Guest Editors

Peter Samuelson Wardrip, Assistant Professor of STEAM Education, Curriculum and Instruction University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Samuel Abramovich, Associate Professor, Learning and Instruction/Information Science, University at Buffalo, USA

Caitlin K. Martin, Principal, ckMartin Consulting, Chicago, IL, USA

Annie White, Senior Research Associate, Fred Rogers Center, Latrobe, PA, USA
 
Lauren Penney, Making Spaces Program Manager, Maker Ed, Berkeley, CA, USA

Stephanie Chang, Director of Impact, Maker Ed, Berkeley, CA, USA

Lisa Brahms, Director of Education, Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, VT, USA

Overview of Special Issue

This special issue aims to further our understanding of learning and engagement in educational Makerspaces, soliciting contributions from scholars in the information sciences, learning sciences, educational technology research and librarianship, along with researchers who specialize in informal education and other related disciplines. Our goal for this special issue is to bring together articles from multiple projects that have explored conceptualizing and designing assessment of learning and engagement in Makerspaces from a variety of approaches and theoretical frameworks. 

Making and learning in Makerspaces - recognized as a social, technological and economic movement - is characterized by participants’ interest-driven engagement in creative production at the crossroads and fringes of disciplines such as science, technology, engineering, art, and math (Dougherty, 2016; Sheridan et al., 2014; Wardrip, Brahms, Carrigan & Reich, 2016). Not only has Making emerged as an engaging entry point and activity for STEM education (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2018; Honey & Kanter, 2013; Peppler & Bender 2013), but making and tinkering have also been purported to further goals related to workforce development (Anderson, 2012; Hatch, 2014), persistence in the face of failures during the development of innovative and entrepreneurial skills (Benton, Mullins, Shelley & Dempsey, 2013) and technical literacy (Lande & Jordan, 2014). 
However, for some time, making practices have been ahead of research related to making and tinkering. Simultaneously, the practice of making and tinkering as an educational approach has spread across libraries (e.g. Bowler et al, 2016; Chang et al, 2019), museums (e.g. Wardrip et al, 2016), K-12(e.g. Koh, Snead & Lu, 2019; Wardrip & Brahms, 2016) and afterschool settings (e.g. Bevan, Ryoo, & Shea, 2017). With this increased emergence in educational contexts, so is there an increased need for assessment and evaluation tools. Educators need assessment to provide meaningful feedback to learners, to justify programs and curricula, to make claims about learning and engagement, and to support educator reflection to shift instructional practice and design. In short, assessment is integral to good instruction (Shepard, 2000), and in Makerspaces, designers of learning experiences are increasingly using assessment and evaluation approaches to establish learning goals and objectives, and to research the ways in which the designed experience actually meets them. Such practices can also lead to iterative refinement and improvement of Makerspace experience design.

In this issue, we seek high-quality, innovative articles that address conceptual, critical, and empirical issues relevant to design, assessment and evaluation in educational makerspaces. If the articles are conceptual or critical, we encourage authors to include cases or data from past or ongoing research that helps solidify or demonstrate how ideas and concepts can be operationalized in ongoing and future work. If the articles are empirical, we encourage authors to present their theoretical framework, methods, a description of their data, and how their analyses support their findings. We also strongly encourage design-based implementation studies that elicit instructional and learning theory contributions, as well as those that elicit theory-informed pragmatic guidelines and empirically supported best practices on Makerspace design, especially with attention to the roles of varying context factors.
 
Important Dates
 
Due date: Aug 15, 2020 
Reviewer invite agreements secured: Aug 30, 2020 
Reviews due: Sept. 28, 2020 
Decision made, meta-reviews sent: Oct 20, 2020 
Revisions due: Dec 31, 2020 
Final Manuscript Decisions: Jan 15, 2021 
Production: Feb/Mar 2021 
Publish: May/June 2021 

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be made through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system.

References
 
Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. New York: 
Random House.
 
Benton, C., Mullins, L., Shelley, K., & Dempsey, T. (2013). Makerspaces: Supporting an
Entrepreneurial system. Michigan State University EDA Center for Regional Economic
Innovation.
 
Bevan, B., Ryoo, J., & Shea, M. (2017). What If? Building Creative Cultures for STEM Making and Learning. Afterschool Matters, 25, 1-8.
 
Bowler, L., & Champagne, R. (2016). Mindful makers: Question prompts to help guide young peoples' critical technical practices in maker spaces in libraries, museums, and community-based youth organizations. Library & Information Science Research, 38(2), 117-124.
 
Calabrese Barton, A., & Tan, E. (2018). A longitudinal study of equity-oriented STEM-rich making among youth from historically marginalized communities. American Educational Research Journal, 55(4), 761-800.
 
Chang, S., Penney, L., Wardrip, P., Anderson, A., Craddock, I., Martin, C.K., Millerjohn, R., & Stone, N. (2019). Opportunities and Vignettes for Library Makerspaces. University of Wisconsin & Maker Ed
 
Dougherty, D. (2016). Free to make: How the maker movement is changing our schools, our jobs, and our minds. North Atlantic Books.
 
Hatch, M. (2014). The Maker Movement Manifesto. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hirshberg, P., Dougherty, D., & Kadanoff, M. (2016). Maker city: A practical guide for reinventing American cities. Maker Media, Inc..
 
Honey, M., & Kanter, D. E. (Eds.). (2013). Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of
STEM innovators. New York: Routledge.
 
Koh, K., Snead, J. T., & Lu, K. (2019). The processes of maker learning and information behavior in a technology‐rich high school class. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.
 
Lande, M., & Jordan, S. (2014). Methods for examining the educational pathways of adult makers. In 121st ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: 360 Degrees of Engineering Education. American Society for Engineering Education.
 
Peppler, K., & Bender, S. (2013). Maker movement spreads innovation one project at a time. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(3), 22-27.
 
Shepard, L. A. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational researcher, 29(7), 4-14.
 
Sheridan, K., Halverson, E. R., Litts, B., Brahms, L., Jacobs-Priebe, L., & Owens, T.  (2014). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505-531.
 
Wardrip, P.S. Brahms, L., Reich, C. & Carrigan, T. (2016). Supporting Learning in Museum Makerspaces: A National Framework. Museum, Sept/Oct. p. 18-24.
 
Wardrip, P.S. & Brahms, L. (2014). Making goes to school. In Peppler, K., 
Halverson, E. & Kafai, Y. (Eds.) (in press). Makeology: Makers as Learners (Volume 1). New York, NY: Routledge.