Design Capacity for Informal Learning Within Schools: An Analysis of School Librarians and Maker Activities

• In Event: 66.034 - The Design of Making Environments

Abstract

We present a year-long analysis of how three middle school librarians learn to design and enact informal STEM-oriented Maker programs within a school environment. We focus on school libraries as they represent an important yet understudied context for informal learning within formal schooling. The lens for the study is a framework developed for characterizing how teachers design and enact curricular materials, called the Design Capacity for Enactment Framework. Findings from the analysis articulate how the different librarians' goals and beliefs about libraries, what resources they drew upon (including other people and space), and how they used supportive instructional materials all served to influence how they designed and structured these informal learning experiences for youth within their libraries.

Authors

• Aubrey Rogowski, Utah State University

• Abigail Leigh Phillips, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

• Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University

• Victor R. Lee, Utah State University