Learning through making: The development of engineering discourse in an out-of-school maker club

Abstract

Background: Learning to be an engineer means learning to participate in engineering discourse: the words, visuals, routines, and narratives through which engineers think and communicate. An important goal for engineering education is uncovering the processes by which young people take up and become fluent in engineering discourse, and how teachers and mentors can aid them in this process. Growing evidence suggests that participation in out-of-school maker activities—a class of informal design and build activities—holds promise to help youth gain interest and skill in engineering design. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study investigates how youth learn engineering design through participation in a maker club. It is theoretically grounded in Sfard's (2008) commognition framework, an approach that views learning to be an engineer as learning to participate in engineering discourse. Design/Method: The study employed case study methods of interaction analysis of video-recorded observations. The analysis closely examines interactions to uncover the mechanisms of discourse development. Results: Findings showed that a newcomer to the discourse could show substantive growth within a single work session. The analysis examined how the youth and a mentor collaborated within a hands-on learning environment to create opportunities for discourse development. Such growth is not inevitable as seen in an analysis of a missed opportunity. Conclusions: This article shows that making can be a fruitful context for the development of engineering discourse, and it illustrates mechanisms through which that learning can occur, including explorative imitation of engineering discourse routines within hands-on learning environments. It shows that professional engineers can play an important role in youth learning.