This study focuses on the learning of preteen children who must repeatedly spend periods of several days or weeks in a hospital setting because they require treatment for Cystic Fibrosis, a chronic disease. Hospitalized preteenagers struggle with a number of issues that may impact their learning, including interruption of everyday routines and activities, including school; a diminished sense of agency over ones immediate and long-term goals; isolation from peers; and anxieties about the future. To address these challenges I presented eight pre-teen patients with a mobile Makerspace and supported their personal efforts in devising and implementing design and invention projects with a range of digital devices. Patients recruited and negotiated a wide range of resources (including conceptual, material, and social) for purposes of pursuing their personal goals with the Makerspace. This view of learning emphasizes the role of childrens personal agency in orchestrating their own learning and identity formation as a critical long-term consequence. Across eight case studies, patients working with the Makerspace adopted a varied set of positions with respect to design and making. I call these Maker Mentalities, because they seem to be predominant orientations toward design. These mentalities were characterized by different motives and processes, such as whether patients valued the inclusion of other people in the design process and whether their engineering approaches were predominantly systematic or tended to capitalize on fortuitous, trial-and-error discoveries. I also describe the categories and duration of patient projects, their formats they devised for documenting their work for others, and the Makerspaces influences on patient mobility and health.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-08182015-034719 |
| Date | 18 August 2015 |
| Creators | Krishnan, Gokul |
| Contributors | Leona Schauble, Rogers Hall, David Owens, Jay Clayton |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-08182015-034719/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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