Supporting Collaboration and Knowledge Diffusion Across Makerspaces With the Connected Spaces Framework

• In Event: Making the Future: Addressing Critiques, Transitions, and New Challenges in Maker Education

Abstract

Objectives: There is an emerging recognition of the various ways unscripted, emergent collaborative learning takes place in open-ended learning environments (Tissenbaum, Berland, & Lyons, 2017), and makerspaces in particular (Vossoughi, Hooper, & Escudé, 2016; Halverson, Litts, & Gravel, 2018). However, students often struggle knowing who has the necessary skills or knowledge when looking for peers to collaborate with (Knowledge Awareness - Ogata & Yano, 2000). In response, we are developing and studying a tool called Connected Spaces (CxS) specifically designed to increase students' awareness of their peers’ skills and to support productive collaborative interactions. In this poster, we examine CxS as part of a digital making workshop. In particular, we discuss the collaborative interactions fostered by CxS and how the knowledge gained through these interactions becomes visible in participants' final projects.
A lack of Knowledge Awareness hinders people in finding relevant assistance when needed, and can significantly reduce opportunities for collaboration. Makers are often distributed in terms of their personal expertise and their physical locations. This makes knowledge sharing and collaboration difficult, as community members lack awareness of pedagogically close, but (often) physically distant peers. Given this broad community of learners, there are considerable opportunities for participants to benefit from other makers' knowledge (Sheridan et al., 2014). Similar to Wenger's (1999) communities of practice, makerspaces can (and should) leverage people’s distributed expertise to enable richer learning experiences for all.

Methods: This study involved a 3-hour Scratch workshop with five 8-9 year olds. To simulate a distribution of knowledge, we taught each student different components of Scratch. Participants were split across two rooms and a centrally placed CxS “skills” tablet in each room showed participants' names, location, and self-chosen “affinities” (Scratch competencies they chose to identify with). We also provided each room a CxS “calling” tablet, for cross-room help seeking. For 90 minutes, students worked on making a “digital pet” in Scratch. Data collection involved detailed field notes on when students sought and received help from their peers.

Results and Significance: During the workshop, there were three instances of students using the skills tablet to locate a peer with relevant expertise and asking them for help. Students also used the calling tablet to seek help. These cross-space interactions provided opportunities for other learners in each space to observe the collaborative discourse and engage in legitimate peripheral learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
To understand the diffusion of knowledge, we created CORDTRA like visualizations to show the skills students developed through direct instruction, personal learning, and peer support. We then compared these visualizations to the domain competencies exhibited in their final Scratch code. This analysis highlighted the important role that CxS played in supporting students collaboration and knowledge diffusion, both within and across the makerspaces.
This work shows how CxS can help increase awareness of peer knowledge, and support learners to find and contact peers just-in-time. This approach could be especially valuable in supporting under-resourced makerspaces that lack locally available expertise, and for newcomers who do not have easy access to pre-existing social networks.

Authors

• Vishesh Kumar, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Mike Tissenbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign