-centered learning environment.

Authors

• Deborah A. Fields, Utah State University

• Sarah Braziel

• Taylor Martin, National Science Foundation