Research to Practice: Observing Learning in Tinkering Activities

Abstract As tinkering and making spaces proliferate in museums, many researchers, practitioners, funders, and policy‐makers seek to understand what constitutes learning‐through‐tinkering. To support discussion of tinkering‐based learning, the Exploratorium sought to articulate and refine a valid, evidence‐based definition of learning in its permanent on‐floor Tinkering Studio. We studied and made videos of fifty learners and their companions in one of three tinkering activities in the Tinkering Studio. A team of researchers and practitioners used the videos to refine frameworks for learning and facilitation (initially developed in a prior project), leading to the identification of four Dimensions of Learning and three broad Facilitation Moves. We created a Tinkering Library of Exemplars that categorizes over one hundred video clips according to these frameworks. The Library may help articulate important aspects of learning and facilitation, give voice to practitioners’ values in defining learning‐through‐tinkering, and lay a methodological foundation for gathering evidence for such learning. The Library is available for download.