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Makification - Bridging the Gap between Formal and Maker Education

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Abstract

To achieve appropriate education for the future, we propose a gradual process of makification in which characteristic elements of the maker movement are incorporated into formal educational activities. Using the existing literature, we deduce the need for a shift from teacher-centered to student-centered learning while integrating essential 21 st century skills into the rigid framework of formal education through makification.
Makification –
Bridging the Gap between Formal and Maker Education
Nanna Nora Sagbauer
TU Graz
Austria
nanna.sagbauer@htl-hl.ac.at
Michael Pollak
TU Wien
Austria
research@michaelpollak.org
Martin Ebner
TU Graz
Austria
martin.ebner@tugraz.at
Abstract: To achieve appropriate education for the future, we propose a gradual process of
makification in which characteristic elements of the maker movement are incorporated into
formal educational activities. Using the existing literature, we deduce the need for a shift from
teacher-centered to student-centered learning while integrating essential 21 st century skills into
the rigid framework of formal education through makification.
Introduction
There has been a long-standing call for changes in the education system to prepare upcoming
generations for future technological developments. In the early sixties of the last century Howard (1963)
demanded the envisioning of “New, bold, realistic programs for educating”. This still retains its validity since
the current policy priorities of the European Commission calls for “New skills and education in the digital
transformation” (Rosa, Guimarães Pereira, & Ferretti, 2018) and Broo, Kaynak, and Sait (2022) state that the
dominant characteristics of the upcoming “fifth industrial revolution […] requires all to think and act
differently”. The ways of teaching have to include creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem solving
and decision making as well as learning to learn and metacognition with communication and collaboration being
essential. (Binkley et al., 2012) According to Woods, Mountain, and Griffin (2018) 21st century learning tasks
are open-ended and involve unbounded sets of information. Students must be able to continually monitor their
own learning progress and develop skills to establish and adapt goals according to available information. Not
only students but also teachers need to evolve as “The teacher’s role is to set highly motivating tasks with
achievable goals and to provide sufficient structure and scaffolding based on a thorough understanding of the
students’ interests and needs”. The fulfillment of these demands in formal education is not easy since our school
system is characterized by continuity and necessary adjustments can only be implemented very slowly. This is
underlined by Luga (2020) who declares the educational system as deeply hostile to innovation because it is
nearly impossible to change even one parameter without destabilizing the system as a whole. He further states
that all children of the same age should achieve the same goal, at the same time, equally well, with the same
teachers, with the same teaching materials, at the same pace.
So, how can the education system change to fulfill all those diametrically opposed demands? One thing
is certain: the education system cannot be overturned or reimplemented; it must be adapted. The digital
transformation challenges schools to ask themselves what their role is in a rapidly changing digital society. This
repositioning requires comprehensive school development, which also includes teaching concepts, school
organization and framework conditions. (Merz, 2019)
Intertwining Formal and Maker Education
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Preprint - originally published in:
Sagbauer, N.N., Pollak, M. &
Ebner, M. (2023). Makification –
Bridging the Gap between Formal
and Maker Education. In T.
Bastiaens (Ed.), Proceedings of
EdMedia + Innovate Learning
(pp. 264-271). Vienna, Austria:
Association for the Advancement
of Computing in Education
(AACE). Retrieved July 19, 2023
from https://
www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/
222513/.
A highly promising approach involves intertwining formal education with characteristic elements of the
maker movement, which Dogan, Dogan, Ulku, Bas, and Erdal (2020) describe as an environment where
students can develop most of the aforementioned 21st century skills. “Making refers to a set of activities that can
be designed with a variety of learning goals in mind.” (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014) The main goals of making
in education, also referred to as maker education, are according to Dougherty (2013) to establish a maker
mindset (a growth mindset that encourages students to believe they can learn to do anything), to connect
interests in and out of school, to encourage collaboration, to empower students as leaders, and to enable the
development in all students to become agents of change in their personal lives and in their community. The
maker movement, maker education and makerspaces, the physical spaces where making takes place, build on
principles such as interdisciplinarity, voluntarism and lack of hierarchy, which traditionally have a hard time in
schools. (Ingold & Maurer, 2019) Nonetheless the European Commission (Rosa et al., 2018) highlights the
potential of makerspaces as learning environments in education and a need for more time spent on activities that
require social and emotional skills, creativity, high-level cognitive capabilities and other skills relatively hard to
automate. Seidl and Stang (2020) see such teaching and learning arrangements only as complementary to the
offers of traditional educational institutions, especially if these are qualification-oriented, as is usually the case
in formal education. However, since the integration of making into formal education and the according research
is in its infancy (Cohen, Jones, Smith, & Calandra, 2017, p. 131) we define makification as connection between
formal and maker education.
Research Design
This literature review contributes to the question of how makification bridges the gap between the open
mindset of the maker movement and the rigid framework of formal education. Building on existing literature of
the maker movement, maker education, engineering education, STEM and STEAM, as well as reports and
publications of various international organizations, and decision and policy makers, the differences between
formal and maker education are analysed. We clarify and enrich the concept of makification and distinguish it
clearly from maker education to allow for continuous embedding in formal education.
The Entrenched Procedures in Formal Education
Not much has changed in schools in the last years although the world around is evolving dramatically.
(Rayna & Striukova, 2021) Teachers lecturing or giving direct instructions is still a very common practice.
(Libow Martinez & Stager, 2013) School organizes learning according to subject and curriculum in year classes,
based largely on 45- to 90-minute lessons, oriented to the currently valid curriculum (Ingold & Maurer, 2019)
which led to the establishment of a system in which we equate high standards with high test scores. (Smith &
Colby, 2007, p. 205) In western countries most students “consider memorization of the lecture notes as
sufficient to pass the course (and often they are reinforced in this belief by the nature of the assessments)”
(Hattie, 2015, p. 85). These summative assessments at given points in time define a student’s performance. But
“often the information derived is seen as being of little or no use to the student once it has been generated.”
(Swain, 2010, p. 212) These practices clearly promote superficial learning. But what prevents teachers from
fostering deep learning outcomes among their students? Smith and Colby (2007) accused a lack of teachers´
“training, tools, and time” to engage in different teaching approaches, which is underlined by Webb (2010) as
“technology mediated learning and opportunities provided by current technological developments presents
considerable challenges for teachers”.
The Promise of Maker Education
Maker education seems very promising in changing the education system (Hattie, 2015, pp. 80–81)
from a mainly teacher-centered to a more student-centered system. According to Chu, Angello, Saenz, and Quek
(2017, p. 32) “making is broadly understood as a term that refers to the use of a set of technologies […] as
despecialized means of prototyping and creation of technology-based artifacts.” The maker movement
democratizes “access to the discourses of power that accompany becoming a producer of artifacts, especially
when those artifacts use twenty-first-century technologies” (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014) which seems to be a
noble goal for the future. In a more short-term view and applied to the educational system “Making is seen as a
promising didactical approach in school to promote important skills such as creativity, collaboration, and
problem-solving.” (Spieler, Grandl, & Krnjic, 2020) Based on the teaching theory of constructionism (Libow
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Martinez & Stager, 2013) maker education is a form of project-based learning that addresses real life contexts.
(Kim, Seo, & Kim, 2022, pp. 7328–7329) It is a pedagogical approach wherein “open-ended problems and
opportunities are posed, and the culminating ideas are realized through iterative prototyping and
experimentation.” (Wood, Camburn, Mignone, Arlitt, & Venkataraman, 2016) According to Libow Martinez and
Stager (2013) the making process in education should be structured in three phases that are usually iterated:
Think (problem-setting, brainstorming, planning, …) – Make (play, build, tinker, create, program, …) – Improve
(conduct research, discuss with peers, use different materials, play with it, …). A lot of the great interest in
maker education exists because making is an open-ended, hands-on pedagogy which is in stark contrast to
traditional modes of teacher-centered instruction most common today. (Rosenheck, Lin, Nigam, Nori, & Kim,
2021) In formal education open-ended tasks generate difficulties for faculty, because there are almost always
time guidelines and restrictions to teach certain content or achieve learning objectives which makes it quite hard
for teachers to allow the possibility of multiple iterations. The openness of making, not only but also in terms of
time frame, is a very important characteristic of the maker movement. “Openness is not a binary concept either,
but there are different degrees of openness and different ways of promoting openness” (Saari, Åkerman,
Kieslinger, Myllyoja, & Sipos, 2021) and it is “multi-dimensional and its constituents need to be carefully
balanced.” (Ahmadi et al., 2019, p. 160) Openness in making also refers to personal roles, where an expert in
one field may be a novice in another and it cannot be determined in advance who learns what, when, and from
whom. In terms of the intensity of activities it ranges from just tinkering around to reinventing one's own world.
(Schön & Ebner, 2017)
Makers, the persons involved in making, are creators of artifacts, which can be digital and/or physical
objects (Saari et al., 2021). The place where the act of making occurs is often referred to as makerspace, which
includes the embedded community of practice on top of the physical workshop. (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014)
In these makerspaces learning takes place en passant. Most often there is no underlying didactic concept. The
teaching/learning process in a makerspace is a communication process in an informal environment. (Stang,
2020) From a pedagogical-didactic point of view, the makerspace as a learning environment means that work
and learning are designed in an open way that embraces personal autonomy. Makers have the freedom to choose
their tools, their work organization and their work methods as well as the actual implementation. (Schön &
Ebner, 2020) Makerspaces create a culture of learning by inviting failure, supporting asking for help, and
cultivating engaged learning and inspiration. They facilitate pathways to design by enhancing one´s fabrication
and manufacturing skills, promoting the application of design processes, and developing problem solving,
critical thinking, and creativity. (Tomko, Newstetter, Alemán, Nagel, & Linsey, 2020) That makerspaces have
the ability to drastically change the existing education system, Dogan et al. (2020) emphasize, “by providing
students a […] tool to participate in more hands-on projects and to develop a variety of professional skills.”
Despite these promising prospects of maker education in an open learning environment, a makerspace, it still
poses a lot of challenges for most schools, teachers and also for students. (Hollauf & Schön, 2020)
Makification as Enabler to Bridging the Gap
Makification was introduced and defined by Cohen et al. (2017) as “the process of taking characteristic
elements from the maker movement and infusing them into formal educational activities in a variety of
contexts”. Makification incorporates communicative, open, and informal maker education principles into the
conservative and structured landscape of formal schooling environments. It allows for a smooth introduction
and therefore bridges the gap between formal and maker education. Makification is based on the theory of
constructionism, which roots on the two pillars of making and sharing. “Pure constructionism needs freedom
and minimal restrictions (standardized regulations), which is difficult to come by in today’s climate of crowded
curricula and high-stakes testing.” (Cohen et al., 2017, p. 132) The effective integration of elements of the
maker movement into formal educational settings needs thoughtful inclusion into classrooms and curriculum
designs because of the institutional structures to which the school system is subject. Restrictions like the size of
the learning groups (Hoidn, 2017, p. 370) and the structural personnel situation require a certain standardization
of the learning opportunities, which can limit the freedom for self-motivated and self-directed creative processes
that are important from the perspective of making. (Ingold & Maurer, 2019) A cultural shift from teacher-
centered content learning to student-centered free-choice learning and making, the hallmark of maker-culture,
poses a conflict that needs to be recognized including its consequences. (Walan & Gericke, 2022) Since schools
are deeply enmeshed in “high-stakes standardized testing regimes” (Tan, 2019, p. 86) and teachers having
“diametrically opposed opinions on how to respond to changes: from conservative (leaving everything as it is,
schoolchildren need to be taught as in the last century) until the need for a complete restructuring of the
education system” (Mynbayeva, Sadvakassova, & Akshalova, 2016) adapting the education system seems to be
a tedious process which needs to be addressed continuously.
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According to Cohen et al. (2017) the principles of makification are creation, iteration, sharing, and
autonomy. The core process of makification is a design process consisting of creation and iteration. “Iteration
provides a pathway to encourage the types of higher-order thinking makification strives to support in students”
(Cohen et al., 2017, pp. 133–134) which stands in stark contrast to the `just do it okay and be done with it for a
positive grade´- mentality of formal schooling. “If the teacher wants to evaluate students’ depth of learning
relative to the curriculum goal, the task must be open enough that students have flexibility in their responses”
(Smith & Colby, 2007, p. 209) which requires students´ autonomy enabled by a powerful learning environment
that balances discovery and personal exploration with systematic instruction and guidance, always taking into
account individual differences in learner abilities, needs, and motivation. (Corte, Verschaffel, & Masui, 2004, p.
370) Sharing student´s work and ideas in an active community of collaboration, exchange and openness
provides an atmosphere of creativity and innovation. (Böhm, 2018) This enhances experimentation, learning by
doing and communication, which are important and challenging when creating spaces for makification. Fear of
failure (Androutsos & Brinia, 2019) should not be a limiting factor in makification, because “students are
encouraged to engage in processes with ill-defined (wicked) problems, and in practices of trial-and-error, to
learn from own and others’ failures, and to make their own choices based on their experiences in collaborative
design processes”. (Iversen, Smith, Blikstein, Katterfeldt, & Read, 2015) Students and teachers in a makified
classroom need to be comfortable with the concept of failing forward, an idea of Ebner, Schön, Narr, Grandl,
and Khoo (2021) emphasizing that mistakes are useful learning experiences and need to be addressed directly
through supporting activities.
Makification supports a transition from summative to formative assessment and challenges the role of
teachers. In summative assessment the power is with the teacher or an organization, such as an examination
board or government legislation (Buxton, Kay, & Nutbrown, 2022). The information derived is in compliance
with Swain (2010) seen as being of little or no use to the students´ learning outcomes whereas in “formative
assessment the intention is that the power should reside with the pupils so that they can make better decisions
about their learning and progress.” Teachers need to act as facilitators for this transfer of power and have to
impersonate new roles to support this kind of learning. (Merz, 2019) This entails a considerable shift for
teachers “away from being the one who has all the answers and does most of the talking toward being a
facilitator who orchestrates the context, provides resources, and poses questions to stimulate students to think up
their own answers.” (King, 1993, p. 30) The teacher is important in makification to coach and support students
in ways that enable the learners to identify, develop, and pursue their ideas and interests (Ryoo, Kali, & Bevan,
p. 53) and to empower self-directed deep learning.
Makerspaces are the perfect environment for makification by providing tools, space, and a maker
mindset. There are areas that are equipped with state-of-the-art tools and equipment used for tinkering and rapid
prototyping and in “addition, they offer training and workshops, provide support to users with their projects by
either helping them with accomplish/make the project, or by connecting makers together to collaborate on
projects together.” (Galaleldin, Bouchard, Anis, & Lague, 2016) According to Bergman and McMullen (2020)
“makerspaces appear well positioned to dramatically change the ways we learn, organize, design, and produce.”
Makerspaces in compulsory education are still rare. (Assaf, Buchner, & Jud, 2019) Luga (2020) pointed out that
they have been “effectively a non-issue in schools until 2017/18. However, since 2019/20, there have been
several space plans based on makerspace concepts.” A main characteristic of makerspaces is its accessibility
(Galaleldin et al., 2016) and openness which often poses a problem in the school context but also bears a huge
potential for the personal development of the makers (where we do not differentiate between students and
teachers) as well as the educational institutions. The contact with the broader community can enhance learning
(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000, p. 224) and current interfaces between schools and practitioners are
underdeveloped. (Pollak, p. 107) The infrastructure of a makerspace operates at different levels of society and
“creates a connection between professionals, students, hobbyists, urban associations, companies and institutions
so that they can meet and share projects and ideas.” (Fasoli & Tassinari, 2017) Celebrating diversity in schools
by acknowledging the strength of persons with different backgrounds and inviting feedback from a broad set of
stakeholders such as entrepreneurs, investors, or subject experts (Neumayer & Santos, 2020, pp. 1299–1300) in
a prototyping process often leads to meaningful communication and unexpected though desirable learning
outcomes. Therefore, disrupting traditional pedagogical models by simply changing from a classroom to a
makerspace, where other rules apply, and learning happens differently may allow for more student-centered
learning models to flourish. (Schad & Jones, 2020) Makerspaces have the potential to fuel deep and sustainable
learning and the new technologies can act as a trigger of making in education, but a simple collection of
materials, tools and devices does not define a makerspace and does not empower deep and meaningful learning.
An open makerspace setting requires the assignments and learning experiences to be authentic, and they need to
ask for creative solutions. (Grandl, Ebner, & Strasser, 2019) “This makes makerspaces not an ‘alternative’’ way
to learn, but a modern learning tool that needs to be given more attention.” (Dogan et al., 2020, p. 1161)
The gradual incorporation of makification allows it to complement the offerings of traditional
educational institutions (see Figure 1), especially if these are degree-oriented and assessment is mandatory. In a
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limited setting, traditional teaching in lesson-subject structures can be broken down and new forms of teaching
can be tried out. (Merz, 2019) Taking projects to makerspaces allows teachers to get to know these learning
environments. They need to experience the effects of such open teaching/learning settings for themselves and to
develop strategies to account for the students´ acquired skills and abilities, since this kind of learning is so
difficult to capture empirically, because the learning effects often do not occur immediately. (Seidl & Stang,
2020) Bird (2021) describes working with students in makerspaces to embrace a diversity of experience and
thought, which teachers seem to believe enriches everyone’s learning, including their own. Still, simply doing
school projects in makerspaces does not make it maker education, although it can be a first step in makification.
This highlights the nature of makification as taking selected characteristic elements of the maker movement and
infusing them into formal educational activities in a variety of contexts to support gradual improvement of
formal education.
Figure 1: Comparison of Formal Education, Makification, and Maker Education
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Conclusions and Discussion
Current practices in formal education are subject to structural constraints that render the introduction of
maker education almost impossible. In schools, there is an established hierarchy that governs the flow of
learning from faculty to students in a predetermined timeframe with fixed instructional goals, while making
celebrates openness and personal autonomy in a community of practice. In makification characteristics of maker
education are infused gradually into schools to enable a shift towards a more student-centered and self-directed
learning environment where deep learning is facilitated on open-ended, authentic problems using the concept of
iterations, and failing forward. There is a risk of neglecting important aspects of maker education, but
makification allows for a continuous embedding of the concepts used here into the structures of schools. There
is no such thing as too much or too little makification; what´s important is that formal education engages with it.
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... (Binkley et al., 2012) If you believe Woods, Mountain, and Griffin (2018) 21 st century learning tasks areopen-ended and involve unbounded sets of information. Students must be able to continually monitor their own learning progress and 12 Chapter 4.4 cites the paragraph "Introduction" inSagbauer et al. (2023) ...
... 7328-7329) It is a pedagogical approach wherein "openended problems and opportunities are posed and the culminating 15 Chapter 4.4.2 cites the paragraph "The Promise of Maker Education" inSagbauer et al. (2023) ideas are realized through iterative prototyping and experimentation."(Wood, Camburn, Mignone, Arlitt, & Venkataraman, 2016) According to LibowMartinez and Stager (2013) the making process in education should be structured in three phases that are usually iterated: Think (problem-setting, brainstorming, planning, …) -Make (play, build, tinker, create, program, …) -Improve (conduct research, discuss with peers, use different materials, play with it, …). ...
... In makification characteristics of maker education are infused gradually into schools to enable a shift towards a more student-centered and self-directed learning environment where deep learning is facilitated on open-ended, authentic problems using the concept of iterations, 51 Chapter 6.1.3 cites Conclusions and Discussion inSagbauer et al. (2023) and failing forward. There is a risk of neglecting important aspects of maker education, but makification allows for a continuous embedding of the concepts used here into the structures of schools. ...
Thesis
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This dissertation explores the role of makerspaces in formal education, with a focus on technical education at the upper secondary level in Austria. Given the increasing importance of empowering educational institutions to foster 21st century skills and diversifying technical education in Austria to address the lack of technicians and engineers, this research is of great relevance as makerspaces in education empower both. The research questions explore the significance of makerspaces for (technical) secondary education and the process of establishing a makerspace in an (Austrian) secondary school. The conceptual framework is based on a comprehensive literature review that provides an overview of the Austrian education system with a focus on formal technical education and the gender gap on the technical secondary level. In addition, makification, makerspaces, and their importance for enhancing education are discussed. An extensive case study combined with quantitative data explores the development of an open makerspace at HTL Hollabrunn, a technical secondary school in Lower Austria. The findings provide insights into the successful utilization of a makerspace to enhance technical education, and support youth development, and diversification. Finally, the conclusions emphasize the significance of makerspaces for secondary education and provide a guide for the implementation of a makerspace in school.
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This case study aimed to investigate teachers’ reflections on the transfer of makerspace activities into classrooms. Primary and secondary STEM teachers participated in a Continuous Professional Development programme about makerspaces. Data were collected in the form of written reflections and semi-structured interviews after the teachers conducted makerspace activities in their classes. A thematic approach was used for data analysis. The results showed that teachers identified possibilities: Connections to learning objectives in STEM subjects; Motivating and engaging students; Stimulating collaboration; Stimulating creativity; and challenges: Problem of assessment; Lack of digital competence; Lack of high-tech equipment. However, the teachers did not reflect upon the cultural, ontological, and epistemological differences between makerspaces and formal schooling. Thus, we argue that it is difficult ‘to eat the cake and have it too’, i.e. to fully reconcile both the maker-culture and demands of formal schooling. Rather, we suggest three ways to connect makerspace culture with formal education.
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