Thank you so much for taking the time to watch our video! We are particularly interested in your views on the following questions. That being said, please feel free to ask any questions you might have and share your comments.    

1. What do you find most interesting or helpful about the research findings presented in this video?
2. What would you like to learn more about the project?  
3. If you have been applying the maker approach to STEAM learning, does any aspect of this project resemble your experience?

We look forward to seeing your comments and feedback!

Thanks for sharing this work, Kyungwon! I am very interested in the Spiral Making Process Model you mention. Can you please elaborate on that model? Also, I'm curious whether you gathered any data that related to learning pathways and/or the learning ecosystem beyond the class context. For example, I noted that hobbies were a major source of inspiration for projects. Did you investigate how students drew on resources, people, or information from those hobbies (or home, friends, community, etc.) in their maker learning? Thanks!

Hi Rebecca, thanks for your interest! By proposing the Spiral Making Process Model, I wanted to emphasize the non-linear and iterative nature of making. Inspired by Brenda Dervin’s Sense Making Methodology metaphor, I used “gappy” lines with cracks to show that the making processes are by no means a smooth, predictable, and straightforward process.  The initial brainstorming process is even squigglier. The spiral is the inward direction—the arrows towards the inside, indicating students’ processes of finding a focus.
 
Four phases, which were iterative in the spiral, were suggested: brainstorming, trying things out, revising, and presenting, although they are not exclusive phases and may occur simultaneously in practice. Each phase has different dimensions to show approximate durations.  
 
Findings on emotions are represented in different colors: a bright color in the upper area (the beginning and end of the processes) represents more positive feelings, as students felt excitement and optimism in the beginning and the sense of accomplishment as they presented final products in the end.  The lower area of the spiral (the middle of the processes) has a darker color to indicate students experienced frustrations and confusions as they attempted to realize their ideas into working projects by exploring uncertain areas and revising projects.  
 
Of course this model is intended to evolve and undergo continuous updates through current and future research efforts. So happy to hear from you, Rebecca!

Rebecca, you have such a great point on the learning pathways/ecosystem beyond the class context. Several students mentioned they worked at home beyond the class hours and family members inspired and helped them when desirable. I should dig into the data further! I conducted this study in different settings (schools, a public library, and a museum), but participants were not the same in each setting. Investigating how kids navigate across the different learning environments would be such a cool project

Thank you for sharing this work. Has this study been published? I would love a copy of the paper. We are starting our research arm at UTeach Maker and would love to read more about your findings. 

The video and the discussion so far are quite thought-provoking!  Thank you!  I'm curious about that middle part of the making process, when students experience frustration and other less positive emotions.  Are these also related to lack of information?  While acknowledging that some frustration and confusion is necessary to the learning process (and persistence is an important disposition to foster), do you have any ideas for helping students avoid these struggles or navigate them more smoothly?

Thanks, Kyungon! This is such interesting work. I'll follow up with you later about this notion of navigating across environments. I'm in the midst of research with adult makers in a public library setting and am considering how to capture and explore this aspect of pathways and ecosystems. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Really interesting project Kyungwon! I love the student-centered nature of making. I'm curious to know how the teachers and/or researchers supported students as they made their choices at the beginning of the making process? On a similar note, were students taught skills to support them as they sought information related to their project?

Thank you for sharing your video!  I appreciated how you clearly described the goals, missions and the results (so far!) of the project. You highlighted the role of the "information" students called for to engage in the maker work...can you say a little more about what information means in this context? Is it Google searches? Building wikis? Consulting with expert/mentor communities? Is there a kind of information that students are seeking that you hope is transformed into a different knowledge practice in the maker community? How might designers in other contexts use your insights about information seeking to guide their maker space design efforts?

- Erica  

Thanks for your comments, Erica! Theoretically, information in this project means anything that might meet people’s needs when they recognize their knowledge is inadequate to satisfy their goals. (It might not actually meet the need, though, and could potentially increase uncertainty.) In this context, information includes everything you mentioned- facts, tips, tutorials found through Google, Wikipedia, YouTube searches, from books, and friends, families, and experts. I would suggest maker educators connect people with similar interests, provide guidance on information literacy, and offer a forum for information sharing. I think this is a really important question, and I’d appreciate other people’s insights and experiences on this! 

I completely agree that an important aspect of education - especially STEM education - is to "maintain the playful and creative spirit of the Maker process." Kids learn through play. We know this is true about early elementary and primary students - why do we not allow play to enter into the teen years and young adulthood? When education is fun and hands-on, students are more likely to remember what they have learned and what to try new, similar concepts again. I love that you have incorporated the "A" for Arts into STEM to create STEAM; that creative, imaginative aspect is arguably the most important piece to the STEM puzzle. The arts connect everything together and allow students the freedom to try new things without the fear of failure under the guise of play and imagination. The arts also incorporate written expression and communication, which helps students better convey what they learned through the activities completed in the Makerspace so that others may become interested in trying new things as well. Awesome project!