Caught on Camera: Youth and Educator’s Noticing of and Response to Failure

Caught on Camera: Youth and Educator’s Noticing of and Response to Failure

In this presentation, we will present research findings and discuss pedagogical practices that address the following two questions: (1) How do youth and educators notice (i.e., attend and interpret) and respond to failure during the making process? (2) How are these experiences mediated by the task?

What inspired you to begin investigating your topic or inspired you to make your project?:
Prior to this study, we were actively involved in a few research projects where the importance of failure was emerging as a theme. For example, one project focused on understanding the critical events that started scientists and engineers on pathways toward STEM. For this project we completed 100+ interviews and participants frequently talked about the importance of failure in their daily work. Nearly all of the interviewees discussed how analysis of failures is an essential part of the learning process in STEM and that it is a key part in the cycle of innovation that drives science and technology forward. However, most indicate that this lesson was not something they learned through formal education, only as an adult. Therefore, in our collaborative research project we seek to advance research exploring how failure can be a critical step in the process toward deeper learning and engagement with STEM and potentially alter the conception that, for adults and youth alike, failure in designing and making is an end-state.