Culture, Power & Learning in Makerspaces - Dr. Shirin Vossoughi

Several SPPL Staff members attended a presentation by Dr. Shirin Vossoughi at the University of Minnesota on Friday, February 23rd. She had spent years researching how youth learn in makerspaces, specifically in the San Francisco Exploratorium.

 She interviewed and recorded youth participating in an after-school tinkering program, who were mostly from the local Boys and Girls club and largely from under-served communities.

With this perspective, she critiqued  the dominant maker conversation and recommended we read The Mind at Work by Mike Rose.

Questions we should ask ourselves:

• How do youth maker spaces and programs encourage intergenerational collaboration?
• How should you measure progress? Economic or social goals?

 She looked at the history of Make magazine and identified a preponderance of white males on the covers, finding similarity in an auto maker commercial. What are we doing to change this narrative?

Her research in San Francisco with the youth revealed insights into how the children learned and how the mentors taught. She favored allowing students to touch, tinker, and explore, even when going outside the bounds of prescribed activities and using power tools.

Noting that the concept of “failure” has ramifications discouraging learning - she suggests that we use terms like “iteration” “drafts” and “process” instead of “failure” “persistence” “grit”.

When asking youth if they had familiar with tools or processes, make sure to be broad but not condescending – for example, let students consider science in a broad lens if asking about their personal experience as or with scientists, but use the correct terminology if talking about a specific tool or field.

Email: Shirin.vossoughi@northwestern.edu

Additionally, I visited the “Breakerspace” University of Minnesota’s newest maker space in Walter Library. It is in a room in the smart learning commons, supported by a team of functional and subject librarians support., including Scott Spicer, a member of the Innovation Lab.

This is just one of many spaces at the University that offer student access to advanced technology.

They currently offer 3D printing, Virtual Reality, Electronics/Robotics  and sewing with hopes to expand.

The Innovation Lab will continue to see how we can partner with the University - at the very least to make sure graduates know about the resources available to them at public libraries when they lose access to the University’s.

--Amanda F. @GLCL