2.1 The origins of maker education

The Maker Movement, basing itself on the “Do-it-Yourself” (DIY) culture, is but one of the pillars for maker education. This movement has at its core the idea that people can build, fix, modify, and fabricate the most diverse array of objects and projects. The collective of Makers gathers its members in physical spaces, equipped with traditional objects and digital fabrication tools, known as makerspaces, hackerspaces, FabLabs, FabLearn labs, and other such designations.

FabLabs are an important pillar for the maker movement. During the beginning of the 2000s, Neil Gershenfeld and his collaborators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab created a space for digital fabrication with relatively low costs, and began to take the model outside MIT’s campus. In these spaces, through access to digital fabrication tools, students studied the “boundary between computer science and physical science” (^{GERSHENFELD, 2012}, p. 46). Since then, the network of FabLabs has expanded to communities, museums, libraries, science fairs, and has finally reached institutions of education.

Maker education has other historic pillars - the Maker Faire and the MAKE Magazine, created in the USA in 2006, popularizing the practice of DIY; the FabLearn project, which disseminated communities of maker educators, and, since 2010, created the first maker spaces in schools in a dozen of countries (^{MARTINEZ; STAGER, 2013}). However, the idea of hands-on and “Do-it-Yourself” in education is not new: it was proposed by educators such as ^{Dewey (1916}), ^{Freinet (1998}), ^{Montessori (1965}), and ^{Freire (2008}), who discuss pedagogical approaches based on “hands on” using technologies from their time period, such as letters, wood, etc. Pedagogy based on “hands-on” utilizing digital technologies was proposed by Papert and collaborators (who coined the term “constructionism”), which is based on the idea that knowledge is developed when the learner is engaged in the production of an object of their interest (^{PAPERT, 1986}). Digital technologies, particularly computers, play a central role for they “provide an especially wide range of excellent contexts for constructionist learning” (^{PAPERT, 1991}, p. 8). Constructionism’s intellectual tradition is, therefore, another important pillar, as it prepared the theoretical grounds for maker educators to develop a deeper understanding of their own practices.

Yet the fact that maker learning has many historic pillars resulted in its never being properly defined. This created a wide range of possibilities, from the use of simple objects, such as sticks, cardboard, glue, etc., to the use of fabrication tools, such as laser cutters, digital CNC routers, and 3D printers. This wide range of possibilities and resources offered by the maker movement has provided different scenarios for schools to incorporate these ideas. Many researchers have observed that the production of objects or the development of learning based on constructionist methodologies, such as those offered by maker activities, can provide the conditions for learners to be creative and critical, as well as capable of solving problems and working in groups (^{MARTINEZ; STAGER, 2013}; ^{HALVERSON; SHERIDAN, 2014}; ^{KURTI; KURTI; FLEMMING, 2014}; ^{BLIKSTEIN; WORSLEY, 2016}).

Nevertheless, there is still the challenge of connecting maker activities to the curriculum, seeking not to forget the richness of the process of constructing objects, without losing sight of the need to generate learning, as argued by ^{Valente and Blikstein (2019}). This requires not too “enchanted” with the infinite number of possibilities and resources available for these activities, forgetting the initial educational objective.

Furthermore, ^{Valente and Blikstein (2019}) argue that there is a huge diversity of objectives within maker education, despite its apparent unicity. In this study, the authors note that even neighboring schools had diverse objectives. In one school, the objective was not necessarily to work on curricular content, but rather to increase the students’ self-esteem. The social and cultural contexts in which these students lived was highly unfavorable, which resulted in their low self-esteem regarding their ability to execute tasks successfully and learn. Therefore, the teacher’s concern was to create an environment in which students were capable of creating something successfully, and sharing their product with colleagues and family members. In another school in this same district, the objective of the activity was to develop something with high aesthetic value, a professionally finished product. Therefore, in some situations, it is important to consider the students’ and the communities’ circumstances and needs. Thus, maker education is not always aligned with objectives in the school’s curriculum, but when it is, one must be clear that action does not necessarily entail learning: there is a need for explicit elements of the educational design to connect maker education and the curriculum.

2.2 Vision of the curriculum

In Brazil, the National Curricular Parameters (Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais - PCN) (^{BRASIL, 1997}), the National Curricular Directives for K-12 Education (Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para a Educação Básica - DCNEB) (^{BRASIL, 2013}), and, more recently, the National Common Core Curriculum (Base Nacional Comum Curricular - BNCC) (^{BRASIL, (n.d.)}) were created with the objective of guiding K-12 schools. One of BNCC’s competencies, digital culture, is to provide the opportunity for activities with technologies in the sense of stimulating students’ curiosity, as well as “creative, logical, and critical thinking, through the development and strengthening of their ability to ask questions and to evaluate responses, to argue, to interact with various cultural productions” (^{BRASIL, (n.d.)}, p. 58). Thus, the pedagogical process must consider the development of distinct languages, methodologies, and multi-directional interactions between learners, teachers, teaching material, and the use of digital technologies, which should be part of the curriculum and the school’s pedagogic plan.

The possibility of giving new meaning and adapting the curricula is shared by different authors, such as ^{Gimeno Sacristán (1998}; ¹⁹⁹⁹; ²⁰⁰⁰), who understands curriculum as a social praxis that encompasses content, method, procedures, cultural tools, previous experiences, and activities. For this author, the school coexists with an official curriculum, that is prescribed, and with a real curriculum, which is established in the formative context and is experienced through concrete practice in the relationship between teachers and students, and amongst students. However, both prescribed curricula and the real curricula, according to ^{Freire (2008}) and ^{Pacheco (2000}), should involve the social, the political, and the cultural. Pacheco (2016) emphasizes that knowledge, conceptualized as a historic product, is at the core of curriculum.

Since the real curriculum is a fundamentally deliberative space, according to ^{Pacheco and Paraskeva (1999}), it is part of a project that involves intention and praxis, which implies a continuum of decision making, and, therefore, an unfinished process that integrates options, and values, attitudes and techniques. Value and attitude dimensions contribute to guaranteeing that curriculum experienced in the classroom is not neutral.

It is important to assume that curricula in maker education are not neutral. Everyone is a “curricular actor”, as suggested by ^{Macedo (2013}), who understands the curriculum as a procedural concept, and curricular scenarios function as “curricular moments”. In other words: “time-spaces in which all and any social actor involved in curricular ‘things’ are heard as important for the democratization of the socially invented artifact” (^{MACEDO, 2013}, p. 429).

In this sense, the concept of curricular acts is relevant to understand the learning contexts created in maker spaces, for curriculum should not be something developed by educational authorities to be applied by educators. The activities to be developed in maker spaces should be thought of as curricular acts so that learning, meaning negotiations, and meaning making originate in the social interaction with people, with materials, and with the technologies present in that space. Curriculum is not defined from the start and imposed, but is based on the teacher’s pedagogic intentions, and reconstructed through the students’ and teacher’s actions.

For maker education to support curricular acts and interdisciplinarity, it is important that the integration of maker activities into the discipline’s curriculum take place in a manner that is substantiated, and not based on fad. First, technology should have an auxiliary role for the carrying out of something that cannot be done using conventional methods. Second, it is important to match the technology to the educational proposal. In other words, it is not realistic to use various technologies to address content that does not demand a given equipment.

Figure 1 illustrates a balance that must guide the development of educational maker activities: on the one side of the balance is the curriculum that, to be put into practice, involves teacher training, scientific development, and the knowledge to be addressed. On the other side of the balance is the maker activity, which involves creation, technology development, and the real world. The metaphor of a balance indicates that both of these components must be in equilibrium - one must not loose on the side of curriculum, nor on the maker side.

Source: The authors

Figure 1 - Balance between Curriculum and Maker.  

To find equilibrium on this balance means to consider training and creativity, simultaneously developing scientific and technological aspects. Projects that involve digital fabrication and advanced technology are almost exclusively related to activities in the STEM disciplines, though authors such as ^{Bevan (2017}) have considered activities in other disciplines (STEM-rich).

2.3 The relationship between maker education and STEM-rich

One of the arguments used to justify the implementation of maker education in US K-12 education is the possibility of supporting the curricular integration of the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics, what is known as STEM. Though the integration of STEM disciplines is desired, it does not occur satisfactorily, as seen in a report by the National Research Council (2014).

Maker education has been considered a solution to integration (^{BLIKSTEIN, 2013}; ^{HALVERSON; SHERIDAN, 2014}; ^{RILEY, 2015}; ^{ROSE, 2014}; ^{SHERIDAN et al., 2014}). In addition to this integration into maker education, there are conditions needed for students to be protagonists, develop projects using traditional objects and technologies, and able to work on authentic projects in flexible and collaborative spaces (^{VUORIKARI; FERRARI; PUNIE, 2019}). In addition to STEM disciplines, maker education has allowed for activities in the arts (^{PEPPLER, 2016}) and design (^{MARTIN; DIXON, 2016}), broadening the scope of disciplines, what ^{Bevan (2017}) coined as STEM-rich.

Another important aspect is that the activities taking place in maker spaces can contribute to the learners’ personal and social development. ^{Clapp and colleagues (2017}) identified that students take on a more proactive role regarding real world problems and develop character - they can take risks, learn to handle failures and achieve success, and develop a mentality that includes creativity, curiosity, persistence, social responsibility, and group work.

Finally, there is an increased concern in maker education with the equal participation of all students. In 2013, Buechley identified that 89% of the authors, and 81% of the readers of the Maker Magazine were men (^{BUECHLEY, 2013}). Particularly in the USA, this issue has been the research focus of many groups and authors, so that maker education does not become elitist, catering to a privileged group of students (^{BLIKSTEIN; WORSLEY, 2016}; VOSSOUGHI; HOOPER; ESCUDÉ, 2016; ^{CALABRESE BARTON; TAN, 2018}). The objective is to be able to value the cultures, experiences, and values students bring to the learning and teaching process.

In the following sections we will present and discuss examples of how curricular themes can be identified in activities students develop during maker education.

3.1 Maker activities that are not related to the curriculum

The maker activity discussed in this section was reported in ^{Moura (2019}), and observed during a visit to a US institution of public education in the suburbs of the city of Palo Alto, in California, described as a case study (“The boats in an aquarium.”)

During one of his educational activities, the technician responsible for the maker space promoted a competition for a group of students between 5 and 6 years old. As they entered the school’s maker space, the students came upon an aquarium filled with water, in the middle of the classroom. Once students were sitting and facing him, the technician began to explain the dynamic of that day’s activity. Each student would build a boat and, in order to do so, they would be given a few materials that are easily manipulated, present in the maker space, such as different types of paper, plastic, yarn, glues, and recycled materials. Due to the students’ age range, and because this was an activity planned to be executed during a single class period, other options were not considered for this activity, such as the use of a 3D printer. The technician further explained that, after having constructed their boat, each student would go up to the aquarium and test their vessel. The boat had to hold a large number of marbles without sinking. The “winner” of this task would be student who constructed a boat that could hold the largest number of marbles.

Students then set off to begin the activity. They constructed their boats and would walk up to the aquarium to test it. They would deposit the boat in the water, and then place marbles in the boat, counting them, up to the moment their boat sunk. Instructions to use different materials, or to not place too many marbles on the boat at once, were constantly iterated by the technician. He also questioned the students as to why some of their projects were not successful. By the end of the activity, one the kids, a girl, was declared the champion, having placed 12 marbles on her boat, which was built out of aluminum paper, ribbons, and pieces of styrofoam glued onto the vessel’s edges. At the end of the lesson, the technician asked that students to sit in circle in the patio so that they could discuss the activity. At this time, the technician carried out a debate on the importance of planning before executing a project. Not long thereafter, the school bell rang indicating the end of class, prompting students to run back to their regular classroom. Figure 2 illustrates different moments of the activity. The image to the left depicts the students constructing their boats; in the center image, one can see attempts to make a few boats float; and in the image to the right, one sees the students in a circle talking.

Figure 2 Maker Activities “The Boat and the Aquarium”. 

The activity was well accepted and developed by the students, with high levels of involvement. The technician presented this as a fun activity, which was proven true in the students’ attitudes. Though this was not made explicit, this activity allowed for students to work on various competencies, such as autonomy when faced with the choice of materials, the commitment to achieve the proposed objective with enthusiasm and dedication, as well as persistence, resilience and versatility. Nevertheless, it is important to take note of two very significant absences: one, of the teacher, and consequently, of curricular content.

A technician in an educational maker space, as a rule, is responsible for maintaining and managing the environment. It is the teacher’s responsibility to be ahead of a class in an educational space. Therefore, having been justified or not, the teacher’s absence obliges the technician to take on the role of the teacher, having to develop and carry out school activities with the students. To take on this teaching role is inappropriate, as this professional usually does not have any pedagogic training, and, for this reason, is not, and should not be, responsible for providing academic content. As a result of this condition, the curricular content is abandoned. Consequently, ^{Moura (2019}) mostly points to how maker activities have not been developed to address curricular content, but rather cognitive, motor, and socio-emotional competencies. On the other hand, in a few maker spaces, one can observe the development of maker activities that are related to the curriculum, including STEM-rich disciplines.

3.2 Maker activities related to STEM-rich

In “Digital Fabrication and Making in Education”, ^{Blikstein (2013}) presents a project developed by a history teacher who wanted to give classes in the maker laboratory. Though the teacher was not familiar with digital prototyping, aided by the technician in the maker space, she sought to understand the possibilities offered by the resources present in the lab. She then proposed that her students learn about important women in US history (such as Rosa Parks) by building historic monuments in their honor, using a 3D printer and a laser cutter. The math teacher also participated in the project, creating the wooden base for the monuments. The base was marked with a grid of one-inch squares. The teacher then challenged students to construct all objects to scale - thus establishing an authentic and rich connection to his discipline. Figure 3 depicts three of these monuments.

Figure 3 - Three examples of projects from the “Historic Monuments”, depicting the one-inch grid suggested by the math teacher to guide the development of objects to scale. 

This is a project that can be described as an educational maker activity that is not completely related to the hard sciences, since it includes, in addition to mathematics, history content. The first step to create a curricular maker activity, thus, is to think of the learning objective - which should come prior to the choice of the technology.

Another project in a Brazilian school focused on the people of ancient civilizations as part of the World History curriculum. The objective was to evaluate various techniques and materials used by different civilizations, relate this information to the society’s characteristics, social organization, and historic context, and, based on this information, develop similar objects using fabrication tools in the maker space.

To study major ancient civilizations, the history teacher proposed that the class be divided into groups, each of which would select one of the principal societies in human history to focus on. This selection could be based on region: for example, people who inhabited the Mesopotamian region, such as the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Chaldeans. Or the selection could be based on epoch: selecting people from distinct regions but of a similar time period (Chinese, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc.). After choosing a group to study, the first of four phases thought of for this activity consisted of studying the culture of the selected group, focusing primarily on the artifacts/objects they used, their materials, technologies, and types of logographic writing. The next phase consisted of creating and producing historic artifacts such as coins, utensils, signs with symbols, and scriptures similar to those that belonged to the given civilization chosen by the group. To complete this task, students were encouraged to use various maker technologies, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, polymer molding, woodworking, and clay, amongst others. During the third phase, the proposal was to create excavations so that the groups could exchange archeological sites amongst each other, and discover from which civilization the produced objects belonged. Finally, during the fourth phase, prompted by the teacher, the students discussed the connections between the technologies, materials, and historic context, for example, to understand how the discovery of new material or fabrication techniques changed the civilization’s economy and social context. This is an activity that, in so being developed, can be executed in a short time period, for example, of one or two weeks, or over a longer period of time, taking months, depending on the teacher’s options and learning objectives.

In these three cases, the important fact to be noted is the role of the teacher in relating or not the activity to the curriculum. In the case of the Boats in the Aquarium activity, considering the student’s age range, the activity could have been used to explore concepts from the mathematics curriculum, such as the geometric shapes of the constructed boats, trying to identify which are better suited to keep the boat floating. This project could also be used to discuss with students their real or historic references to boats, or scientific concepts, such as buoyancy, or even scientific practices, such as systematic experimentation. The lack of curriculum to be addressed in this activity reinforces the absence of the teacher’s participation, for teachers know how to explore the products that the students develop to understand the disciplinary concepts addressed.