Mapping the Terrain: Designing, Supporting, and Understanding Maker Educators in Rural Communities

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Making has supported constructive and expansive learning experiences for youth as well as for mentors who facilitate these experiences (Peppler, Kafai, & Halverson, 2006), yet commonly informed by well-resourced suburban and urban maker spaces. The learning trajectories of maker educators working in small rural and agricultural communities provide a rich context which to study the development of identities, discipline, assets, and community of informal educators. Mapping the research terrain, presenters will share their research and insights into practices that further an understanding of how educators and young people perceive, enact, and experience making; how past endeavours inform continued research and design; and how partnerships and collaboration across research and practice in these spaces can sustain current and imagined future maker-centered learning.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Informal Learning Environment Research

Chair

• Sherry H. Hsi, BSCS Science Learning

Papers

• Maker Professional Development in a Latinx Agricultural Community Workshop: Learning for My Students and Myself - Colin Dixon, BSCS Science Learning; Sherry H. Hsi, BSCS Science Learning; Seth Van Doren

• Making Makers: Tracing STEM Identity in Rural Communities - Jessie Marie Nixon, Utah State University; Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Andy Stoiber, University of Wisconsin

• Design Needs and Solutions for Supporting Maker Programs in Rural Libraries - Victor R. Lee, Stanford University; Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University; Aubrey Rogowski, Utah State University

Discussant

• Kevin Crowley, University of Pittsburgh