Mentoring Youth Toward Engagement in Core Practices of the Maker Movement

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Lifelong Learning Trajectories: Connections Between Hobbyists and Makers

Abstract

Youth maker clubs are part of a growing maker education community interested in playful, interest-driven design of physical objects. Much youth making takes place outside of school with adult mentors who vary in technical and pedagogical expertise. This study analyzes how circumstances around mentor-mentee interactions in a maker club enable or obstruct youth productive disciplinary engagement. The study relies on data gathered during several months in a maker club where a group of youth and mentors worked collaboratively on designing a product. Qualitative analysis highlights that using tools with low barriers to entry can provide ladders from peripheral forms of engagement into more central and agentive forms. These findings can inform mentoring practice in other maker-based environments.

Authors

• Sagit Betser, University of California - Davis

• Lee Michael Martin, University of California - Davis

• Colin Dixon, University of California - Davis