Abstract:

In this presentation, I will describe the key features of a relatively new learning and teaching environment called FUSE Studios (https://www.fusestudio.net/). Piloted in 2011, FUSE has grown organically to be implemented currently in about 275 US schools and a small number of international schools. The growth can be considered organic, because it has taken place without sales, marketing, or advertising. Word of mouth and a unique granting program to lower income schools (funded by various private foundations and STEM industry partners) has fueled this growth. This year more than 50,000 US students, from grades 5 to grades 12 will participate regularly in a classroom-based FUSE Studio.

FUSE is organized around activities called STEAM challenge sequences (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts/Design, and Mathematics) that level up like video games. Completing a challenge level and uploading a photograph or video documenting completion of that level will unlock the next level. The core principle of FUSE that makes it so different from the conventional socio-material organization of classrooms is choice. Students choose which challenges they work on, whether to work on challenges alone or with others (more typical), and how to approach solutions to the challenges. The gallery of challenge sequences (currently 33) allows students to explore challenges that interest them and to pursue lines of sustained interest through the challenges over a one or two-year experience. Choice produces a dynamic peer learning and teaching environment and one in which a phenomenon we call ‘relative expertise’ develops routinely; over time, particular students become the relative experts in their classrooms in areas such as 3D printing or electronics. This in turn has positive identity effects for those students, who often are students who are not school’s typical high achievers.

This presentation will:
(1) briefly describe the package of design elements that compose the FUSE materials (e.g., website, video trailers, tangible/digital/hybrid challenge materials),
(2) recount the informal learning research that inspired the design of FUSE,
(3) highlight key research findings about student learning and experience (e.g., relative expertise) with a focus on how dramatically the FUSE experience differs from traditional classroom experience for students and teachers,
(4) discuss how and why FUSE has scaled as it has.

The presentation will include various forms of research evidence (both ethnographic and quantitative) produced during almost a decade of NSF (National Science Foundation) funded research about both the FUSE Studio learning and teaching environment.

Keywords:

Learning, STEAM, student choice.