The project conducts a one-day symposium to synthesize recommendations from past Maker Faire workshops and initiate new approaches to strategies and tools for documenting and assessing the range of learning and engagement that is born of designing, making and engineering activities as found in the Maker Faire movement. Following the symposium, a post-symposium review panel will be convened to review and critique the framework, using specified criteria. Staff members from the New York Hall of Science will then integrate the reviews into a revised framework document. The project has broader policy implications for larger assessment systems in informal learning environments such as the Mozilla Badges initiative.
On October 1, 2012, NYSCI hosted "Making Meaning" (M2), a symposium that sought to take a critical look at ways to describe, document, and assess the learning that happens when people "Make." The event was held in collaboration with the Maker Education Initiative (a division of O’Reilly Media – the founder of the Maker Faire festivals). Over the past several years, NYSCI has come to embrace a triad of universal methodologies that it terms "Design-Make-Play" (DMP). DMP activities enable participants to investigate how "real stuff" works in order to address or create solutions to personally meaningful challenges or problems. Hallmarks of the approach include deep personal engagement, personal choice, iterative design, and the construction of explanations and solutions. These and other DMP characteristics are closely aligned with concepts in the Next Generation Science Standards, and they are a vehicle for cultivating the kinds of creative problem solving that employers are increasingly looking for. The host site for World Maker Faire with a great interest in developing and testing a range of DMP programs, NYSCI convened national leaders in learning and engagement as they relate to Making for three consecutive years. The first two conferences resulted in a DMP learning framework. The third – Making Meaning –resulted in a strategy for documenting and assessing the learning and engagement that DMP fosters. A key aim of the symposium was to start from the real world of Makers, and toward this end, the participants were encouraged to spend a day at World Maker Faire (WMF). Held at NYSCI in September 2012, WMF drew over 55,000 visitors and offered an opportunity to experience an array of Maker projects. These experiences grounded the meeting discussions and supported participants in distilling Maker attributes that might be generalized. Another symposium feature was the creation and sharing of young Maker profiles produced by six experts in creative approaches to STEM learning and assessment. Dubbed the "instigators," each spent time interviewing young Makers who were showcasing their projects at Maker Faire. Guided by the learning framework developed at the earlier symposiums, each instigator assembled a profile of Makers in which they examined the young people’s work and thinking and distilled common features. Following World Maker Faire and the instigators’ work, the symposium was launched with a keynote address by Professor Louis Gomez – a learning scientist with many years of study at the intersection of research and practice – who suggested that Making offers new opportunities to address four needs facing education today: competence, knowledge, intelligence, and self-instruction. Professor Gomez argued that these same qualities are connected to the characteristics of Makers. In addition, he raised issues related to equity in education and the potential for Making to engage a broad range of people. The bulk of the day was then spent in working groups in which the participants viewed and discussed the profiles and then broke into smaller groups to generate a list of distinguishing features of Makers, using the framework developed in the earlier symposia as well as evidence-centered design as guiding principles. A final whole-group session featured report-backs that enabled project staff to synthesize the cases and breakout sessions, the results of which are outlined in the accompanying M2 report. Throughout the symposium, the participants reflected on the characteristics of DMP to inform the design of effective learning opportunities and the systematic documentation (and assessment) of Making. Among the results was the identification of four focal points for these activities: 1. MOTIVATION AND PERSISTENCE. Across the profiles, the young Makers evidenced persistence, effort and choice - all hallmarks of motivation. They also shared an attitude toward failure as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than a reason to abandon their projects. 2. CONTEXT AND SUPPORT. The deliberations revealed the importance of context for enabling young people to engage in Making and for attending to equity considerations. All the Makers benefited from intellectual and emotional supports, whether from their family, schools or afterschool programs, and these supports were found to be essential in fostering the persistence that is essential to Making. 3. PROCESS, PROBLEM SOLVING AND LEARNING. The essence of Making is doing what it takes to articulate and then solve a problem, including seeking support and information. In Making, systematic troubleshooting and the testing of alternatives go hand in hand with knowledge building and skills development. 4. STORYTELLING AND SHARING. The Makers also had in common a desire to communicate their successes and challenges and to offer and seek advice – activities that honed their communication skills. Through this form of participation, young people engaged in self-reflection and increased their confidence and sense of identity as a Maker.
