A Cultural Historical Approach to Making and Tinkering Instantiated in a Social Design Experiment

• In Event: 60.037 - Designing Possible Futures for Youth From Nondominant Communities: Teaching, Learning, and Designing in the El Pueblo Mágico Ecology

Abstract

“Making and Tinkering” links science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning (STEM) to the do-it-yourself “maker” movement, where people of all ages create and share things in both the digital and physical world (Resnick & Rosenbaum, 2013). This paper examines a cultural historical approach to Making and Tinkering at three instantiations of El Pueblo Magico (EPM), a social design experiment that joins university students, researchers and k-8 youth from predominantly non-dominant communities together in joint activity for expansive and consequential learning (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010). In the lineage of design experiments in the learning sciences our work addresses what Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013) discuss as the critical importance of “designing contexts for tinkerability (p. 179)” from a theory-based and iterative design approach that aims to both understand and change practice (Gravemeijer & Cobb, 2006).

An overarching goal of our research is to address issues of equity by engaging theory in practice to circulate power in joint activity, so that participants work to collaboratively negotiate the process and objectives of their work. Following an emphasis in design research on situating a theoretically articulated approach in practice, in order to generate new understandings and design principles we first present our theoretical framework to Making and Tinkering at El Pueblo Magico as a hybrid model. Our approach engages commonalities across the Maker Movement as articulated by Resnick & Rosenbaum (2013), tenets of cultural historical activity theory that are integral to the EPM social design experiment and research theorizing the “inventos” or inventive, everyday practices of members of non-dominant communities (Schwartz & Gutierrez, 2013).

We share the evolution of our approach as well as the outcomes of the process of re-mediating, or reconfiguring (Gutierrez, Hunter & Arzubiaga, 2009) normative academic STEM activity for preservice teachers, girls and youth from non-dominant communities over the three instantiations of EPM. We explore how undergraduates and children were able to “dive into practice” with the design of circuits within our hybrid model and present the development of “design discourse” that supported participants’ engagement. The processes of joint problem articulation (Stone & Gutierrez, 2007) and horizontal movement across activities at EPM and participants’ social worlds emerged as key features of generative design. We focus on the ways undergraduates took up cultural historical concepts in their practice through an analysis of their cognitive ethnographies (a form of reflective field note focused on learning in moment-to-moment interaction), participation in the iRemix social learning network and media-taped documentation. We also discuss how particular concepts and curricular tools were combined to support joint activity in the Making and Tinkering process and deepened understanding of the learning theory and pedagogies emphasized in the EPM-affiliated child and adolescent development courses. Our approach to Making and Tinkering provides educators examples for how to 1) reconfigure the forms of mediation available for youth within STEM learning environments, 2) integrate practices from learners’ experiences and the Maker movement, and 3) jointly articulate and reflect on the objectives of Making & Tinkering practices in collaborative activity.

Authors

• Lisa Hope Schwartz, University of Colorado, Boulder

• Daniela Kruel DiGiacomo, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Kris D. Gutiérrez, University of California - Berkeley