Extensible E-Textiles: Engaging Learners in Complex Systems Design Through Physically and Digitally Responsive Crafting

• In Event: 34.079 - Interactive Stitch Sampler of Equitable Learning and Teaching With E-Textiles in K–12 Education

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. Over a decade of research on e-textiles has shown their promise in diversifying the ways learners view themselves in relation to computing and the role it can play in their lives. For example, research has shown that e-textile design can encourage the participation of women and girls, reshape gendered participation in maker activities, and engage Native American youth through connections to meaningful, traditional practices (e.g., Buchholz, Shively, Peppler & Wohlwend, 2014; Buechley, Eisenberg, Catchen, & Crockett, 2008; Kafai, Fields & Searle, 2014).
PERSPECTIVE. This work extends upon e-textiles by integrating them as one aspect of bidirectionally responsive design (BRD). BRD is defined the process of creating integrated multimodal systems with simultaneous digital and physical responsiveness; as originally implemented, this was achieved through combining Scratch game design, e-textiles, and physical computing with the Makey Makey. Through four design-based research iterations, we explored two major research questions to this aim: (1) How does designing bidirectionally responsive projects using e-textiles, and a variety of purposefully integrated digital and physical toolkits, influence the ways in which students understand computational thinking? (2) How does BRD affect students’ computational thinking and design thinking? This study focuses on five cases across the four iterations.
METHODS & DATA. Each case is made up of a team of 2-3 individuals who created a BRD project in one of the iterations. The first two iterations involved 9th grade students (aged 14-15) at a magnet school in a large Northeastern city. The second two iterations involved diverse middle school students (aged 10-13) from a rural district in the same state. We employed interviews and microanalysis of interactions during learning activities to understand learners’ engagement with complex systems design, and their application of computational thinking and creativity.
FINDINGS. Our findings demonstrate that BRD encourages (1) inclusive collaboration, (2) applications to authentic practice, and (3) understanding of complex systems. We found overall evidence that BRD models authentic challenges and practices in many design fields when working across interdisciplinary groups to create complex and embedded systems. We also found that BRD incorporates and extends multimodal learning theory by adding tangible and integrative dimensions as additional modalities learners can leverage to facilitate learning, metacognition and agency. Specifically, we found that BRD encourages learners to engage with and extend upon their interests. While coding with Scratch, making physical computing projects with the MaKey MaKey, and designing e-textiles all have valuable components of learning computing and design, each in isolation have limits for leveraging a variety of interests and practices. Amongst BRD teams, learners engaged in complex and wide-ranging applications of computational thinking, and meaningful, yet divergent, shifts in their perceptions of computing.
SIGNIFICANCE. BRD models authentic collaborative design practices and approaches responsive to and involving complex systems. There is also significant evidence across iterations that BRD seems to encourage more gender equitable, culturally inclusive and prosocial behavior. Future directions of this work will interrogate the connections between design affordances and inclusive outcomes further.

Author

• Gabriela T. Richard, The Pennsylvania State University