Classroom makerspaces: Identifying the opportunities and challenges

This paper aims at introducing, identifying opportunities, presenting a vision and stakeholder driven challenges regarding the concept of classroom makerspaces. With the engineering design process at its core, the discussions are in the purview of K-college engineering classrooms. So as to provide a background and elucidate upon accomplishments to date, we first shed light on the history, elements and evolution of makerspaces. Then we present the motivation for this work rooted in educational theory and also put forth our vision for classroom makerspaces. The present day opportunities arising from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and expectations from science and engineering classrooms are then identified which serve as further motivation for this practice. The subsequent section on challenges is the result of a brainstorm by our team of engineering education researchers, who are well acquainted with the concept of classroom makerspaces and bring to the table a diverse set of experiences and knowhow from academia, education and engineering. This paper is aimed at aiding the academic community to understand these challenges and subsequently address them with future studies and practices, so as to be in a better position for inclusion of classroom makerspaces in educational institutions.