Getting it to Work: Exploring Student-Driven Problem Solving in Computational Making
Wallingford, B., Beheshti, E., Wells, D., Kirk, D., Vargas, L., & Uzzo, A. S. (2020, April). Getting it to work: Exploring student-driven problem solving in computational making. In Proceedings of the FabLearn 2020-9th Annual Conference on Maker Education (pp. 110-113).
This paper presents findings from a year-long after-school program that engages youth from local communities in computational making and community problem solving. Our goal is to understand how self-directed computational making activities contribute to shifts in students' self-efficacy and perception of themselves as people who can pursue careers in STEM. During the first, skill-building semester, our preliminary findings suggest that when youth have the opportunity to work through self-directed projects, they engage in a variety of strategies to set goals and work through challenges. We believe that this work contributes to a growing field-wide understanding of novice designers' problem scoping practices and their nuanced perceptions of challenge.