Makerspace

Element · All elements
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 mixed) · 2 studies (1 review, 1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description

A makerspace is "an informal site for creative production in art, science, and engineering where people of all ages blend digital and physical technologies to explore ideas, learn technical skills, and create new products" (Sheridan et al., 2014, as cited in Dousay, 2017). Makerspaces sit at the intersection of Constructivism (learning through social interaction, at the learner's own pace) and constructionism (Papert & Harel) — the idea that learning is strengthened specifically by making a tangible artifact.

Makerspaces vary along several independent dimensions (Dousay, 2017): location (permanent facility vs. mobile/pop-up), tools and technology (industrial-arts tools like woodworking and electronics vs. digital tools like 3D printers and design software, or a mix), staffing (paid personnel, volunteers, or blended), and access (open to the public, membership-based, or closed to a specific enrolled group, as most K-12 school makerspaces are). A given makerspace's profile across these four dimensions can also shift over time as it evolves.

Learning in a makerspace is driven by a learner-centered, self-regulated dynamic: the learner chooses what to make, and the responsibility for acquiring the knowledge and skill needed falls to them, supported by on-site expertise, tutorials, and materials. This structure maps closely onto problem-based learning — a makerspace project is typically an ill-structured problem (build or fix something the learner has never attempted, with many valid approaches), making the makerspace a natural, informal-learning-friendly way to bring PBL's benefits into formal curricula without needing a fully scripted PBL unit.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

• Access to relevant tools and materials (ranging from basic craft supplies to 3D printers and design software) appropriate to the projects learners want to pursue
• On-site or accessible expertise (staff, volunteers, or peer mentors) to support learners when they get stuck, since informal making relies on help-seeking rather than a scripted curriculum
• Tolerance for failure, experimentation, and unintentional damage to equipment or materials as a normal part of the process (Kurti, Kurti, & Fleming, 2014)

Constraints

• "Learning may occur, but it is not the primary objective" (Kurti, Kurti, & Fleming, 2014, p. 8) — a makerspace's informal emphasis means formal learning outcomes are not guaranteed unless deliberately integrated with curriculum, as in the JHHS FabLab and WyoMakers examples
• Formal integration requires school and administrative willingness to accept risk and cede some control (interdisciplinary team teaching, non-traditional assessment), which can conflict with standardized curriculum structures
• Access-model decisions (open, membership, or closed) carry real budget, staffing-credential, and equity tradeoffs that must be resolved before a space can be sustainable

Target Learners

• Self-directed learners with sufficient intrinsic motivation to define and pursue their own project goals
• Learners across the full age range, from PK-12 through adult community members, though access policy often restricts who may use a given space

Target Learning Goals

• 21st-century skills: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (the "4Cs")
• Discipline-specific competencies acquired incidentally through project work (e.g., ecology through urban-planning-style projects, geometry through 3D design)
• Self-regulated learning and self-directed problem-solving

Affordances

• Problem-based Learning
• Constructivism

Claims

• Students in a school-based makerspace enact four intertwined multimodal knowledge practices combining embodied action, talk, space and artifact use [+W]
• Students' makerspace knowledge practices are mediated multimodally by discourse, materials, embodied actions, and physical space [+W]
• Cumulative, disputational, and exploratory talk types together mediated students' enactment of makerspace knowledge practices [+W]
• An adjacent corridor served as an improvised spatial expansion of the makerspace mediating students' knowledge practices [~W]

Related Elements

• Simulations
• Role-Playing

Examples

• WyoMakers (University of Wyoming) — a permanent, digitally-focused facility with open community access, staffed by paid student workers and volunteers
• The Jackson Hole High School FabLab — a closed-access, curriculum-integrated space combining industrial-arts and digital tools, used across English and other subject-area courses
• Public library makerspaces (e.g., the Chicago Public Library's Maker Lab)

Key Sources

• Dousay, T. A. (2017). Defining and differentiating the makerspace. Educational Technology, 57(2), 69–74. Republished in R. West (Ed.), Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/defining_and_differentiating_the_makerspace
• Sheridan, K. M., Halverson, E. R., Litts, B. K., Brahms, L., Jacobs-Priebe, L., & Owens, T. (2014). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505–532.
• Papert, S., & Harel, I. (1991). Situating constructionism. In Constructionism (pp. 1–11). Ablex.

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	element
id	makerspace
title	Makerspace
description	A Makerspace is a physical or mobile space, formal or informal, where learners use digital and physical tools to design, build, and iterate on self-directed projects.
status	review
canonical	True
generated	by claude/unspecified on 2026-08-29
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content

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