Making Sense of Making: Defining Learning Practices in MAKE Magazine
In this episode I unpack Brahms and Crowley’s (2016) publication titled “Making sense of making: Defining learning practices in MAKE magazine,” which is a content analysis that uses communities of practice as a framework for exploring maker practices evident within MAKE magazine.
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Welcome back to another episode of a
csk* podcast my name is Jared O'Leary
this episode I'm going to continue a
discussion on maker culture and maker
practices it might be asking what why am
I talking about maker practices 4cs
educators one of the reasons is because
there are many potential connections to
CS education in terms of the kinds of
software and hardware practices that can
occur in maker culture that could
certainly be relevant to C as educators
so when you listen to me talk about the
practices discussed in this particular
article try and think through how you
may or may not be able to apply some of
those practices within your CS classroom
so this article is by Lisa Brahms and
Kevin Crowley and again apologies if I
ever mispronounce any names and the
publication is a chapter in a book the
title of their chapter is making sense
of making defining learning practices in
make magazine and as always the show
notes that are found in the description
below or at Ghirardelli recom include
links to the author google scholar
profiles and then direct links to the
publication itself in case you want to
buy the particular chapter or this
entire book alright so let's begin by
reading the abstract quote this chapter
turns to the pages of make magazine for
data on which to base first
approximation of some core principles of
the maker community it draws upon the
communities of practice framework which
asserts an understanding of learning as
fundamentally tied to the social and
cultural context in which it occurs and
focuses on the practices that define
communities born from individual
basement tinkerers and garage mechanic
hobbies' the maker movement has evolved
to support a strong community among
makers the growth of the International
Maker Faires annuals showcases of makers
inventions and investigations have
become celebrated mecca's of maker
culture attracting hundreds of thousands
of makers of all ages and interests the
field of education has embraced the
maker movement as a potential context
for innovative and more inclusive STEM
education experiences educational
platforms in high school Tech Labs
community maker spaces and after-school
youth programs have been created to
strengthen and associate the many
individuals in quote so if I were to
kind of summarize this particular
chapter into a single sentence I would
say that it is a Content
that uses communities of practice as a
framework for exploring maker practices
evident within make magazine so the
authors begin by explaining that maker
culture and practices have become more
mainstream in recent years for example
the white house a few years ago hosted a
Maker Faire and kind of showcase some of
the things that people can create in
maker spaces or just in general after
kind of doing that little intro that
kind of talk about what communities of
practice are as a framework and so
here's a quote from page 14 communities
of practice quote asserts an
understanding of learning as
fundamentally tied to the social and
cultural context in which it occurs and
focuses on the practices that define
communities and quote so they use this
particular framework of the idea of
communities of practice to analyze 162
articles within make magazine over the
course of a single year now as a little
side note I do happen to have a chapter
that I wrote for a handbook on affinity
spaces and I kind of talked about how
affinity spaces are similar or different
than communities of practice and how you
can apply the framework of an infinity
space into a classroom context so if
you're interested in learning more about
communities of practice and a very
similar framework called affinity spaces
in the show notes I'll have a link to
that publication now at the time of this
recording the publication is not
released it is in press so it might be
out by the time this recording releases
otherwise it'll be available shortly
after so the purpose of the study was
quote to define making in terms of the
distinct making practices that are at
the center of the community to find
these practices we analyzed the most
popular and nationally recognized
textual source of maker community
participation make magazine
in quote that quote is from page 14 so
the study was guided by the following
questions this is a quote from page 15
coop what are the learning practices of
the making community as represented in
make magazine and who are the makers who
contribute to make magazine and for what
analytic purposes represent central
participation in making community
practice in quote okay so here are some
of the results from the study itself so
over the course of this particular study
Bronson Crowley identified that 89% of
the authors for make magazine were men
now the author's problematized this a
bit and I'll actually talk about this a
bit more in two weeks in another article
that I'll be reading that problematizes
make your culture in general but here's
a quote from page 26 quote if making is
represented as being for example mostly
male mostly white and mostly about
hobbyist technology how does it differ
in substantive ways from other recent
educational phenomena that were
similarly thought to be new supports and
motivations to participants in STEM such
as educational gaming or robotics and
the continued to foster a complex
relationship to gender and access with
regard to design and use while making
experience has really become more
accessible and motivating to young
people and communities who do not see
others like themselves and their
creative interests reflected in the
public face of the movement in quote so
these questions have some excellent
points in terms of things to consider
and think through so if we're going to
engage in some of the practices that I'm
about to discuss we might want to
question who is engaging in these
practices in an informal settings of why
and in this particular case there's a
strong imbalance in terms of gender
identities that are represented in who
writes for this particular magazine
now the authors don't indicate why that
might be however that is definitely
something that should be explored more
and before implementing these kind of
practices in imitational setting now
that being said there are a lot of
interesting connections here that still
can tie into computer science education
which also kind of has an imbalance
between gender representation and
identity is tends to heavily lean
towards male and right now there's not
enough women in CS and there's not a lot
of discussion on non-binary individuals
in CS as well okay so the analysis
itself revealed seven core learning
practices evident within the articles so
these practices are one exploring
question to tinkerer test and iterate
three seek out resources for pack and
repurpose five combined and complexify
six customize and seven share all right
so here's a definition of the explore
and question this is from page sixteen
quote interrogation of the material
properties of the context in order to
find inspiration or to
determine intention for a process or
project in quote so with this particular
practice the author suggests that makers
really enjoy and value inquiry in
exploration through making and through
the culture at large now this is
definitely something that can apply in
ACS classroom as well if you are going
to use any kind of like inquiry or even
project-based exploration that has more
of an open-ended framework for the
project there's not this like closed
project where like everybody's gonna
create the exact same outcome for
example you might be able to say how can
we solve this particular problem with
different solutions or what kind of
problems are in our community that we
can address through our class and
through computer science in general so
those are some different ways that you
can kind of explore in question in
computer science education kind of
building off of the explore in question
the next one tinkerer test and iterate
here's a quote from page 16 a definition
purposeful play experimentation
evaluation and refinement of the context
in quote so this strongly aligns with CS
education especially with software
development you're just constantly
iterating on your ideas and you have to
constantly test to find if there's bugs
and then from the tinkering side of
things is just kind of like messing
around like trying to figure out oh well
what happens if I do this and
experimenting some more however where it
differs a little bit here's a quote from
page 20 quote makers are doers rather
than planners yet the doing is iterative
and sequential makers model designs with
software they build and test prototypes
and they evaluate the processes to
discover what is possible or to improve
upon what has come before
unquote so the authors then continue to
go on and kind of describe that the
iterative process is strongly valued
within maker culture however this kind
of iterative process is typically
different than what goes on in CS
education in that in CS education
usually have some kind of a plan in
advance in terms of what you want to do
or what you want to create now whether
or not the kids you work with are moving
with more of an experimentation like
maybe through modding like I talked
about previously in previous episodes
and just kind of tinkering around and
seeing what they can do or maybe they're
going with more of like they're gonna
storyboard out with their app or their
program or their project is going to do
and they're going to follow that and
kind of iterate on it as they're working
on it
it's kind of up to you in the classes
that you work with okay so the next
practice seek out resources here's a
definition from page sixteen quote
identifying and pursuing the distributed
expertise of others includes recognition
of one's own not knowing and desire to
learn unquote so this relates to a lot
of what some of the guests on the show
have talked about in terms of finding
communities and finding other experts
that can assist you with your own
understanding so the idea that knowledge
is kind of distributed across the
community is one that resonates really
well with a lot of informal learning
communities or communities of practice
or affinity spaces
however you wanted to find these kind of
cultures or groups of people this is
something that can occur in the
classroom itself I have mentioned and a
guests have mentioned that they strongly
recommend having peers help each other
in a classroom or creating like an I
need help list or engaging in peer to
peer feedback and learning or just even
asking a friend for help if they get
stuck things like that so this can
definitely relate to what goes on in a
si s education classroom however it
doesn't have to be with somebody who's
in a room or somebody that you talked to
synchronously this could also occur
asynchronously if you have a lot of
resources available online or in some
kind of a discussion based format so for
example perhaps you could create a
feedback system where one class is able
to look at projects from another class
that meets at a separate time of day and
kind of provide comments or feedback so
as an example to that when somebody
shares a project on scratch there's an
option to allow community members to
share comments so perhaps a fourth grade
class might go and look at projects
developed by seventh grade class and
provide some feedback to them now this
practice also relates to the previous
unpacking scholarship episodes on mod
culture here's a quote from page 21
quote it is also frequently played out
through the recruitment of friends and
colleagues with diverse skill sets and
knowledge as well as through the active
use of local community developed
resources for discussion design and
fabrication in quote so for example
we're tying it back to the previous
scholarship think about the teams that
were developed from mods when I
discussed some mod culture practices all
right so the next practice hack and
repurpose here's the definition from
page 16 quote
harnessing and salvaging component parts
of the made world to modify enhance or
create product or process in quote
here's a quote from page 22
well packing and repurposing is a
practice of problem-solving and
improving functionality but it is also
an act of improvisation and creativity
and an opportunity to put the stamp of
individuality on a project or process
and quote so as I've discussed and some
of the guests have just discussed in
Prior episodes you're going to be
borrowing bits of physical hardware or
maybe software chunks of code or
functions and applying them in some kind
of a new context so this is something
that is is valued um um make your
culture the idea that you are going to
repurpose something or tying it back to
mod culture you're going to mod or remix
something to make it do something news
you might take a little bit of pieces
from this project and there's some
functions from this project and maybe
some sprites from this other project and
you can combine them into something else
which relates to the next practice
combined in complexify so here's a
definition from page 16 quote developing
skilled fluency with diverse tools and
materials in order to reconfigure
existing pieces and processes and make
new meaning and quote and here's a
little elaboration from pages 22 and 23
quote the practice of developing skilled
fluency with a diverse set of physical
and digital tools materials and
processes of
construction in order to put these
existing pieces and processes together
differently is central to making and
enables makers to extend what is
possible inherent in this practice is an
impulse to learn and an acknowledgement
that there is always more to learn that
what is not yet known as a deep personal
interest is learnable usable and useful
to oneself into the community of makers
the practice of combining and complexify
is a practice of lifelong learning
include now this really relates to my
approach to CS education when some
districts have asked for my advice on
what kind of platforms they might use
what I recommend is that they find
platforms that allow them to combine and
complexify essentially to use the
authored discourse various computer
science practices concepts
understandings etc so for example
there's a tendency among the more puzzle
based or problem-based platform
that have one right or wrong answer to
solving things and don't really enable
opportunities for creative expression to
not really allow for kids to combine and
complexify what they're doing what I
recommend for districts is that they
instead find platforms like scratch jr.
or scratch that allow you to take these
various concepts and practices and kind
of combine them in interesting ways that
allow for kids to dive deeper so rather
than learning the same base level
concepts and practices and
understandings in computer science
in a variety of platforms what I
recommend instead is to dive deep into
one that allows you to combine all these
ideas into really complex projects that
are individually meaningful for kids so
speaking of this kind of builds off of
the discussions on modding the next
practice customized here's a quote from
page 16 quote tailoring the features and
functions of a technology to better suit
personal interests and express identity
in quote and here's a quote from page 24
well through the practice of
customization maker's tailor the
features and functions of a technology
to make it their own in quote I cannot
recommend this enough if if you can in
some way make it so that your CS class
allows kids to kind of customize things
to make it interesting to them not only
does this make this like personally
meaningful but it can also tie in to the
idea of culturally relevant pedagogy so
I highly recommend thinking of the ways
that the projects that the kids create
in your CS classroom or your in
classroom that integrates you guess that
the projects themselves are extremely
customizable ok so the last practice
share here's the definition from page 16
poop making information methods and
modes of participation accessible and
usable by members of the community
encode so here's a quote from page 25
the findings quote makers openly share
and access these stuff of making with
the entire community of makers through
diverse platforms for presentation
reception and communication often
characterized as open source the maker
community works to develop repositories
of information kits and systems of
communication which make tools materials
methods of design and fabrication and
products accessible customizable and
usable by the end
our community in quote so the thing I
love about this is is not just sharing
the creative product itself but also
sharing how to create that product so in
other words encouraging development and
of understanding through engaging in the
process itself rather than just looking
at an end product that somebody created
so I've mentioned in previous episodes
that one thing that you might be able to
do is have kids create their own
resources that are then used by the
current class or even future classes
down the road so this is another example
of how you might be able to do that now
one thing that you might want to take
into consideration when creating these
kind of resources is figuring out okay
well these resources be available only
to the classes I work with to maybe in
the school that I work with maybe the
district or outside of the actual
community itself so for example will you
make it so that anyone in the world can
find access to these resources so my own
personal preference is to make it so
that the resources are free to use for
the larger community because you never
know who might be able to find access to
them so for example all these stuff on
my website Jared O'Leary comm 100% free
get hits from all over the world from
people who are interested in either
computer science education resources or
music education stuff as well as the
free curriculum that I create for
boot-up PD org we get hits from all over
the world every continent except for
Antarctica so if you know anyone who
teaches in Antarctica please have them
use our resources so I can say every
continent anyways all kidding aside I
highly recommend creating not only
products but also resources that help
with the processes to create those
products now an interesting note or
finding from this particular article is
that these practices did not occur in
isolation so over 75% of the article
include two or more practices and more
than a third contain four or more
practices so rather than having to make
a lesson that's like I'm going to focus
this lesson on customizing or I'm going
to focus this particular lesson or
project on combine imp Lex and
complexify you don't need to do that you
can find projects that include several
different examples and kind of engage in
them simultaneously
so one of the ways that I've kind of
described this in the past in our PD
facilitation stuff for Buddha is
thinking of the like computer science
concepts and practices
as a a gym or a dye that you can see
through each one of the faces on that
gym or dye is a concept or practice and
depending on what angle that you look at
it you will foreground some concepts or
practices that you're looking at but you
can see through them to still see and
engage in the practices that are on the
opposite side of the gym or dye that you
are looking through so I'll include a
video that kind of briefly talks about
that in the show notes if you're
interested in learning more now the
author's mentioned that the majority of
the articles were multidisciplinary
here's a quote from page eighteen quote
yet rarely does each discipline occur
independently of others in quote so this
is an excellent example of ways that you
can engage in integrated or
interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary
learning within a school context and yes
the author's do say multi disciplinary
as I mentioned in previous episodes
maker cultural scholarship tends to
refer to these kind of combined
practices from multiple domains as a
multidisciplinary however in curriculum
scholarship they might describe it as
integrated interdisciplinary or
transdisciplinary I'll include a link to
my dissertation which kind of unpacks
that a little bit more especially in
Chapter six so here's a kind of like
summary quote from page 25 quote our
analysis suggests that the practices
that characterize participation in
making cannot be simply described as
practices that come from or point to
anyone educational disciplinary pathway
such as engineering science or math it
can be argued that aspects of maker
practices are drawn from or resemble
certain disciplinary practices but no
one disciplined or singular set of
established disciplinary practices
captures the essence of participation in
the making community makers have
developed a set of sophisticated
community practices and modes of
participation that as a whole are
organic and possibly unique to making in
quote and finally a quote from page 27
quote making is a multidisciplinary
interest driven distributed and evolving
form of informal learning in quote so
much of these quotes towards the end and
the idea of the practices not being
siloed or isolated or disconnected from
each other it relates to so many of the
discussion
in this podcast in previous episodes so
that's kind of a summary of the study
itself some of the main findings from
this particular content analysis so here
are some of my lingering questions or
thoughts so one of them is how my two
the seven core learning practices look
in a CS classroom so I kind of unpacked
each of them a little bit throughout
this discussion however I'm sure you can
come up with many more ways that you
could potentially include each of these
seven practices in your classroom
whether it be an integrated classroom or
a standalone classroom another question
that I have is if someone were to
analyze the CS curricula or discourse in
the field what themes might emerge so in
other words if you to kind of take this
approach to doing a Content analysis of
make magazine publications and instead
apply that to the field of CS at large
what kind of practices might come out of
that what what is it that we as CS
educators or people within the field of
cs education discuss another follow-up
question would be how might those themes
differ from what is emphasized within a
particular set of cs standards so is
there a disconnect between the way that
we discuss things in the world of CS or
CS education with with the kind of
standards that we've set or is there an
imbalance in it in terms of well these
standards are presented is kind of like
all being equal but really we talk about
algorithms and programming 90% of the
time and only 10% of the time we talk
about everything else and another
question I have in what ways might be
themes in CS in leisure discourse differ
from CS for career readiness so I've
mentioned several times that I really
value the idea of engaging in a subject
area for leisure for fun yes you can do
this for career and that's great but you
can also just engage in this for the fun
of it like modding a video game or
making your own apps or whatever you
want so what I'm curious about is if the
discourse that is in these more informal
and leisurely applications is similar or
different from the career readiness
discourse and if so what practices are
kind of emphasized in one and not in the
other so those are just some of my
lingering thoughts or questions I'm sure
you have your own after listening to
this podcast and I hope you read the
publication itself and kind of think of
your own ways that this might connect
with CS education I hope you enjoyed
this kind of
summary of some of the practices that
are found in maker culture and I hope
you're thinking of some different ways
that you might be able to engage with
them in your classroom next week will be
another interview and then following
that we're going to have another
unpacking scholarship episode that kind
of provides a very critical view of
maker culture and problematizes some of
the discourse across maker culture in
makerspace education if you found this
podcast or any of the resources on my
website valuable please consider sharing
with somebody else they're all free I
just want to help out the field of
education thanks so much for listening I
will talk to you next week when we have
yet another interview
Article
Brahms, L., & Crowley, K. (2016). Making sense of making: Defining learning practices in MAKE magazine. In K. Peppler, E. R. Halverson, & Y. B. Kafai (Eds.), Makeology: Makers as Learners (Vol. 2, pp. 13–28). New York: Routledge.
Abstract
“This chapter turns to the pages of MAKE magazine for data on which to base first approximation of some core principles of the maker community. It draws upon the communities of practice framework, which asserts an understanding of learning as fundamentally tied to the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs and focuses on the 'practices' that define communities. Born from individual basement tinkerers and garage-mechanic hobbyists, the Maker Movement has evolved to support a strong community among makers. The growth of the international Maker Faires' annual showcases of makers' inventions and investigations have become celebrated meccas of maker culture, attracting hundreds of thousands of makers of all ages and interests. The field of education has embraced the Maker Movement as a potential context for innovative and more inclusive STEM education experiences. Educational platforms in high school tech labs, community makerspaces, and afterschool youth programs have been created to strengthen and associate the many individuals.”
My One Sentence Summary
A content analysis that uses communities of practice as a framework for exploring maker practices evident within MAKE magazine.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
How might the seven core learning practices look in a CS classroom?
If someone were to analyze CS curricula or discourse in the field, what themes might emerge?
How might those themes differ from what's emphasized within a particular set of CS standards?
In what ways might the themes in CS in leisure discourse differ from CS for career readiness?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Assessment Considerations: A Simple Heuristic
In this episode I read and unpack my (2019) publication titled “Assessment Considerations: A Simple Heuristic,” which is intended to serve as a heuristic for creating or selecting an assessment.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Intersections of Equity, Making, and Computer Science with Roxana Hadad
In this interview with Roxana Hadad, we discuss the blurring of formal and informal learning within makerspaces and culture, how Roxana’s understanding of education evolved over time, feeling lost when having too much choice with one’s learning, the intersections of makerspaces and equity, problematizing discourse and definitions around computational thinking and computer science, preventing burnout while working on many different projects, feeling a lack of agency in education, the future of communication for academics, and so much more.
In this episode I unpack Bowler and Champagne’s (2009) publication titled “Mindful makers: Question prompts to help guide young peoples' critical technical practices in maker spaces in libraries, museums, and community-based youth organizations,” which "examines question prompts as a means to scaffold reflection and reflexivity in the design, development, and use of technological artifacts in maker spaces for youth at public libraries, museums, and community-based organizations" (abstract).
Making Through the Lens of Culture and Power: Toward Transformative Visions for Educational Equity
In this episode I unpack Vossoughi, Hooper, and Escudé’s (2016) publication titled “Making through the lens of culture and power: Toward transformative visions for educational equity,” which provides a critique of maker culture discourse in order to "reconceptualize the educational practice of making in ways that place equity at the center" (p. 215).
Reconceptualizing “Music Making:” Music Technology and Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism
In this episode I unpack Benedict and O’Leary’s (2019) publication titled “Reconceptualizing “music making:” Music technology and freedom in the age of Neoliberalism,” which explores the use of computer science practices to counter neoliberal influence on education.
Talking About [Computer Science]: Better Questions? Better Discussions!
In this episode I unpack Allsup and Baxter’s (2004) publication titled “Talking about music: Better questions? Better discussions!” which is a short article that discusses open, guided, and closed questions, as well as a framework for encouraging critical thinking through questions. Although this article is published in a music education journal, I discuss potential implications for computer science educators.
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