Designing Tools for Observation and Assessment in Makerspaces

Makerspaces, especially in their diverse proliferating forms, support a broad variety of learning outcomes. There is rich work in attempting to understand and describe these learning goals. Yet, there is a lack of support for practitioners and educators to assess the learning in their events, without extensive video-recording and documentation. In this paper, we present our design iterations at adapting the Tinkering Studio's Learning Dimensions framework into tools used by makerspace facilitators. These tools are intended to support recording observations, so as to inform the design of events they organize. We find that supporting real-time, informative observation increases granularity of data collected, but also increases the need for training required at the end of facilitators; such tools carry power to transform practice in action. In response, we also present future plans to attempt dealing with current challenges.