Makerspaces as Learning Environments to Support Computational Thinking

Abstract

Makerspaces are technology-rich learning environments that can uniquely support children's development. In education communities, makerspaces have become sites to take up explorations of personally-motived problem solving, and have been tied to 21st century learning outcomes of perseverance, creativity, persistence, and computational thinking. Elsewhere in this book, Bers described computational thinking as the set of skills and cognitive processes required to give instructions for a specific task in such a way that a computer could carry it out. But Bers also argued that the purpose of computational thinking is to cultivate a fluency with technological tools as a medium of expression, not an end in itself. Computational making is part of this expression. This chapter explores the ways in which tools, facilitation, and the physical environment can support children's engagement with powerful ideas of computational thinking through making.