Catalyzing Fab Labs for Student Learning: Strategic Development for Digital Makerspace Integration

Purpose & objective

The purpose of this workshop is to teach Human Centered Design exercises that administrators and school leaders can immediately use back in their school when strategizing about the growth (or formation) of their digital makerspace. Participants will engage in facilitated brainstorming exercises and challenges developed with the focus of convergent thinking among stakeholders. This sequence of activities will be focused on the mission of their project, using the abstraction ladder as a vehicle to answer the "why"s and begin dialog about the direction of their school's program.
The specific activities I will use to facilitate this workshop will (mostly) be activities from the LUMA toolset. As an experienced Human Centered Design facilitator, I will focus on the content (strategic planning for makerspace integration) while also making the experience of facilitating the exercises transparent, so attendees will be learning in the participant role while they also will learn facilitation techniques and practices through demonstration and reflection.
At the Association of Science and Technology Center's annual conference in Pittsburgh (ASTC 2022), I facilitated this workshop alongside members of the Carnegie Science Center's Fab Lab, and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Outline

1.Introductions and expectations (10 min)
2.Framing the challenge: brief presentation on makerspaces, digital makerspaces, and fab labs, including my research about integrating digital technologies into school-based digital makerspaces. (20 min)
3.Asset mapping activity: (working in partners or alone) adapted from the LUMA toolkit, participants will visualize their school-wide assets on a map (15 min)
4.Future Asset-mapping activity: in step two, participants will ideate new connections and assets they NEED to make their space successful (15 min)
5.Partner Pair and share (5 min)
6.Abstraction Ladder Activity: working in the same pairs or alone, participants will visualize their makerspace challenge in two ways: going down the ladder to answer the question "How" and up the ladder by asking the question "Why" (20 min)
7.Gallery Walk and Visualize the Vote: participants will visually vote for shared concepts across the abstraction ladders of all the attendees (10 min)
8.Facilitated Group Discussion: what are the noticings about the "Why" answers vs the "How" answers? Which way is the easiest to plan? How do you see this working with your stakeholders? (15 min)
9.Creativity Matrix activity: working in small groups, participants will learn and practice the creativity matrix activity designed around makerspace technologies and school programs. (15 min)
10.Group Reflection: going column by column, talk through ideas that are curious or confusing, Discuss opportunities for this activity within their staff planning (15 min)
11.Stakeholder Mapping Activity: working in the same small groups, participants will sketch stakeholders and visualize the relationships that exist in their local context between all stakeholder groups (15 min)
12.Group Reflection: what are some noticings around stakeholder personas across the groups? What are some strategies to use with different stakeholder groups when strategic planning for school-wide integration (15 min)
13.Technology roundup: based on the creative matrix, participants will bring their personal recommendations for best technology solutions for their makerspaces (could include specific brands, kits, technologies, software workflows, materials, challenges and lessons) (15 min)
14.Wrap up: presentation review of the Human Centered Design processes used in the workshop with summary slides and handouts so that participants can use these activities with their own staff.

Supporting research

Literature that addresses the challenge area:

Brennan, K. (2015). Beyond technocentrism: Supporting constructionism in the classroom. Constructivist Foundations, 10(3), 289–296.

Hjorth, M., Smith, R., Loi, D., Iversen, O., & Christensen, K. (2017). Educating the reflective educator: design processes and digital fabrication for the classroom. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series (pp. 26–33).

Oliver, K. (2016). Professional development considerations for makerspace leaders, part one: addressing “what?” and “why?”. TechTrends, 60(2), 160–166.

Solutions-based literature:

LUMA Institute. (2012). Innovating for people: Handbook of human-centered design methods. LUMA Institute, LLC.

IDEO. (2015). The field guide to human-centered design. Ideo.org.