When Makerspaces Meet School: Negotiating Tensions Between Instruction and Construction

Abstract

When considering science education within the makerspace (engineering workshop) context, insufficient attention may be paid to the cultural models organising the learning activity in such spaces. Too often, learning is imagined to be orchestrated by instructors, and students are supposed to passively respond to activities and events planned on their behalf; even when constructivist approaches are considered, curriculum goals are seldom negotiated, let alone led by student interests. We report on a case study of school which designed a learning organisation around a makerspace, built upon a hacker model of learning. Here, we used the benign version of hack, meaning to reverse- and creatively engineer devices to suit one’s goals. While it may appear that less ‘teaching’ is required, the tasks required to effectively remove the supports, and yet achieve learning, are non-trivial indeed. We found three practices that defined such a space: (i) a significant ludic component, (ii) highly authentic scientific practices, and (iii) attention to tacit knowledges in learning the practices of science. We argue that the mythologies surrounding the hacker stereotype have made an impartial consideration of hacking difficult, and that one effective way of using makerspaces for science instruction can be based on a reimagined set of goals for science. Specifically, attention needs to be paid towards the performative aspects of scientific knowledge in addition to competence in the representations of science.