The Maker Movement has started to change the role of students from consumers to creators. Empowering our students to become designers and engineers has opened up an endless amount of possibilities. The Makerspace isn't just a place. It's a mindset.
|
|
|
Elementary |
Intermediate |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you're just beginning to think about Makerspaces, check out this article:
6 Considerations Before Starting Your Makerspace.
We've learned so much from this article and created a guide from it that we've used to help schools get started with makerspaces.
Hopes, Dreams, Ideas for your Makerspace
With your makerspace committee, discuss these questions:
Hopes, Dreams, Ideas for your Makerspace
- Allow staff, students, parents, community the opportunity to brainstorm what they would like their space to be
- Visit local makerspaces to get ideas
- Check out the Makerspace Virtual Tours on this Page
- Form a committee to synthesize feedback and ideas from stakeholders
- Describe what and how the space will help kids develop these skills?
- Possible skills to consider: Redesign - taking an object and repurposing it for something new, Storytelling - students could make their own story to come to life in a variety of different ways, Prototyping - Build a small scale object that can be tested
- Create a plan and a timeline, then how are you actually going to teach this?
- Learn about a framework to ground your time the makerspace, such as the Engineering Design Cycle or Design Thinking
With your makerspace committee, discuss these questions:
- How will you instill a culture of Making/Creating in your students and staff?
- What behaviors will be expected in the Makerspace?
- What safety protocols will you have in place?
- How will you celebrate failure?
- How will you encourage ideas?
- How are you going to communicate these ideas to staff and students?
- Consider your skills and brainstorm or seek out inspiration projects that can be brought and connected to what you are currently doing.
- Explore resources that are already created to support your work, like Think, Make, Innovate or Instructables or SpheroEDU
- Consider a unit that may be a struggle for students to engage with and inject a maker element into it to bring in voice and choice for students
- Think about projects you might do in the future. What foundational skills will be needed for these projects? For example, will students need to know how to use a hammer?
- Plan a celebration of making event sometime in your school year and again at the end of the year
- Connect the dots: if your students use green screen and then learn about coding Spheros, how could your next work incorporate both of these new skills
- Explore The Space Book by Dr. Robert Dillon and Rebecca Hare to learn more about design learning spaces
- Check out our spreadsheet of components of our makerspace
Want to Learn More?
Read up on current articles related to Makerspaces on our Flipboard Magazine.