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“It helps create and enhance a community”: Youth motivations for making portfolios
Abstract
Youth portfolios are curated collections of projects that highlight learning across settings over time. Key challenges for harnessing portfolios in broader assessment efforts include the need to better understand what motivates youth to create portfolios and how to leverage these motivations widely. Building on sociocultural approaches, this article presents a qualitative study of youth motivations for portfolios across three US-based school and out-of-school makerspaces. The research identified three themes of youth motivations and how to support them in widespread portfolio assessments: (1) recognition, participating in and contributing to communities outside the makerspace; (2) emulation, modelling professional work practices; and (3) exploration, examining the broader media production pipeline. This work unsettles assumptions of traditional assessment by highlighting the role of capturing episodic engagement to represent youth’s roles in society.
... public-facing) as a design principle of maker portfolios can help support assessments that track development across longer periods of time and across multiple digital platforms. Furthermore, recognizing youth digital culture practices as important motivators for capturing and assessing portfolios can foster professional community building while recognizing the unique contributions youth-driven making can bring to learning (Keune et al., 2017;Peppler and Keune, 2019). ...
... Particularly those spaces that make it possible for youth to capture and share their projects within the makerspace as well as through online technologies (e.g. social media channels) that are associated with the space present opportunities for sustained engagement with domains associated with making also beyond the makerspace community (Keune et al., 2017;Peppler and Keune, 2019). ...
... Four relation to the four themes. The interviews also captureed youth motivations for documenting and sharing making, which are analyzed elsewhere(Keune et al., 2017;Peppler and Keune, 2019). ...
Purpose
In contrast to traditional portfolio practices that focus on the individual, this paper aims to reenvision portfolio practices to encompass sociocultural aspects of learning by considering how young makers, both in- and out-of-school, imbue digital cultural practices into the documenting and showcasing of their work, as well as observe the extent to which their portfolios are used to build community inside and outside their local settings.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from a connected learning approach, the authors engaged in qualitative and ethnographic study of youth’s digital maker portfolios in an out-of-school and a school-based makerspace. Through qualitative and thematic coding of portfolio walkthroughs, the authors identified four underlying characteristics within portfolio artifacts (i.e. personal and shared projects) and capturing practices (i.e. personal and shared capturing practices) that differently presented projects.
Findings
The analysis showed that portfolios that included shared productions and shared portfolios (i.e. projects and portfolios contributed to by more than one youth) and that were shared in open-ended ways across communities valued connected learning principles. These connected portfolios made community building within and beyond maker-educational communities of the young makers possible. In particular, openly shared and collaboratively captured work showed individual achievements (e.g. projects and techniques) and made visible connective and social engagement (e.g. opportunities for feedback and refinement, possibilities to narrate work to multiple audiences).
Originality/value
This paper has implications for the design of portfolio assessment in makerspaces and expands the role of portfolios as a way to capture individual and cognitive achievements alone toward connected community-building opportunities for youth as well as maker-centered settings within and beyond the youth’s local maker-centered settings.
... A maker-centred approach to education poses multiple challenges for assessment because of its unique characteristics as a pedagogy, and, therefore, conventional assessment methods often fall short in capturing learning and development that occur during the process of making. The first of these characteristics is that, unlike common classroom practices, the making process allows for multiple endpoints as it is often student-driven, non-linear, and distributed across activities and a group of students (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Second, maker learning is exploratory and dynamic in nature, which makes it difficult to acquire a comprehensive view of student learning by looking solely at the final product (Soster et al., 2020). ...
... While portfolios provide opportunities to shed light on an individual's creative process, a considerable challenge remains: how to best capture meaningful evidence of learning in the moment of making and how to then accurately interpret the evidence. This is an important point because while many cognitive and sociocultural development occurs during the process of making (Soster et al., 2020), it is often difficult for learners and educators to examine the experience in the moment due to the immersive nature of maker activities (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Available evidence enables learners and educators accurately recall and reflect on those learning experiences. ...
... The second principle that emerged from the initial literature review was that assessment needs to be embedded not only in the lessons but also in the classroom norms and culture, such as the language used and the routines practised. Assessment in makercentred learning is difficult because maker learning activities tend to have an immersive and dynamic flow rather than a series of small, linear steps (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Students are often in a state of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014) that is known to create an intense state of focus and growth, and disrupting the process can spoil a great educational opportunity. ...
While school educators are increasingly interested in adopting maker pedagogy, many schools struggle to integrate making with their existing core curriculum because of the difficulty in assessing the learning that occurs in maker classrooms. To address this issue, we collaborated with educators on design-based research focused on assessment in maker classrooms. We investigated assessment approaches that support the process of making. This paper reports on four design principles of assessment in school-based making that emerged from a literature review and the collaborative development process with educators. We discuss the challenges and opportunities for assessment in maker classrooms, as well as strategies to seamlessly embed assessment within a classroom’s culture, norms, and activities.
... A maker-centred approach to education poses multiple challenges for assessment because of its unique characteristics as a pedagogy, and, therefore, conventional assessment methods often fall short in capturing learning and development that occur during the process of making. The first of these characteristics is that, unlike common classroom practices, the making process allows for multiple endpoints as it is often student-driven, non-linear, and distributed across activities and a group of students (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Second, maker learning is exploratory and dynamic in nature, which makes it difficult to acquire a comprehensive view of student learning by looking solely at the final product (Soster et al., 2020). ...
... While portfolios provide opportunities to shed light on an individual's creative process, a considerable challenge remains: how to best capture meaningful evidence of learning in the moment of making and how to then accurately interpret the evidence. This is an important point because while many cognitive and sociocultural development occurs during the process of making (Soster et al., 2020), it is often difficult for learners and educators to examine the experience in the moment due to the immersive nature of maker activities (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Available evidence enables learners and educators accurately recall and reflect on those learning experiences. ...
... The second principle that emerged from the initial literature review was that assessment needs to be embedded not only in the lessons but also in the classroom norms and culture, such as the language used and the routines practised. Assessment in makercentred learning is difficult because maker learning activities tend to have an immersive and dynamic flow rather than a series of small, linear steps (Peppler & Keune, 2019). Students are often in a state of flow (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014) that is known to create an intense state of focus and growth, and disrupting the process can spoil a great educational opportunity. ...
While there is growing interest among educators in bringing the maker movement into school environments, many schools struggle to closely integrate making into their existing core curriculum, mostly due to the difficulty in assessing learning in maker classrooms. Because of the unique nature of maker-centered learning as a pedagogy, conventional assessment methods often fall short. To address this issue, we conducted a study to design assessment in maker classrooms using a design-based research approach, working closely with middle school maker teachers and coaches. Applying the concept of embedded assessment that is commonly used in digital learning environments into in-person maker classrooms, we explored how assessment that captures diverse learning occur in the process of making. This paper reports on the four design principles of embedded assessment in school-based making that emerged from literature reviews as well as interviews and workshops with the partnering educators. By closely examining the contexts of maker classrooms, we discuss challenges and opportunities for assessment in maker classrooms that can help teachers approach assessment as activities that are seamlessly embedded in the classroom culture, norms, and activities that students are engaged in.
... At the individual level, one objective is to build an identity through demonstrating skills, inspiring others and communicating ideas [41,50,56,58]. Makers also produce resources for themselves: they may anticipate later reuse (e.g., resuming a paused activity) [60,71,82], or use them when seeking feedback from peers such as colleagues or supervisors [23,35,46,48]. ...
... They provide a quick and effective way to produce high quality images, and makers already bring them along into the workshop [16,36]. Youths are especially comfortable using them to capture and share on platforms such as YouTube or Instagram [44,56]. Because these devices have several sensors readily available, they can also be used to capture additional content such as audio for orally annotating a video simply by speaking when the camera is recording [50]. ...
Capturing content of fabrication activities is the first step for producing knowledge resources and an integral part of maker culture. As a secondary task, it conflicts though with the fabrication activity, and thus it is often forgotten and knowledge resources end up incomplete. In this article, we investigate different dimensions of content capture for knowledge resources in fabrication workshops. Based on past work in this area, we first propose a framework through which we identify two research directions to investigate. From these, we derive three dimensions to explore in more depth: The number of capturing devices, their feature variety and the degree of automation of each feature. We then explore the design space resulting from these three dimensions with the help of a design concept and an online survey study (N=66). Results show (1) a variety of needs and preferences justifying feature variety and multiplicity, (2) challenges in defining the right degree of manual and automatic control, and (3) the socio-technical impact of cameras in a shared space regarding privacy and ethics. We conclude with discussions on the benefits and vulnerabilities of equipping fabrication workshop with distributed camera-based capturing devices and offer opportunities for design.
... Assessment in making in educational settings has been noted to be a challenge (e.g., Lin et al., 2020). This can be attributed to a variety of reasons, such as the heterogeneity of goals that guide teachers (Wardrip & Ryoo, 2020), the fact that students often make different products in their projects (Peppler & Keune, 2019), the intention of not interrupting the learner's experience (Murai et al., 2020), and the pragmatic limits in teachers' instructional practice. It can be challenging to enact assessment practices that align practically and epistemologically with learning experiences that are active and physical, like making (Gillies & Boyle, 2011). ...
... While extensively written about elsewhere (e.g., Gardner, 1989;Keune et al., 2017), it is worth noting the video clips that students provided to explain their work mimics the format of popular media outlets, like YouTube. This similarity has been cited as a motivation for students to engage in the documentation and portfolio development process (Peppler & Keune, 2019). ...
During the pandemic, teachers whose practice depends on maker-based learning have had the added challenge of translating their hands-on lessons for remote teaching. Yet with students making remotely, how can a teacher monitor the students’ progress, offer timely feedback, or infer what the students understood? In short, how are teachers assessing this work? Working with a learning community of teachers who center hands-on making in their instruction regardless of academic discipline, this study was conducted to examine how teachers are supporting and assessing maker-based learning. Our study draws on observational field notes taken during the community’s meetings, interviews with four focal teachers, and artifacts from the teachers’ maker projects. Taking a values-based assessment approach, our findings reveal interesting shifts in teaching practice. Specifically, teachers incorporated social-emotional goals into the activities they design and monitor, students documented their artifacts and process, and teachers adapted to using low-tech materials to ensure accessibility while engaging remote students in their learning goals. These findings imply that not only can remote maker-based experiences can influence the role of students as assessors and the tools and materials they use for making but also how these practices revealed in remote settings could inform in-person settings.
... Documentation in creative practice is a vital, increasingly important, but often under-supported and under-studied, aspect of design practice and creative, project-based learning (Bardzell et al. 2016, Sawyer, 2017Peppler & Keune, 2019;Sterman et al. 2023). By documentation, we mean the digital and/or physical records of an individual's or team's creative learning journey and the associated practices involved in noticing, selecting, capturing, recording, labeling, annotating, journaling, storing, and sharing a reflective account of the iterative and evolving project outputs. ...
Within creative domains in studio- and project-based education, documentation is often central to demonstrating outcomes, process, and progress. Despite much prior work into the instructional practices, technologies, and tools that support cultivating documentation practices, no prior work explores the student valuing and perception of documentation. To address this, we deploy a design probe to elicit and externalize conceptions of documentation with the same cohort of students in two semesters. Eleven participants engaged in higher education undergraduate programs completed the study. We focus our analysis on one activity — listing and ranking documentation’s perceived values. Through our analysis, we developed and validated a robust codebook for students’ values. We demonstrate the values of documentation to be coherent across background, time, and experience of the student participants. We also share insights on nine main roles documentation plays for students and discuss how documentation plays not only an important role in communicating creative work to diverse stakeholders but in building self-confidence, motivation, and affect for project-based and hands-on exploration.
... Much work has explored the role of documentation in making learners' thinking visible [3,5,24] and revealing process and accomplishments [3,29]. By externalizing and sharing concepts and craft [26], documentation prepared by others also plays a significant role in learning [7,22], particularly in maker-based contexts; as evidenced by the popularity of digital guides like Instructables and Hackster. ...
We present the design research process towards a novel learning technology to improve instructional documentation in makerspaces. Our focus is on the ways in which smart tools can better support learning practices, with a particular emphasis on role of documentation plays. We first describe a co-design process with educational stakeholder that generated concepts for NFC-enabled forms of hybrid documentation. This solution developed offers a process for coupling physical tools, parts and materials to online resources in order to help make documentation ready-at-hand for learners. Findings from a subsequent focus group led to a refined implementation. Our preliminary evaluation in a high school settings highlighted the value of integrating online documentation formats to support youth navigating a broad array of fabrication tools and parts. Educators valued the solutions ability to support self-directed learning and to increase student access and agency with instructional resources.
... In the introduction we outlined challenges with the current predominance of STEM-focused work in maker education, including a tendency to emphasize scientific or technical function over social or political purpose, expression, creativity, or critical engagement (e.g., Vossoughi et al., 2016). While previous efforts have been made to support students in making personally meaningful projects through maker education (e.g., Litts et al., 2019;Peppler and Keune, 2019) these have tended toward thoughtful crafts more than expressive artwork. Instead, in this study, we emphasized arts-based STEAM practices such as conscious intent, consideration of audience, and conscious reflection through artistic communication. ...
Much of maker education’s expansion has focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) learning, leaving out equally promising opportunities for integrating arts learning. In this paper we share findings from a project in which high school students created electronic-textiles-based art representing features of a community important to them as a part of an elective high school computer science class. We addressed the following research questions: (1) What kinds of personal and community meanings did students convey through their maker projects? (2) How did students engage with artistic dimensions in their projects? (3) How did coding interactive features support students’ artwork? Drawing on daily observations, pre/post interviews, and documentation of students’ artifacts (photographs of in-process designs, design notebooks, and artist statements), we developed four case studies of students as they made art representing their communities using electronic-textiles as their primary medium. Our findings reveal how making became a means of personal, artistic expression with quite literal layering of coded meanings, and how maker activities can integrate art. In the discussion we consider the opportunities for authentic artistic expression in maker education by distinguishing the difference between craft and art in a maker education context. We consider the ways in which these ideas have implications for equity, pedagogy, and future research.
This chapter surfaces examples of the ways educators, programs, and families are making connections to and from out-of-school time (OST) experiences and into other contexts in learners’ lives, including additional programs, homes, communities, and schools. Through a review, the authors test, refine, and expand a design framework for connections across settings described in connected learning scholarship and identify shared goals and outcome indicators for collectively fostering equity through connective OST practices. The review has implications for practice in terms of offering design principles, examples, and outcome indicators for making connections that policymakers, program leaders, and educators can take up and for research by investigating and theorizing the role connective practices in OST programs can play in learning ecosystems.
As a means to nurture innovation and better prepare students for the world of tomorrow, schools are establishing makerspaces. Consequently, school makerspaces are gaining momentum in recent years. While makerspaces have been studied mostly in museums and libraries, little research has been conducted inside K–12 school makerspaces. The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods case study was to examine the perceptions of teachers and students concerning learning in a standalone school makerspace, how the identifiable indicators of learners’ learning differ by station and to identify how such learning may assist students in being future-ready.
Data collection is performed using mixed methods. The sample included 79 high school students and seven teachers who worked at five makerspace stations on different projects. Data were collected via online surveys, reflective journals, and observational notes. The tinkering learning dimensions framework, 21st-century skills framework, Gibbs’s reflective cycle, and the makerspace quadrant guided the design of data collection tools and discussion of the findings. This study contributes to the field by demonstrating how this school makerspace facilitated learning during a crisis through long-term projects using a novel blended projects model developed in this study.
The cross-case analysis revealed that social and emotional engagement was the most visible learning dimension across all stations. The study results reveal that school makerspaces offer a context to develop 21st-century skills, becoming a hub for exploring many career pathways and providing real-life connections. The evidence also shows there to be a potential relationship between the makerspace stations and the learning dimensions. For example, while students at the technology station with no hands-on work had the lowest level of learning indicators, those at the 3D printing station had higher levels of learning indicators. The findings contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversations about the educational values of school makerspaces, and the discussion culminates in recommendations for practice and research.
In contemporary society, school is only one of the contexts in which people learn throughout their lives. Therefore, in recent years studies and conceptual proposals that seek to understand how children and young people learn in different activity contexts have proliferated. In this article we present a systematic review of the recent literature on learning across contexts, and specifically on learning trajectories. The objective is to narrow down and define the notion of learning trajectory by reviewing the existing proposals on the term itself and on other similar concepts, and placing it within the framework of other relevant theoretical and practical constructs. We reviewed 59 articles and book chapters, both theoretical and empirical, in which the concept of learning across contexts is discussed. The results show that personal learning trajectories are conceptualized as a multidimensional and dynamic concept that makes it possible to analyse learning across contexts on two planes: the connections between contexts and activities that occur due to a person's participation in different learning contexts; and the subjective perspective of continuity between the learning experiences that a person reconstructs discursively with other people or with artefacts.
In this systematic review, we examined research on school-based makerspaces, emergent but increasingly popular sites for instruction and learning in preK through 12 settings. Through electronic database, hand, and ancestral searches, we identified 22 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals and dissertations that reported preK-12 students’ learning outcomes after participating in school-based makerspace interventions. We found that school-based makerspace research is increasing and published internationally, with a majority of studies (n = 13) conducted with middle and high school participants. Outcomes and interventions varied considerably across studies, demonstrating the disparate nature of school-based makerspace research. In the studies we reviewed, the goals, objectives, and scope of makerspace interventions did not conflict with those of schools, but best practices for makerspace teachers were lacking and equity-oriented approaches to designing makerspace activities and materials were still emerging. Implications of our findings for planning makerspace instruction and future research on makerspace interventions are discussed.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate design principles for transforming existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities to support youths, families with young children and adult members’ making and tinkering during COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
Building upon C4P and connected learning framework, the authors analyze existing literature and practitioner reports on informal learning projects related to making and STEM learning, family learning and online learning as well as emergent cases of innovative approaches in response to COVID-19 from public libraries, informal learning institutions and community groups.
Findings
The authors suggest 11 design principles around five areas: program design, facilitation, tools and materials, process documentation and sharing and feedback.
Originality/value
This work contributes to the information and learning sciences concerned with community engagement and knowledge creation by suggesting a design model to transform and sustain existing making communities of practice within public libraries into online knowledge-building communities during COVID-19.
Making is a playful exploration of tools and materials to design personally meaningful artifacts, providing a particularly impactful entry point for traditionally underrepresented youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. However, it remains unclear how these constructionist explorations translate to eventual professional and educational STEM opportunities, especially for women. This paper tracks an ex- emplary case in a makerspace to theorize, describe, and analyze the behavioral patterns of young women as they engage in making and move toward expertise in STEM. Building on a material-based and constructionist notion of making, we use mediated discourse analysis to examine how recognition (materialized in artifacts as dis- playing, legitimizing, and circulating emergent STEM expertise) leads to transformational development over time. We introduce the notion of tinkering with development, which conceptualizes playful project design, spatial project placements, and emergent online project sharing as drivers of human developmental trajectories. Implications of this work include a set of design principles to support makerspaces and other constructionist learning environments to foster participation in STEM. Further, implications for constructionist theory and STEM gender representation are discussed.
This report is a synthesis of ongoing research, design, and implementation of an approach to education called “connected learning.” It advocates for broadened access to learning that is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement.
This model is based on evidence that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective learning involves individual interest as well as social support to overcome adversity and provide recognition.
This report investigates how we can use new media to foster the growth and sustenance of environments that support connected learning in a broad-based and equitable way. This report also offers a design and reform agenda, grounded in a rich understanding of child development and learning, to promote and test connected learning theories.
This article describes a situative approach to studying motivation to learn in social contexts. We begin by contrasting this perspective to more prevalent psychological approaches to the study of motivation, describing epistemological and methodological differences that have constrained conversation between theoretical groups. We elaborate on issues of the unit of analysis, the conceptualization of contexts, and the role of identity as a central construct. Finally, we argue that the design of learning environments and interventions to change learning environments are informed by attention to the relationships among meanings, identities, and motives in context. We illustrate our argument with examples of design-based research and design-based implementation research focused on motivation to learn in children and adults.
An extensive review of the literature on learning assessment in informal settings, expert discussion of key issues, and a new model for good assessment practice.
Today educational activities take place not only in school but also in after-school programs, community centers, museums, and online communities and forums. The success and expansion of these out-of-school initiatives depends on our ability to document and assess what works and what doesn't in informal learning, but learning outcomes in these settings are often unpredictable. Goals are open-ended; participation is voluntary; and relationships, means, and ends are complex. This report charts the state of the art for learning assessment in informal settings, offering an extensive review of the literature, expert discussion on key topics, a suggested model for comprehensive assessment, and recommendations for good assessment practices.
Drawing on analysis of the literature and expert opinion, the proposed model, the Outcomes-by-Levels Model for Documentation and Assessment, identifies at least ten types of valued outcomes, to be assessed in terms of learning at the project, group, and individual levels. The cases described in the literature under review, which range from promoting girls' identification with STEM practices to providing online resources for learning programming and networking, illustrate the usefulness of the assessment model.
The concept of connected learning proposes that youth leverage individual interest and social media to drive learning with an academic focus. To illustrate, we present in-depth case studies of Ryan and Sam, two middle-school-age youth, to document an out-of-school intervention intended to direct toward intentional learning in STEM that taps interest and motivation. The investigation focused on how Ryan and Sam interacted with the designed elements of Studio STEM and whether they became more engaged to gain deeper learning about science concepts related to energy sustainability. The investigation focused on the roles of the engineering design process, peer interaction, and social media to influence youth interest and motivation. Research questions were based on principles of connected learning (e.g., self-expression, lower barriers to expertise, socio-technical supports) with data analyzed within a framework suggested by discursive psychology. Analyzing videotaped excerpts of interactions in the studio, field notes, interview responses, and artifacts created during the program resulted in the following findings: problem solving, new media, and peer interaction as designed features of Studio STEM elicited evidence of stimulating interest in STEM for deeper learning. Further research could investigate individual interest-driven niches that are formed inside the larger educational setting, identifying areas of informal learning practice that could be adopted in formal settings. Moreover, aspects of youth's STEM literacy that could promote environmental sustainability through ideation, invention, and creativity should be pursued.
To rigorously consider the impact of new media on the political and civic behavior of young people, The MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) developed and fielded one of the first large-scale, nationally representative studies of new media and politics among young people. The two principal researchers for the survey component of the YPP, Cathy J. Cohen of the University of Chicago and Joseph Kahne of Mills College, oversaw a research team that surveyed nearly 3,000 respondents between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age. Unlike any prior study of youth and new media, this study included large numbers of black, Latino, and Asian American respon- dents, which allows for unique and powerful statistical comparisons across race with a focus on young people.
This article considers issues in educational reform, particularly accountability-oriented policies, and student motivation. We argue that prominent theories of motivation derived from cognitive traits/states are antithetical to the assumptions underlying conventional assessment formats and accountability-oriented reforms. We advance an alternative perspective that emerges from sociocultural assumptions. In this perspective, the values and beliefs that motivate engagement in learning reside alongside the practices that characterize knowledge communities and, together, constitute a model of practice. We therefore explore the complex issue of reconciliation between the activities of individuals and social contexts and how "dialectical" reconciliation addresses tensions between classroom assessment and external testing, and between formative and summative functions of assessment. Data and conclusions from a program of research in science education illustrate and warrant these considerations.
In recent years, some educational researchers who study, motivation have been expanding their focus to consider the broader contexts of motivated activity. Sociocultural views of knowing and learning are an influential force in this movement. In this article I apply the sociocultural assumption that knowledge resides in contexts of its use to the study of achievement motivation. I then use this "participatory" view of knowing and learning to define a stridently sociocultural approach to "motivation-in-context." I contrast conventional behavioral and cognitive assumptions about engagement with the sociocultural notion of engaged participation in the coconstruction of standards and values in learning contexts. I also explore the complex issue of reconciliation between individual and social activity that is critical to contextual considerations of motivation. The conventional aggregative approach to reconciliation is compared to the dialectical approach that follows from a sociocultural perspective. Finally, I discuss the potential value of this model and approach in terms of the new perspective they offer for persistent education questions, such as use of extrinsic rewards to motivate engagement in learning.
In this article we propose that in order to advance our understanding of motivation in collaborative learning we should move beyond the cognitive-situative epistemological divide and combine individual and social processes. Our claim is that although recent research has recognized the importance of social aspects in emerging and sustained motivation in collaborative learning activities, the social is mainly conceived as a unidirectional source of influence on individual motivation. In the article we examine the significance of motivation in research on collaborative learning. We discuss two characterizations of the role of the social in conceptualizations of motivation, namely, social influence and social construction, and outline our case for moving beyond the cognitive-situative divide and combining individual and social processes in research on motivation. Finally, we present illustrations from recent research on motivation in collaborative learning that has attempted to bridge the cognitive-situative divide across theoretical perspectives or using different methods.
This commentary revisits compelling arguments put forth by the contributors to this special issue on the role of race and ethnicity in academic motivation research. First, an overview of how race and motivation have been positioned in prominent theories of motivation is provided and juxtaposed with those offered in culturally responsive pedagogical approaches championed by multicultural educators. Special emphasis is placed on how teachers' and learners' sociohistorical and cultural contexts might influence motivation. Second, the critical role of identity and membership complexity is explored. Third, suggestions for more culturally attentive research methods are offered. The final section includes research and practice recommendations for supporting the academic motivation of diverse learners. Challenges to theoretical and methodological assumptions about race, ethnicity, and culture are offered throughout, including a call to address the role that racism, power, and privilege have played in perpetuating inequality in motivation research conducted in the United States.
This study reports on the Models for Assessing Art Performance (MAAP) project, an NEA funded study to assess K-12 student learning through an teacher assessments of student portfolios. The study participants included 70 K-12 art teachers and 1,000 students in 11 school districts in Florida, Indiana, and Illinois. The study investigators include art education faculty from Florida State University, Northern Illinois University, and Purdue University. Included is a rationale for the study, the development of the test instruments, the training of teachers in portfolio assessment and curriculum development. The results of the study confirm that teachers can, with appropriate training, conduct the assessment of K-12 student artwork and create their own standards for adjudicating artworks subject to the abilities of the teachers, the students, and the schools.
Project-based learning is a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems. In this article, we present an argument for why projects have the potential to help people learn; indicate factors in project design that affect motivation and thought; examine difficulties that students and teachers may encounter with projects; and describe how technology can support students and teachers as they work on projects, so that motivation and thought are sustained.
Through a comparative case study, Sheridan and colleagues explore how makerspaces may function as learning environments. Drawing on field observations, interviews, and analysis of artifacts, videos, and other documents, the authors describe features of three makerspaces and how participants learn and develop through complex design and making practices. They describe how the makerspaces help individuals identify problems, build models, learn and apply skills, revise ideas, and share new knowledge with others. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of their findings for this emergent field.
In this paper, the assessment of art production through a standardized performance-based examination is discussed. Seminal issues regarding standardized assessment in the productive domain are addressed, such as alignment with the best features of performance-based evaluation and the value of a summative evaluation tool contributing to the comprehensive assessment of art education. The Dutch national standardized performance examination in the visual arts is introduced as a useful model for future development of performance assessment, with certain features of the Dutch examination analyzed as to their feasibility for art practices in the United States.
Commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, this book explores research indicating that youth are learning new ways to engage in the arts on their own time and according to their own interests. Digital technologies, such as production tools and social media, allow youth to create and share their art. Kylie Peppler urges educators and policy makers to take advantage of «arts learning opportunities» and imagine a school setting where young people are driven by their own interests, using tablets, computers, and other devices to produce visual arts, music composition, dance, and design. This book gives educators an understanding of what is happening with current digital technologies and the opportunities that exist to connect to youth practice, and raises questions about why we don’t use these opportunities more frequently.
This article presents an analysis of how students' dispositions toward learning shift and change over time through their engagement with particular classroom practices and identifies classroom practices that support the development of more productive dispositions. An analysis of 4 purposefully selected students from 2 different classrooms reveals that membership in a classroom activity system does not determine one's emergent disposition toward learning. However, it is likely that similar types of dispositions might emerge within a single classroom activity system. The analysis further seeks to understand the mechanisms that underlie the ways in which dispositions are enacted in moments of interaction, and how aspects of classroom practice impact this enactment. The findings support the argument that social, affective, and motivational factors are not simply influences on learning but are, instead, central to and inseparable from the learning process.
Reviews background information about portfolio assessment. Describes the experiences of the faculty in one school with a schoolwide portfolio assessment system. Shares struggles and solutions which may be valuable to others seeking to develop alternative assessment programs. (MG)
Webfolios may have the most significant effect on education since the introduction of formal schooling. When fully matured and implemented by capable professional educators throughout every discipline in an educational institution, webfolios promise a viable alternative to current, high-stakes testing, which focuses education on test-taking rather than teaching and learning. The promise webfolios hold--a richer educational experience for all--will not be realized, however, unless educators embrace webfolio concepts and apply them at their highest level of maturation. This article will be of interest to anyone concerned about the role and value of portfolios. It will help students, teachers, program administrators, and information-systems personnel understand the potential webfolios hold for improving education. It also illuminates the paradigm shift that occurs when educational institutions make the leap from traditional portfolio assessment to webfolio assessment, evaluation, and reporting. This article chronicles the journey from paper and e-portfolios to webfolios, and defines five levels of maturation. The authors include a Taxonomy for the Determination of Levels of Maturation, which can be used to ascertain an institution's current level and can provide a conceptual framework for attaining the highest level the institution desires. Then, with a plan in place, the taxonomy can be used to assess the institution's progress. The distinction among paper, e-portfolio, and webfolio is critical because only the webfolio will support an institution's progress through all five levels. Two case studies that offer useful insights into how two institutions approached and handled the move through several levels of webfolio maturation are presented. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)
Describes project-based learning as a comprehensive approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in investigation of authentic problems. Students are responsible for both the questions and the answers to such problems. Some of the advantages of project-based learning are that it promotes links among different disciplines and is adaptable to different types of learners and situations. Factors in project design that affect motivation and thought include interest in and value of the project, perceived and achieved competence, and task focus. The role of teachers in enhancing motivation and fostering cognitive engagement is emphasized. Ways in which technology can support students and teachers as they work on projects, so that motivation and thought are sustained, are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
When I first became acquainted with the work of Larry Sipe I thought, "Anybody who studies reading aloud The Stinky Cheese Man has got to have something interesting to say." In this "Reflections from the Field," Sipe has done it again, here in collaboration with Maria Ghiso. They address the "how" of data construction and analysis, and in so doing teach us two important lessons. The first is that "data" in qualitative research must be found-they do not simply appear to the researcher-which is to say that they are not apprehended passively by the researcher as natural entities. Rather, each data point, each datum, must be defined and identified in a process of searching repeatedly through a set of information sources. Fieldnotes, interview transcripts, and archival records (as well as audiotapes and videotapes) are most appropriately conceived not as "data" in their unreduced form-they are resources for data construction within which data must be discovered. The second lesson is that patterns or themes in the data also must be found-they do not imply "emerge." Rather, statable patterns and themes-assertions that make generalizations about actions and beliefs that were observed-must be searched for repeatedly within the total data corpus, in a process of progressive problem-solving. These are two valuable lessons that disabuse us of two kinds of naivety about the processes of qualitative research. One is that these processes are simply subjective-the qualitative researcher finds conclusions through a combination of intuition and empathy that eludes reflection and thus descriptive reporting-that is, it is magic or art. The other naivety is that the processes of qualitative research are simply and unitarily objective; conclusions about pattern are found by processes based on low-inference coding judgments for which algorithms can be specified, and then more highly inferential layers of summary coding can be added in a nonproblematically stepwise progression upward in generality toward the identification of a statable theme or pattern. Either construal of the research process-as unitarily subjective or
- Lemke J.
Zero-based arts education: An introduction to ARTS PROPEL. Studies in Art Education
- H Gardner
Gardner, H. (1989). Zero-based arts education: An introduction to ARTS PROPEL. Studies in Art Education, 30(2),
71-83. doi:10.2307/1320774
Digital media shapes youth participation in politics
- J Kahne
- E Middaugh
Kahne, J., & Middaugh, E. (2012). Digital media shapes youth participation in politics. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(3), 52-56.
doi:10.1177/003172171209400312
Maker portfolios as learning and community building tools inside and outside makerspaces
- A Keune
- K Peppler
Keune, A., & Peppler, K. (2017). Maker portfolios as learning and community building tools inside and outside
makerspaces. In B. K. Smith, M. Borge, E. Mercier, & K. Lim (Eds.), The international conference on computer
supported collaborative learning (CSCL) 2017 (Vol. 2, pp. 545-548). Pittsburgh, PA: International Society of the
Learning Sciences.
My portfolio helps my making": Motivations and mechanisms for documenting creative projects in out-of-school makerspaces
- A Keune
- N A Thompson
- K A Peppler
- S Chang
Keune, A., Thompson, N. A., Peppler, K. A., & Chang, S. (2017). "My portfolio helps my making": Motivations and
mechanisms for documenting creative projects in out-of-school makerspaces. In L. Mikos & I. Eleá (Eds.), Young
and creative: Digital technologies empowering children in everyday life (pp. 145-158). Gothenburg, Sweden:
Nordicom.
Performance-based student assessment: Challenges and possibilities
- R P Mills
Mills, R. P. (1996). Statewide portfolio assessment: The Vermont experience. In J. B. Baron & D. E. Wolf (Eds.),
Performance-based student assessment: Challenges and possibilities (pp. 192-214). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.