CARL YAO AGBENYEGA DR. GORDON ADOMDZA Design Making as a Platform for Generating Interest and Engagement in Unfamiliar Knowledge Spaces CARL YAO AGBENYEGA DR. GORDON ADOMDZA

Outline Abstract What is Design Making? What are Maker Spaces? Design Making at the Ashesi Design Lab Theoretical models of Learning Further Studies

Abstract Makerspaces provide hands-on ways to encourage students to engage with their creative side. It often involves the processes of designing and building with a level of engagement in science and engineering.   While the processes of designing, and building things is often enjoyed by ‘technical’ people, one will often find ‘non-technical’ people in maker spaces. How then does one explain the engagement of non-technical people who would previously not involve themselves in these kinds of activities?

Abstract The setting is the Ashesi Design Lab where the Design Making Sessions create an open extra- curricular platform for students to be exposed to and learn digital fabrication: how to create and assemble electronic components and to experience how applicable these technologies are in industrial or product design and manufacturing. Since the sessions are extra-curricular, the participants are not necessarily technical people but from many other majors such as the humanities and non-technical female participants who had not previously shown interest in such programs.    The paper explores attendance and participation of ‘non-technical’ students, including female students in the Design Making Workshops to understand their learning experiences and gain an understanding of how the sessions influence their learning. This paper seeks to explore the Design Making process as a process of engagement in unfamiliar knowledge spaces.

design making Making encompasses the physical practices involved in the design, its processes, and the tools that inform it. Making — an active process of building, designing, and innovating with tools and materials to produce shareable artefacts — is a naturally rich and authentic learning trajectory (Martinez & Stager, 2013)

Maker Spaces A maker space is a community space in a school or other gathering place where students are able to take part in hands-on learning in creative ways. They are called maker spaces because they provide opportunities for students to design, create, manufacture, and invent new things. These are collaborative work spaces for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools. A variety of maker equipment include 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, soldering irons and even sewing machines. A makerspace is a collaborative work space inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.   These spaces are open to kids, adults, and entrepreneurs and have a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, soldering irons and even sewing machines. ("What is a Makerspace? Is it a Hackerspace or a Makerspace?", 2017)

Maker Spaces in Ghana: Kumasi Hive Kumasi Hive Maker Space: mission is to put modern maker technology into the hands of people who have first hand experience of development issues, so they can develop their own solutions, and then support them to create sustainable, commercially viable businesses out of their ideas.

Maker Spaces in Ghana: Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform: prototype tools and co-create a hybrid digital-physical platform for recycling, making, sharing and trading

design making at the Ashesi Design Lab The Ashesi Design Lab (D:Lab) is an initiative which combines the concepts of design thinking and design making At the D: Lab, design making is seen as a broad ideology of bringing ideas to life with tools and skills which spans from digital fabrication to virtual reality. We create a space for inventors and makers to dream, design, prototype and test their ideas Combine design thinking with making to create user- centred products that people love design thinking or strategy design for problem-solving, and design making or fabrication for making things more tangible and building out the creative outcomes of the different processes involved in both concepts.

Ashesi ‘Maker Skills’ Sessions

Ashesi ‘Maker Skills’ Sessions A series of hands-on workshop events whose core is to enable participants learn maker skills that enable them create a wide array of physical and virtual prototypes from fields such as electronics, digital fabrication, virtual reality, music and CGI animation.

Ashesi ‘Maker Skills’ Sessions Faculty and students have shown a high level of interest in these sessions and continue to keep them engaging and interactive.

‘Non-technical’ student interest in technical fields These sessions are broadcasted to the whole ashesi community, inviting everyone Students whose core interest is in the humanities and business are as curious as science and engineering students about new technologies The hands on approach enables participants engage with the tools and there by making the learning process a more real experience

“non-technical” Female student engagement in making

THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT Theoretical models Kolb’s experiential learning Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory SOCIAL INTERACTION THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT American educational theorist David A. Kolb believes “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (1984, p. 38)[1]. The theory presents a cyclical model of learning, consisting of four stages: DO, OBSERVE, THINK, PLAN Vygotsky (1978), on the other hand, proposes a more socially-based constructivism. He claims that knowledge is socially and culturally constructed . According to Vygotzky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal development, learners overcome their respective developmental stages through processes like scaffolding and apprenticeship. Hence, social context and interaction LEAD TO LEARNING Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press Moll, L. C. (2013). LS Vygotsky and education. Routledge.

THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory Theoretical models SOCIAL INTERACTION THE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE OTHER THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT Moll, L. C. (2013). LS Vygotsky and education. Routledge. Kolb’s experiential learning Piaget Stages of Cognitive Devt Piaget (1956) proposes that learners gain knowledge through engaging in personally meaningful experiences. As Piaget puts it, knowledge “is actively constructed and reconstructed through direct interaction with the environment" (Kafai & Resnick, 1996 p. 26). Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press

Further studies Back this research paper with empirical data to verify our assumptions Whether the interest of “non-technical” students in design leads to further pursuit of these new knowledge spaces in academics. The impact of design making concepts and practices on the students’ approach to learning in other areas of study such as the social sciences and business.

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