Week 3 saw Team STEAMineer collaborating as a team and with faculty and subject matter experts to narrow our focus and prepare for quarters.
We started out the week meeting with our faculty to review our progress and share our direction. As a team we had identified that we wanted more of a behavior change and identity change in our participants. (We were hoping students who didn’t see themselves as makers or game designers would walk away from our experience open to the possibility and feeling more capable in the space.) However, even after talking with different subject matter experts, and researching past projects we were still struggling to set constraints for our project. We wanted the constraints so we could begin designing and planning specifics for our project. Constraints would inform us about our audience and setting and materials we would need. However, not knowing who we would partner with, or who we might be able to playtest with left us reluctant to set our own constraints. We left our faculty meeting in a state of uncertainty, but with direction we could follow as a team to help get constraints for our project.
After listing out all of the different professionals and organizations we have been in talks with as a team, we narrowed our focus to a few organizations based on what we know about the organizations and the availability of an audience to playtest with. We decided to focus on the Two Bit Circus Foundation as a partner for the project. Knowing that we would partner with the Two Bit Circus Foundation, we broke our team up into pairs and each pair worked to identify additional barriers to maker-centered learning through the lense of the Two Bit Circus Foundation. By identifying different barriers we could see where we may be able to support Two Bit Circus Foundations’ work in the space. Identifying Barriers is also part of the Transformational Framework.
Collectively we all identified a need for strong engagement in our experience. Not only do we want students to want to try it initially, but we hope what we create will impact students’ interests long after our experience ends. In workshop programs it can be challenging to know if student interest is peaked enough to continue pursuing a subject or materials related to a subject. As a team we also identified barriers about motivating students and helping students getting started with making. Another barrier we identified from our research was that Game Design is not heavily featured as a subject for maker-centered learning. Something we also identified as important was having the students work collaboratively. We have also learned from Subject Matter Experts that sometimes the barrier is familiarity with technology– how complicated is it to use or set up? Is there a way we can make it easier? How can we incorporate technology without inhibiting a facilitator?
As we identified barriers and began to ask more questions, we also started identifying solutions or ways we could account for the barriers. Games where you build a world or get to create scenes with different assets, like Spore: Galactic Adventures could be a good way to support open-ended design while still implementing technology and game design. Using a quest or inventory mechanic for a game would help promote student engagement in whatever we or they created long after our experience ended. Having the experience be re-playable could also support long-term engagement. Ensuring that our project had a well thought out guide for facilitators could help overcome barriers of technology and support facilitators in their work. Supporting facilitators would also mean that we would be helping to support students. We also wanted to set up scenarios in which students were collaborating with one another.
We met with Scott and Dave to share our findings and present what we prepared for Quarters. Our meeting did not go as well as we hoped– we realized we were still too broad, however, we left the meeting with a clearer idea of how to make our project more specific and identify our own constraints. After identifying barriers, we narrowed in on what our project would look like.
Two Bit Circus Foundation’s mission and initiatives would inform the work of the project. Specifically, we are adopting their goals to increase interest in STEAM subjects and equip students with skills that can help students succeed in any career. Just as the Two Bit Circus Foundation promotes programming with maker-centered learning, we will develop a project with maker centered learning. Where our project will diverge slightly from the Two Bit Circus Foundation is our incorporation of Technology into the projects and our use of Game Design as the curriculum material. (Please note– Two Bit Circus does use technology in some of their programming and has incorporated it into other programming based on the resources a school or space might have.) We want to incorporate it because we feel like it would be an effective way for students to learn the Technology and Engineering elements of STEAM and also because we feel like it could be a good way to motivate our audience. However, we do know there will be challenges with our emphasis on technology. How can we ensure students will focus on the lesson and not the technology? How can we prevent the technology from being a barrier to our interaction or leaving students upset and disheartened? How can we convince facilitators the application of technology is worthwhile for the project? We like Game Design because it is something we have seen less of in the space, it supports collaborative play, and we feel like it could also motivate our audience to participate. Game Design could provide another means of access for students to STEAM subjects.
This week we continued to seek out Subject Matter Experts as well. We met with Lauren Penney from MakerEd, an organization dedicated to helping train teachers and educators with skills and resources for teaching Maker Centered Learning.
- Lauren shared an abundance of resources with us including articles and online resources.
- Lauren also helped us realize the importance of helping students understand the lesson as opposed to the lesson turning into students learning how to use the technology. The technology and making is there to supplement what students are already learning about and shouldn’t take the place of the lesson.
- She also helped give us insight into what would be beneficial to facilitators: making something that fills a need, something that makes things more fun, and something that doesn’t require extra work on the part of the facilitator are all good options
- She also pointed out that maker can be interpreted as personalized, and trying to find a way to make experiences more personal for students
We also met with Matt Chilbert of Birdbrain Technologies. Birdbrain Technologies creates electronic components and robotics for student use.
- Matt reminded us of the importance of failure and how it can lead to learning opportunities that are more valuable than successful outcomes
- He encouraged us to use craft materials as our starting point and see how technology could be added in to the mix
- He noted that the best maker projects are empathetic and inspire curiosity– like a fish in a tank on a cart and the cart rolls forward when the fish moves toward the front of the tank
- Birdbrain Technologies uses pre & post surveys for project evaluation
- Matt identified barriers to maker education as Fear of Technology and lack of tech literacy, cynicism about technology in the classroom, and the notion that you have to know everything before getting started or trying to work in the space
- He recommends not teaching tech for tech’s sake and that the idea students are learning is priority or more important than the technology– often when integrating technology, the lesson can get lost in the focus on technology
- Matt also observed that buy in can be easier to get from students– the challenge is getting engagement from students. However, teachers can get engagement from students and one way they can do so is with good set-up
- When asked about examples of iteration projects, Matt suggested looking at Rube-Goldberg Machines
We also talked to Dr. Leah Hanes the CEO of the Two-Bit Circus Foundation.
- Leah values maker-centered learning because it supports project learning and not lecturing learning and project learning encourages more life-long learning practices
- Two-Bit Circus Foundation uses research before and after programming. Most notably, their research highlighted a change in the way students viewed their relationship with science. After programming, students had greater confidence in their understanding of science
- She highlighted Two Bit Circus Foundation’s Beats by Me programming and the importance of programming engaging as many sensory options as possible to support different types of learners.
- She shared an example of a game design project Two-Bit Circus Foundation hosted for teachers: Teachers were given a random bag of things (non-tech things) and challenged to make a game specific to the grade they teach and incorporating three of five STEAM subjects
- Leah identified two barriers to maker-centered learning as breaking patterns in traditional teaching methods and making materials accessible to treachers
- She also encouraged us to try to create an educational game that is as effective and engaging as other popular, non-education focused games
- Leah emphasized the importance of loose parts for student interactions over kit-based interactions because kits have a predetermined design structure that could interfere with students having the opportunity to make their own decisions about problem-solving and design
- Lastly, she encouraged us to set up the programming so the facilitator is there in a supporting role, with the student leading production on the project.
We wrapped up the week preparing for quarters and beginning to focus on narrowing our project scope by making decisions about our audience and transformational goals. We decided to focus on the 3rd-5th grade audience, based on the audiences Two-Bit Circus Foundation serves.
Stay tuned for our next steps and we decide to narrow our focus within 21st Century Skills and continue to talk to Subject Matter Experts.