Informal learning spaces create opportunities for children and youth to develop their talents and to experience new social roles. In recent years, several public libraries in the Netherlands have established makerspaces to empower youth by facilitating the development of their digital skills in conjunction with their creativity. The Amsterdam Public Library created a network of makerspaces (Maakplaats021) and provided training for the makerspace-coaches. These coaches – former librarians or other professionals – have a central role in the makerspace and fulfill several functions. This contribution describes informal learning of children in these makerspaces and distills critical features that enforce learning through the lens of children aged 8–12 and their makerspace-coaches.
Learning activities in a makerspace are hands-on and characterized by design and inquiry. Evaluation is needed both for learners and their coaches in order to effectively guide the learning process of the children and for feedback on the effectiveness of the after-school maker activities. Due to its constructionist nature, learning in a makerspace requires specific forms of evaluation. In this paper we describe the development of an instrument that facilitates and captures reflection on the activities that children undertook in a library makerspace. Our aim is to capture learning in this context with multiple instruments: analysis of the artifacts that are made, observation of hands-on activities and interviews - which all are time consuming methods. Hence, we developed an easy to use tool for self-evaluation of maker learner activities for children. We build on the design of a visual instrument used for learning by design and inquiry in primary education. The findings and results are transferable to (formative) assessment and evaluation of learning activities by learners in other types of education and specific in maker education.
