Makerspace ecosystem: Innovative pedagogy and community-relevant experience for nurturing responsible organizational leaders of the future

University makerspaces are rooted in the core values of higher education and embody AAC&U’s high-impact educational practices, fostering integrative and applied learning through experiential, project-based work (Flaherty, 2015). University makerspaces serve as incubators for student innovation, creativity, and the development of essential leadership skills. A makerspace is defined as “a creative and uniquely adaptable learning environment with tools and materials, which can be physical and/or visual, where students have an opportunity to explore, design, play, tinker, collaborate, inquire, experiment, solve problems and invent” (Loertscher et al., 2013 as cited in Soomro et al., 2023).

Recognizing that the development of student creativity, innovation, and leadership skills are impacted by multiple factors, we theorize that colleges and universities can foster their development through utilizing makerspace ecosystem built on purposeful curriculum, community engagement, and meaningfully designed environment including physical space, culture, and pedagogy. The study presented here investigates the best practices of higher education institutions located in New England, United States, in utilizing makerspaces for the purposes outlined above.

The target audience of this symposium is fellow faculty and instructors who are interested in, or have previously engaged with their respective university makerspace. In the next section we offer an overview of scholarly literature that informed our study. The common topics across the existing scholarship focused on makerspaces include creativity, innovation, pedagogies, culture, space, benefits and challenges.