Sini Davies

Tiivistelmä:

In this article, we examine the dynamic, active role of materiality in collaborative maker-centered learning and propose a systematic way of analyzing it. Learning by making involves students in externalizing their ideas through conceptual, visual, and material artifacts. The collaborative process requires students to manage the design task and organize their work processes simultaneously. With a secondary school, we conducted a co-invention project, in which small teams of 13- to 14-year-old students created smart products. Taking a case study perspective, we focused on a team of three students wherein participation was unevenly distributed. We analyzed video recordings from the team’s ten design sessions at three levels: macro, intermediate, and micro. The analysis method we developed revealed that the co-invention project offered diverse, sociomaterially entangled opportunities for collaboration. While the making task enabled embodied contribution, the physical properties of the tools and materials also limited these opportunities. Neither social nor material aspects alone determined participation within the team.