BETA Lab Research and Foci
Current Study
Our current study, funded through an NSF CAREER grant, incorporates three distinctive elements.
- We examine youth making in both informal spaces (e.g., clubs, community centers, families) and schools.
- We will design and build a mobile maker studio to expand access to making by bringing sophisticated tools and materials to traditionally underrepresented and underserved student populations.
- We will develop cognitive tools to scaffold students’ engagement in engineering and design practices and habits of mind. For example, we are building activities and tools to support documentation and reflection in project work.
Research Foci
- Making as a context for the development of adaptive expertise – the ability to go beyond known solutions to a problem to adapt and learn in new situations – in engineering and design.
- Making and the Maker Movement as a promising environment for the development of engineering and design related identities for diverse students.
- Examining how youth shape their environments so they can use and extend existing interests and competences to reach their goals.
