Culturally Disruptive Research: A Critical (Re)Engagement with Research Processes and Teaching Practices

Purpose As scholars, educators and policymakers recognize the impact of partnership-based research, there is a growing need for more in-depth understanding of how to conduct this work, especially with and in diverse project teams. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical examination of adopting a culturally disruptive approach in a research–practice partnership (RPP) that includes Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, designers and educators who worked together to collaboratively design culturally situated experiences for sixth graders. Design/methodology/approach Following a design-based implementation research methodology, data from design and implementation are presented as two case studies to illustrate key findings. Findings Leveraging the frame of culturally disruptive pedagogy, key tensions, disruptions, self-discoveries and resulting pedagogical innovations are outlined. While the authors experienced multiple forms of disruptions as researchers, designers and educators, they focused on tracing two powerful cases of how culturally disruptive research directly and immediately resulted in pedagogical innovations. Together the cases illustrate a broader shift toward interdependence that the team experienced over the course of the school year. Research limitations/implications A new frame for conducting culturally disruptive research is presented. Both the theoretical application and practical implementation of this frame demonstrate its usefulness in conceptualizing culturally situated research through cultivating an uncomfortable yet generative interdependence. Practical implications Findings include examples and strategies for how to practically conduct multi-sector, interdisciplinary research and teaching. Scholars and educators share their stories which illustrate the practical impact of this work. Originality/value Critical insights presented in this paper build on and contribute to the growing body of work around RPPs, community-based research and other critical partnership methods

Designing for Impact: Shifting Children\u27s Perspectives of Civic and Social Issues Through Making Mobile Games

Within the growing movement to teach children computational skills and practices, it is important to understand how children engage and identify with the content they are designing. In this paper, we explore how children\u27s perspectives of civic and social issues shift or do not shift as they make a location-based mobile game using augmented reality and location-based mobile technologies. We conducted two workshops with children, where they individually or in pairs created a narrative-based game around civic and social engagement topics such as pollution, waste management, or animal rights. We present one illustrative case in this paper to highlight how mobile, augmented reality, and location-based mobile technologies afford impactful shifts in perspective. Findings indicate that these technologies may contribute to a shift in children\u27s perspectives about the world around them and in some cases may prompt meaningful action towards civic engagement

Examining Learners’ Failure Trajectories Across Their Computational Design Processes

Failure is often portrayed in formal learning environments as a summative endpoint to learning, yet researchers and educators are embracing the concept of failure being part of the learning process. Kapur (2008), for example, proposed productive failure, a method by which educators allow students early, low-risk opportunities to fail in solving complex problems. Scholars recently examined productive failure within more complex design processes like computational and game design activities (Litts, Kafai, Searle, & Dieckmeyer, 2016; Litts & Ramirez, 2014; Searle, Litts, & Kafai, 2018), in which failure is an embedded, necessary part of the process, such as with debugging code (McCauley et al., 2008; Papert 1980). In this project, we contribute new insights to this conversation by triangulating in-situ (e.g., screencasts) and reflective (e.g., interviews) data sources to trace students’ failure trajectories, or how learners’ perception of and engagement with failure varied, across their computational design processes. We hosted four mobile game design workshops to teach youth how to design and develop a location-based game on the Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling (ARIS) platform, a narrative-based programming environment design for non-programmers (Holden, Dikkers, Martin, & Litts, 2015). Across workshops, 33 young people (ages 9-16) designed and developed their own location-based experiences over the course of three to six meetings resulting in 6-12 hours of design time (times varied across workshops). Our prompts in each workshop differed slightly, but all targeted local themes such as plants and animals or civic issues more broadly. We collected a range of data including in-process audio recordings, design artifacts, screencasts, fieldnotes, and final reflective interviews. We analyzed these data using coding methods (Saladna, 2009) that enabled us to capture learners’ perceptions of and engagement with failure throughout their design processes. Findings describe learners’ failure trajectories and outline perceptions of and engagement with failure across participants. For instance, Doug, a 12-year-old boy, expressed his discomfort with failure: “When I was making my game, so many times I thought of like giving up ‘cause something wasn’t working” (Interview, 3/30/2017). He elaborated on how his discomfort shifted to accomplishment over time: “I really like that how I was just able to progress and I didn’t give up, and I really like that sense of...victory” (Interview, 3/30/2017). Jane, an 11-year-old girl, also explained how she developed a sense of accomplishment through experiencing failure: “[Bugs] were easy to fix once you figured out what the problem was, and it was really rewarding to fix them” (Interview, 12/7/2017). One motivator for participants’ persistence through failure was the connection they developed with their local community throughout the design process. For example, Mitchell, a 13-year-old boy, explained that he plans to “make more video games about [pollution]” (Interview, 30 March 2017) to draw attention to the environmental impact people can have by picking up trash. We share insights to how the messiness of an interdisciplinary, multimodal design process characterizes learners’ failure trajectories and how learners’ shift from understanding failure as an endpoint to a process

Engaging Youth in Computational Thinking Practices Through Designing Place-Based Mobile Games About Local Issues

In response to a need to equip youth to become successful contributors to our growing digital economy, educators and researchers are exploring ways to incorporate computational thinking (CT) for all across curricular domains. In this paper, we take a place-based approach to examine how and what CT practices youth learn through designing mobile games in and for their own communities. We conducted three after school workshops with 29 participants (13 female, 16 male, ages 10–16) in a rural city in the Western United States. Youth designed place-based, mobile games to share stories and experiences about local environmental or civic issues using the Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling (ARIS) programming platform. We collected and analyzed a range of data including field notes, design artifacts, screencasts, and final reflective interviews. Using Brennan and Resnick (2012) framework for studying and assessing the development of CT, we illustrate how youth engaged with CT practices and how their local topics facilitated their engagement with civic issues beyond the screen. Findings demonstrate how youth can engage with CT practices and their local communities through designing computational artifacts. We discuss implications for how leveraging place-based computational tools afford equitable and accessible CT integration in interdisciplinary contexts

Designing Learning Pathways for Maker Spaces: Principles and Practices

<div><p>Lipids are essential components of all organisms. Within cells, lipids are mainly stored in a specific type of organelle, called the lipid droplet. The molecular mechanisms governing the dynamics of lipid droplets have been little explored. The protein composition of lipid droplets has been analyzed in numerous proteomic studies, and a large number of lipid droplet-associated proteins have been identified, including Rab small GTPases. Rab proteins are known to participate in many intracellular membranous events; however, their exact role in lipid droplets is largely unexplored. Here we systematically investigate the roles of <em>Drosophila</em> Rab family proteins in lipid storage in the larval adipose tissue, fat body. Rab32 and several other Rabs were found to affect the size of lipid droplets as well as lipid levels. Further studies showed that Rab32 and Rab32 GEF/Claret may be involved in autophagy, consequently affecting lipid storage. Loss-of-function mutants of several components in the autophagy pathway result in similar effects on lipid storage. These results highlight the potential functions of Rabs in regulating lipid metabolism.</p> </div