Open Maker Portfolios: A Framework for Assessment in Makerspaces

• In Event: Structured Poster Session: Analytical Frameworks to Advance the Study of Making: Themes in Research and Development on Makerspaces

Abstract

Objectives – In makerspaces, where youth explore low- and high-tech tools, designing and sharing of interest-driven and personally meaningful projects goes hand-in-hand (Author1 & Colleagues, 2016). Designing and sharing serves as a way to support internalization of ideas and to enrich the community (Sheridan et al., 2014). As maker portfolios are called for by higher education and job application processes (Dougherty, 2013), we need to consider how to integrate portfolio assessment into making.

Perspective – In response to accountability, portfolio assessment has aimed to illustrate a fuller picture of youth learning (Mills, 1996). Described as unified narratives and consistent collections of learning, portfolio assessments can show youth progress (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Traditional portfolio assessment has underlying assumptions that frame much of what is possible to learn. They are created within schools, are framed by adults toward one audience, and serve to differentiate achievements (e.g., Niguidula, 1993). While portfolio assessment might be amenable to makerspaces, the assumptions contrast with the interest-driven, serendipitous, and community-centered learning outcomes of making. The method requires a systematic translation to build on makers’ practices rather than imposing school-based norms.

Methods and Data– Through a one-year-long qualitative inquiry in three makerspaces, we observed youth create portfolios during 2-3 day-long site visits to each space, and we reviewed well documented traditional portfolio assessments (e.g., Camp et al., 1989). Taking a critical qualitative approach (Carspecken, 1996) towards analyzing key aspects across practices (e.g., learning outcome, audience, and agency), we contrasted how the aspects revealed tensions and underlying assumptions about assessment principles.

Results – We identified six tensions that present a practice-based framework for translating portfolio assessment into making:
● A Priori versus Serendipitous Learning Outcomes
● Driven by Administrative Policies versus Driven by Youth
● Individual Focused versus Community Focused
● One versus Multiple Audiences and Timescales
● Product versus Process
● Disciplinary versus Inter- and Transdisciplinary
The tensions call for changes to thinking about assessment principles: (1) reliability, assessment consistency; (2) validity, evidence and claim correspondence, and (3) bias, the fair treatment of all learners. First, the variation of maker projects, goals, and materials used challenges assessment reliability, calling maker educators to consider whether to move to a school-like direction (e.g., uniformity across projects and presentation) or to embrace assessments that may not have inherent reliability. Second, portfolios submitted to the same college may have been created in different educational environments, following different processes and purposes, which question whether portfolios can make claims about individual knowledge opposed to program trends and youth in relation to the trends. Third, makers often picture themselves alongside their work, revealing information about their age, gender, and race. Failing to evaluate these biases specific to maker portfolios could result in ill-informed educational decisions that limit youth learning.

Significance – Working through the systematically interconnected establishment of assessment in schools in relation to the fundamentally different values that making introduces, this framework of tensions may be a first step towards towards a shared understanding of open maker portfolios that help assess making without “schoolifying” it.

Authors

• Kylie A. Peppler, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Anna Keune, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Stephanie Chang, Maker Education Initiative