Supporting Facilitators of Maker Activities Through Reflective Practice
Sabrina Moore, Joseph Roche, Laura Bell, Emer Emily Neenan
Abstract
The growth of the Maker Movement has had a profound impact on museum education, particularly in science centers and museums that have established Maker Spaces, Fab Labs, or Tinkering Studios. While this has resulted in new educational practice taking root in these organizations, it has also raised the question of how best to support museum educators tasked with facilitating Maker programs, especially those that are underpinned by theories of learning different to those that may have guided the facilitators' own education. Reflective practice offers a means to address this discrepancy through continuous learning. This paper charts the rise of Making and the need for more reflective practice among museum educators. A facilitator debriefing tool that demonstrates how reflective practice can have a transformative effect on the facilitators of Maker activities is also presented.