Makerspaces in K–12 schools
Amy Stornaiuolo, T. Philip Nichols · 2020
While makerspaces in out-of-school and community settings abound—promising rich, inquiry-driven, technology-infused learning opportunities for young makers—these spaces are now being built into school contexts. Reading across the growing empirical literature on school-based making and drawing from five years of ethnographic research in an urban public high school in the U.S. organized around principles of making, this chapter examines the promises and challenges these spaces present for hands-on learning in formal educational settings. After reviewing the history and promise of making practices in education, the chapter outlines six key tensions that surface as making is integrated into K-12 contexts. These include: failure, collaboration, time/space, structure, standardization, and equity. The chapter explores each of these, examining how broader structural shifts in orientation toward maker literacies often manifest in on-the-ground challenges in each of these areas. The chapter concludes by examining how these tensions, while irreconcilable in some cases, must be addressed head-on by practitioners, researchers, and policymakers if makerspaces are to become equitable and inclusive places for hands-on literacy and learning for all students.