Supporting Fab Lab facilitators to develop pedagogical practices to improve learning in digital fabrication activities

Abstract

<div lang="en" class="abs"><p class="abs_header">Abstract</p><p>Planning and facilitating digital fabrication activities, where students engage in creating tangible artefacts with digital technology, requires knowledge on both technology and pedagogy. Currently, most of the studies see facilitators of digital fabrication activities as technology experts and there are only few studies regarding them as educators. There is not much discussion from the learning sciences point of view, considering what are the requirements to enhance learning in the activities. To fill these research gaps, this paper aims to provide theoretically grounded practical suggestions of how the facilitators may contribute to improve students’ learning in digital fabrication activities based on learning science propostions. The aim of this study was to explore, how Fab Lab facilitators and school teachers can design digital fabrication activities to support students’ learning. We explored the current practices in Fab Lab Oulu from the two perspectives: considering novice students’ learning and scaffolding ill-structured problem-solving. We suggest that the facilitators may improve students’ learning by taking into account their background and current learning processes, applying instructional scaffolding, and supporting teachers involvement to take active role in the activities.</p></div>