美国高校实施创客教育的路径分析

Path Analysis for the Implementation of Maker Education in Colleges and Universities in USA

近年来,随着全美创客行动(Maker Movement)的快速发展,美国越来越多的高校开始将创客教育(Maker Education)作为培养学生创造与创新能力以及创业就业能力的重要途径。创客教育的核心是支持学生开展基于创造的学习,而基于创造的学习的关键是对学生学习主体性、实践性、深度参与性、连续性与完整性(学生往往需要完成从规划到设计再到开发制作产品的完整过程)的充分尊重。学生在基于创造的学习过程中需要主动发现、自主探究,在发现、分析与解决问题的过程中创生、验证、发展出自己的创想,在提升问题解决能力的同时又保持创造的激情与信心,这些是创造与创新能力的核心品质。基于对美国高校实施创客教育的具体举措与经验的梳理与总结,本文分析了美国高校开展创客教育的基本路径:在意识层面积极响应全美创客行动,充分重视创客教育在高等教育中的价值,这是实施创客教育的起点与目标指向;在规划层面注重对学校开展创客教育的整体设计,充分关注与社区创客教育的联动,这是实施创客教育的重要前提;在实践层面着力打造优质的创客空间提供创客教育环境,灵活选择适切的创客教育实施方式,这是创客教育得以真正实施的重要依托。

In recent years, with the rapid development of the National Maker Movement in the United States,more and more U. S. colleges and universities began to favor Maker Education as an important approach to cultivating students’ creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The core of Maker Education is to support learning by making, which is essentially based on the recognition of the subject-status, practice, engagement, continuity and integrality of learning （ students are often required to involve in a complete process from planning to design and development） . In the making-based learning, students need to engage in active discovery and inquiry, to create, test and development their own ideas based on iterations in identifying, analyzing and solving problems, and to enhance their problem-solving skills and creation passion and confidence. Those issues are the core qualities of creativity and innovation. Based on the analysis of some typical US colleges and universities’ initiatives and experiences in implementing Maker Education, this paper discusses the basic approaches to Maker Education, including：at the consciousness level , to actively respond to the US initiatives on Maker Movement and to highly value the functions of Maker Education, which is the goal and the start for implementation;at the planning level, to focus on the overall design and to promote the collaborations among communities, which are the most important prerequisites for implementation;and at practical level, to put efforts on the building of high-quality Makerspaces, and to choose appropriate methods, which are the fundamental carriers for Maker Education.