Thanks for coming to see this video about my team's experience adapting our project for remote learning. I am sure many of you have your own stories. Please share what you have learned over this challenging year!

Thanks Wendy! Through this project and our other maker projects at the New York Hall of Science, we have learned how important these creative learning opportunities were to participants and the positive social emotional role that it played in their mental well being during COVID. Many students in our maker projects remarked how they looked forward to participating each week and grateful for having the opportunity to apply their own creativity and imagination to their projects.

Hi IDEAS team and collaborators! I have a strong identity as a maker and am a neurotypical married to an autistic person. All of this is to say that I see the tremendous power this approach has in building communities and collaborations that value creativity as high social capital -- and doing so using the online design platform and blending it with hands-on experiences (so vital these past months!) seems like a strong combination!

One of the pieces of my "maker identity" that makes it most strongly into my classroom practice as a high school science teacher is finding ways for students to leverage their skills, even in simulations, to increase agency and approach the skillsets necessary for real-world problem solving. I'm curious about what data or feedback you're collecting on how these mindsets might shift for your participants, or what curricular moves might exist in your materials or future directions to allow such real-world practice.

Thanks for your question, Kirstin!

One thing that we focus on in the materials and in the data collection is the Engineering Design Process. When the program was in person, all of the teachers who facilitated the program were given a poster of the Engineering Design Process (EDP)  for their rooms so that they could regularly refer to it as the kids go through the activities, noting in particular when they were testing their designs, identifying problems, iterating, and revising. When we made the remote learning version of the program, we included the EDP model in every activity, pointing out which parts of that process they would experience that session. Helping students understand that challenges are an expected and integral part of making/tinkering/engineering is a core part of the program, whether it is in person or remote, and helps them see how the steps in the process can apply to problem-solving more broadly. Knowing what to expect can help them feel greater control and agency when they face obstacles.

We have collected pre-post data using an EDP assessment (Hsu, M. C., Cardella, M. E., and Purzer, S., 2012) from students who are in maker club and who are not. Our findings have shown that students in Maker Club gain a better understanding of the EDP than those not in Maker Club. In addition, we have conducted observations of nearly every session, and focus groups with teachers and students and have seen and heard about many examples of students overcoming challenges (see our article in Frontiers in Education ).

I have been excited to recommend and share this free IDEAS Maker Program curriculum produced by this partnership: IDEAS Maker Program Curriculum Guide

Thanks Kim! We are also working on finalizing slide decks for this program that could be used for both in-person and remote programs. Hopefully those will be available this summer.

Love this project as it brought together many stakeholders to improve upon an amazing idea. This is a great example of how working together utilizing each person's unique skills and resources can help overcome any challenge--virtual learning.  Now more than ever, after or out of school activities are essential and this program can be an example to others seeking to do similar work. I am curious to know what your challenges were and how you overcame them. What suggestions or recommendations would you give to others who want to engage in a similar effort.  

Nice Wendy! I love how you were able to pivot using your home networks to get the 3D printed objects to the kids. Makers are resilient and resourceful for sure :)

Thanks Jodi!

Cool project for equity and inclusion - kudos! Sounds like your pivot experience to remote learning was both challenging and rewarding. I'm curious if there are any elements of the remote learning you might call "keepers" and integrate into your project or future work, even after in-person learning is back. Or, if you wouldn't go that far, anything your teachers reported about their students' engagement that actually improved in the remote context. Were there silver linings?

I loved the resiliency of Afterschool programs and I agree makers iterate so well. I am wondering what were some of the challenges of the virtual maker showcase?

Hi Perrin!

None of the clubs have had their showcases yet, so we'll have to see what happens this. year, but the one that was done last year was very successful in that many more people (parents, teachers and administrators, museum staff and EDC researchers) were able to attend than can normally attend. The challenge last year was getting all of the students' 3D objects printed in time, shipped to the teachers and then shipped out to the students. Some student designs in Tinkercad needed to be fixed to print correctly, which not only took time for David from NYSCI to deal with, but prevented students from having an important learning experience. Since the students couldn't see the 3D printing taking place, they couldn't directly see why problems arose with the printing and learn from that to improve their own design. However, this year our NYSCI folks have been virtually visiting the clubs to provide additional guidance on designing for 3D printing, and have offered to show imperfect prints that kids make so they can see what went wrong. It's not nearly as fun as watching the printers in action but it's something!

I love the quality of this video! And it's so impressive how the program and teachers were able to adjust to virtual learning. Very cool!

Do you see taking advantage of virtual options in the future?

Great project!  I'm curious - what were some of the ways that you promoted collaboration (you mention that this was key to students' engagement). 

I love how EDC is comprised of exciting teachers! I love the student engagement during Covid and how even without the digital printer, you persevered! You shipped materials to the students to continue engagement! I appreciated seeing them build new things. In IC4, we also shipped materials to the students in the US and in Kenya to maintain the level of artifact building. EDC is awesome. Thank you!

Great video Wendy and team!  I really like how you responded to the pandemic, both with using mail to keep the tangible aspects of making prominent, but also augmented it with 3D design tasks and 3D printing remotely.  It was wonderful to be able to send kids their creations over mail, it was surely an exciting thing for kids to receive.

Wendy, your comment about it not being nearly as fun to see the 3D printer in action made me reflect on how I frequently caught myself many times in a trance watching them run! This sounds like it could turn into a pretty interesting research question.

thanks again for a great video!

Thank you for your work on this project and thank you for creating this video to share your work with us!