‘Making’ an Impact: An Ethnographic Approach to University Maker Spaces

In recent years, more and more attention has been given to the maker movement and the potential therein. To get a more complete understanding of maker spaces and their impact on students, it is necessary to take a closer look at the intricacies of the spaces. It is important to learn the underlying motivation behind the creation of these spaces and how the spaces are being used by the students. The research in this paper presents the first efforts to reach a deeper understanding of maker spaces and, in particular, university maker spaces. In order to reach this understanding, the research team employed ethnographic techniques to study the spaces, their users, and their owners. This paper reports preliminary results from an ethnographic study performed primarily at University A during the fall of 2015. Students as ethnographers have observed university maker spaces from their unique point of view, and in this way, the students were able to gain key insights of how the maker spaces work and some possible modes of improvement not seen by those already invested in the spaces. By knowing what drives the start of these spaces and what works in the current spaces, the research team hopes to be able to uncover the underlying practices that make for a successful space in order to share this knowledge with current and developing university maker spaces. Motivation & Introduction Many universities are building campus maker spaces 1 with the hope of engaging a generation of digital natives lacking the hands-on tinkering, fixing, and making experiences of previous generations. These spaces leverage rapid prototyping equipment (e.g., Maker Bot), magazines (e.g., Make, ReadyMade), and festivals (e.g., Maker Faire) to entice students to try prototyping and building what they imagine. Some want to claim that maker spaces have the potential to positively impact retention rates by serving as havens for students less successful in or motivated by the traditional analytical curriculum. These claims, however, are only promises for what these spaces can deliver. Promises that will only materialize if we are better able to understand and optimize them, such that they support exploration, risk-taking, rebounding from impasses, inclusion, diversity, and above all, learning. This paper reports on our initial attempts to get a feel for, or to test the waters of, what these spaces are and are not. Our team’s long-term goal is to understand and leverage these potentially powerful learning environments to achieve shared aims in engineering education: encourage student autonomy and exploration, grow diverse learning communities and environments, and positively impact retention for those students at risk of leaving. Prior Work on Maker Spaces To date, there have been a number of studies of academic and non-academic maker spaces that provide answers to important questions. To identify best practices for those planning new maker spaces, Wilczynski 2 conducted a review of six of the first university maker spaces illuminating the need for 1) a clear mission statement, 2) user training, 3) proper staffing, 4) collaboration, 5) alignment with student work schedules, and 6) attention to creating a maker community on campus. Similarly, Barrett et al., 1 reviewed university makers spaces identified at 35 of the top 100 (actually 127) engineering undergraduate programs as ranked by US News and World Report identifying trends in tooling, use, location, and supervision. A study of collaborative co-working spaces at Arizona State University, Stanford University, and North Carolina State University found that a student led organizational structure, access to the latest technology, and possible partnerships with for-profit maker spaces were important for growing and sustaining these spaces. 3 O’Connell 4 interviewed five new maker space users at Tufts, three librarians and two engineers, finding that accessibility led to changes in perception for participants with regard to making in general and seeing themselves as makers. In a paper touting the promise of maker spaces for education, Martin 5 identifies three elements of the maker movement that are essential to consider in determining potential possible affordances for education: 1) digital tools, including rapid prototyping tools and low-cost microcontroller platforms, that characterize many making projects; 2) community infrastructure, including online resources and in-person spaces and events; and 3) maker mindset, aesthetic principles, a failurepositive approach, collaboration, and habits of mind that are commonplace within the community. Similar to Martin’s “the maker mindset,” Kurti et al., 6 the authors of The Philosophy of Educational Makerspaces: Part 1 of Making an Educational Makerspace, identify three guiding principles for an educational makers space: embrace failure, expect things to break, and collaborate with others. It is noted that school-based K-12 digital fabrication and making have their roots in progressive education (Dewey), constructionism (Papert) and critical pedagogy (Freire) in that children can actively construct with technology rather than just consume technological products helping to build self-esteem. 7 Such environments make it possible for students to go through multiple design cycles that encourage failing and redesigning as a learning mechanism. This process simultaneously empowers users without previous engineering or manufacturing experience to learn the skills necessary for success. One may assume that the learning processes at play in a university maker space or similar to those in K-12 digital fabrication and making spaces, but evidence is still lacking. Taken together, these previous studies and papers provide important groundwork in regards to building and sustaining a making community. What they have not told us is what is happening in these spaces: What is the nature of learning? How are these spaces used and when? What are these spaces used for; is it class projects, personal products, birthday gifts, product design for a start-up, research? Who is comfortable in these spaces and how did that happen? Who is not and why? Are there identifiable learning pathways to sustained membership that we can identify and nurture? How do males and females experience these spaces; is it the same or different?