Lydia Burgess
Constructing Collaboration
School environments that epitomise a confined and spoon-fed approach to learning can leave students with little room for a voice. In this study, I aim to provide an environment that values an alternative approach: fellow teachers and students (aged 6-11) use a Makerspace at an international primary school as a premise for greater student agency.
After observing the pre-established systems at the educational environments I had previously worked in, I began thinking about who determines space and to what end. This established my line of inquiry: Why don’t students participate in designing their own learning environment and curriculum? The perception that students are not active participants in their learning environment is common. We see that students are the end ‘product’ of education and learning, where they receive an education but cannot engage in the decision-making process on how or what they learn.
A Makerspace offered us a place to learn by doing, and provided the students with a foundation to be able to take agency over the space. Through the experiments developed in my graduation project, I aim to create a Makerspace as a way to practice more embodied, informal learning through exercises centred around the student. In my student/teacher support role, I occupy a position liminal to the structures of a school, providing me a different perspective on the student-teacher dynamic. I see this project as an opportunity as well as a responsibility to bring plenty of unedited student voices to the forefront, and to observe how our agencies interconnect. The research document is intended to be accessible; these are not step-by-step instructions, but rather a reflection of the process of working together. It can be read in any order, constructed in any form, or cut out if desired. In this way, it models the playful nature of my practice, which also guides this study.
Thesis: