Learning in the Making : How to Plan, Execute, and Assess Powerful Makerspace Lessons [1 ed.] 9781416628446, 9781416628040

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LEARNING

IN THE

MAKING How To 

Plan, Execute,  and Assess Powerful  Makerspace Lessons

LEARNING INTHE

MAKING

LEARNING

IN THE

MAKING How To

Plan, Execute, and Assess Powerful Makerspace Lessons

n i e t s r e G e i Jack Alexandria, Virginia USA

1703 N. Beauregard St. • Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA Phone: 800-933-2723 or 703-578-9600 • Fax: 703-575-5400 Website: www.ascd.org • E-mail: [email protected] Author guidelines: www.ascd.org/write Ronn Nozoe, Interim CEO and Executive Director; Stefani Roth, Publisher; Genny Ostertag, Director, Content Acquisitions; Allison Scott, Acquisitions Editor; Julie Houtz, Director, Book Editing & Production; Jamie Greene, Associate Editor; Judi Connelly, Senior Art Director; Thomas Lytle, Senior Graphic Designer; Valerie Younkin, Senior Production Designer; Kelly Marshall, Interim Manager, Production Services; Tristan Coffelt, Senior Production Specialist; Shajuan Martin, E-Publishing Specialist Copyright © 2019 ASCD. All rights reserved. It is illegal to reproduce copies of this work in print or electronic format (including reproductions displayed on a secure intranet or stored in a retrieval system or other electronic storage device from which copies can be made or displayed) without the prior written permission of the publisher. By purchasing only authorized electronic or print editions and not participating in or encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials, you support the rights of authors and publishers. Readers who wish to reproduce or republish excerpts of this work in print or electronic format may do so for a small fee by contacting the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923, USA (phone: 978-750-8400; fax: 978-646-8600; web: www.copyright.com). To inquire about site licensing options or any other reuse, contact ASCD Permissions at www.ascd. org/permissions, or [email protected], or 703-575-5749. For a list of vendors authorized to license ASCD e-books to institutions, see www.ascd.org/epubs. Send translation inquiries to [email protected]. ASCD® and ASCD LEARN. TEACH. LEAD.® are registered trademarks of ASCD. All other trademarks contained in this book are the property of, and reserved by, their respective owners, and are used for editorial and informational purposes only. No such use should be construed to imply sponsorship or endorsement of the book by the respective owners. All web links in this book are correct as of the publication date below but may have become inactive or otherwise modified since that time. If you notice a deactivated or changed link, please e-mail [email protected] with the words “Link Update” in the subject line. In your message, please specify the web link, the book title, and the page number on which the link appears. PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-4166-2804-0 ASCD product #119025 n8/19 PDF E-BOOK ISBN: 978-1-4166-2844-6; see Books in Print for other formats. Quantity discounts: 10–49, 10%; 50+, 15%; 1,000+, special discounts (e-mail [email protected] or call 800-933-2723, ext. 5773, or 703-575-5773). For desk copies, go to www.ascd.org/deskcopy. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gerstein, Jackie S., author. Title: Learning in the making : how to plan, execute, and assess powerful makerspace lessons / Jackie Gerstein. Description: Alexandria, VA, USA : ASCD, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “Maker education builds educational experiences that are based in the real world, allow student choice, and achieve multiple objectives. This book helps teachers plan, execute, and facilitate maker experiences so both educators and learners understand the connections between making and how knowledge, skills, and attitudes transfer to real-world settings”-- Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019021010 (print) | LCCN 2019981462 (ebook) | ISBN 9781416628040 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781416628446 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Maker movement in education. | Educational change. Classification: LCC LB1029.M35 G47 2019 (print) | LCC LB1029.M35 (ebook) | DDC 371.39--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021010 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981462 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19

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LEARNING INTHE

MAKING Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. The Precedent for Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Why Maker Education Is Important for a 21st Century Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3. Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses . . . . . . . 24 4. Inclusion and Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 5. The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 6. How to Set Up the Classroom or Library as a Makerspace . . . . 55 7. A Framework for Implementing Maker Experiences . . . . . . . . . 64 8. Integrating Maker Experiences into the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . 79 9. Maker Education and Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 10. Example Maker Education Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Preface

Maker education is a fairly new school of thought in education circles. It focuses on delivering a constructivist, project-based, hands-on learning curriculum and instruction experience to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as a school workshop with high-tech tools (e.g., 3D printers and laser cutters) or as small and low-tech as the corner of a classroom. A makerspace isn’t just about the tools and equipment; rather, it’s about the learning experiences the space provides to students who are making projects (Waters, 2015). As discussed in this book, maker education is more about the mindset of the teachers and students than it is about the “stuff.” Sparkfun Education, a leading maker education company, describes maker education as more than just tinkering with the flashy stuff—it is about building educational experiences that are based in the real world, allow student choice, and achieve multiple objectives. Maker education can be used in a variety of ways, and projects can be adjusted in scale or scope to meet individual class or student needs. Successful maker education implementation is about finding project ideas that seamlessly integrate “making” into the curriculum. It is about providing engaging educational experiences that bring out the best in students and teach them about problem solving, tenacity, perseverance, and determination (Sparkfun Education, n.d.).

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There’s a proliferation of maker activities and makerspaces within formal and informal educational settings, but there’s limited guidance on how to implement those activities with intention and a clearly defined purpose. A goal of this book, then, is to provide a background and framework so maker education moves beyond the educational trend or flavor of the month and does not fade into the background—which is the case for far too many educational trends (e.g., character counts, learning styles, right-left brain teaching strategies, flipped classroom). This book will assist the educator in the planning, execution, facilitation, and reflection of maker experiences so both educators and learners will understand the connections between making and the content and how knowledge, skills, and attitudes transfer to real-world settings.

CHAPTER 1

The Precedent for Maker Education

Humans have had a need to create and make since the beginning of their time on Earth. A lot of that making had to do with survival— making tools for agrarian and hunting cultures, for their homesteads, and for keeping themselves and their families safe from human and animal predators. Their acts of creativity also revolved around making for the pure joy of it. For example, people have long decorated pottery and made petroglyphs, sculptures, jewelry, and clothing. Making is an innate human need and desire. A characteristic of the 20th century was the advent of mass production and the factory assembly line. Products that used to be handmade by individuals were suddenly made through standardized manufacturing processes that efficiently pumped out products in great quantity. Mass production is typically characterized by some type of mechanization, such as an assembly line, to achieve high volume, detailed organization of materials flow, careful control of high-quality standards, and division of labor (Kenton, 2019). One of the biggest benefits of mass production was the ability to produce large quantities of products at a minimal cost. However, one of the casualties was the widespread art of handmade products tailored to individual desires and specifications. Arguably, another casualty was the carryover of a mass production mentality into education settings. Since the 19th century, 3

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the United States and other countries have adopted the Prussian model of teaching, also known as the factory model school. “We would recognize the manifestation of this model fairly easily: a teacher at the front of the room, and neat rows of desks with students sitting in front of him/her. The purpose of this structure is fairly simple: the teacher is giving students information in ‘assembly-line fashion,’ and the students—through memorization, repetition, and eventually testing—hopefully retain it” (Hochdorf, 2016, para. 2). Making is essential to the human experience, but it hasn’t been a part of classical education or a focus of Western education. Hands-on learning, innovating, making, and creating in the school environment has been a casualty of this movement. Nevertheless, several events have converged in the past few years as a type of backlash against mass-produced products and education, which has helped to birth the maker movement and the maker education movement in both formal and informal educational settings. The maker movement is a relatively new phenomenon—built from familiar pieces—but its relevance to education has deep roots. It has long been stated that children and youth can learn by playing and building with interesting materials and tools (Montessori, 1912 as cited in Martin, 2015, p. 31). Making often fosters learning in a variety of ways that directly connects with long-established theories of how learning occurs. “For example, testing ideas out in the world allows one to check expectations against reality, a process that can create conceptual disequilibrium, and can in turn lead to conceptual adaptation” (Piaget, 1950 as cited in Martin, 2015, p. 31). Physical creations also create a context for social engagement around a shared endeavor. “This can bring more- and less-experienced participants together around a common task—a configuration that often proves fruitful for learning” (Martin, 2015, p. 31). The philosophy driving the maker movement is as old as the human species. Today’s vibrant, passionate, and active maker movement builds on this tradition. Make: magazine (founded in 2005 by Dale Dougherty) and the many Maker Faires that occur around the world have helped popularize the maker movement

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and propel it forward. In true open-source form, the whole movement brings together diverse communities involved in the process of creating things through hands-on efforts—from sewing to 3D printing. Makers represent a growing community of builders and creators—engineers, scientists, artists, DIYers, and hobbyists of all ages, interests, and skill levels—who engage in experimentation, collaboration, and innovation (Singh, 2018). The maker movement was born out of several events that converged to create the environment we see today: • • • • • • •

The do-it-yourself (DIY) movement. A focus on STEM and STEAM education. A push for 21st century skills and competencies. Information access and abundance. Affordable maker technologies. A crowdsourcing and participatory culture. Open-source resources.

The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Movement Do it yourself, or DIY, is a term used by various communities of practice that focus on people creating things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals. The DIY movement emerged partially from a revolt against high-priced consumerism, and its popularity can be indirectly measured through the marked increase of classes offered by retail stores such as Home Depot, Lowes, and Michaels and through the increasing popularity of DIY websites such as Instructables (www.instructables.com), Make: magazine (https://makezine.com/projects), and DIY for younger makers (https://diy.org). DIY offers many benefits and life skills, such as developing ingenuity, learning from mistakes, realizing financial savings, customizing objects, having fun, and using one’s own brain and hands. Making things is about personalization, and therein lies the value of DIY. One’s creativity and skills develop along with a sense of art and logic. Young people are growing up in a DIY culture where they have role models who engage in DIY and have immediate access

6 • Learning in the Making

to information, tutorials, and technological resources online. It follows that the DIY culture is influencing teachers’ and students’ desire to make and create for themselves both within and outside of educational settings.

A Focus on STEM and STEAM Education There is a growing need in workplace settings for employees to possess STEM and STEAM related skills. As such, there has been a push for STEM and STEAM education in school curricula and afterschool programs. Science, technology, engineering, and math skills—with an added focus on the arts—prepare learners not only for many different jobs but also to have richer personal lives now and in the future. Evans and Milgrom-Elcott (2017) state, “Whatever today’s kids want to be able to do tomorrow, they will need serious STEM skills” (para. 10). This includes the ability to use their skills to tackle new dilemmas and solve new problems. This “will be true whether they become a mechanic called in to fix something they’ve never seen before, or a medical professional faced with an outbreak of a new disease” (para. 10). Education needs to be about helping young people acquire the skills they’ll need to live successful, productive, and satisfactory lives. In this “rapidly changing world, where it’s difficult to predict what challenges and technologies lie ahead, it is more important than ever that kids learn to think carefully, critically, and creatively” (para. 17). Maker education can be a gateway to STEM disciplines for students who may not have had an interest in science, technology, engineering, or math. Teachers have reported that making can be a great way to get students excited and engaged in their learning. Many projects in subject-area classes incorporate making and a variety of STEM topics. “Students working on designing and building furniture for their classroom use algebra and geometry to figure out the dimensions. E-textiles and soft circuitry, in which circuits are sewn using conductive thread or fabric, have shown to be an engaging way to teach electronics and programming,

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especially for young women. The possibilities for ways to incorporate making into the school day are endless, and it is exciting to see what teachers have been developing and sharing” (Thomas, 2012, para. 6). STEAM, in which the arts are integrated into STEM, has been touted as an important addition to STEM education. Educators can situate learners for future careers by bringing STEM and STEAM into the learning environment. In addition, STEM and STEAM integrates cross-curricular standards, including those specified by the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards in both math and science, lending credibility to its implementation by teachers.

A Push for 21st Century Skills and Competencies The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (a network of Battelle for Kids) has developed a framework that identifies four learning and innovation skills—creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration—that are essential to prepare students for the increasingly complex life and work environments of the 21st century (Battelle for Kids, n.d.). Many schools have embraced these skills and include them in the standards they expect students to learn. The National Education Association (NEA, n.d.) has stated, “All educators want to help their students succeed in life. What was considered a good education 50 years ago, however, is no longer enough for success in college, career, and citizenship in the 21st century” (para. 1). As such, the NEA recommends the implementation of the “four Cs” as developed and disseminated by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning. At the 2018 Maker Faire in New York City, the young cast of Mythbusters Jr (ages 13–15) were asked, “What skills do you think you need to be a maker?” They mentioned creativity, teamwork (collaboration), and communication—three out of the four learning and innovation skills identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning.

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Information Access and Abundance We are living in one of the most exciting times in the history of humankind. Our world is filled with an abundance of information— and access to it has never been easier. We have technologies to access any type of information and get assistance and feedback from people around the world. We also have the ability to create products that match (and exceed) our imaginations. The internet grants access to all kinds of information, resources, and tutorials. For example, DIYers can go online to find information and tutorials via YouTube, Wikipedia, and various social networks. There are YouTube channels (and other websites) for sparking curiosity and inspiring creativity, for learning how to use different technologies, for exploring and learning about different science and math concepts, and for learning different types of arts. Young makers have taken advantage of this easy and free access to make valuable contributions to the world. For example, Jack Andraka, as a high school sophomore, discovered a test for pancreatic cancer by reading science research he found online (Tucker, 2012). Ninth grader Katherine Wu invented the driver’s companion, a device that could monitor drivers’ blinks and brain waves to see if they were in danger of falling asleep at the wheel. She studied neuroscience to find out how to identify signs of sleepiness and took an online course to learn how to create the computer code that would recognize those signs (Kaplan, 2014). In terms of maker education and the bigger picture of self-directed learning, this information abundance and access means the teacher no longer needs to be the sole content expert on every topic. Their role can change into that of facilitator. Indeed, their trepidation about bringing maker education into the learning environment could be reduced due to all the information and tutorials available to students.

Affordable Maker Technologies Maker technologies, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, micro:bits, Hummingbird kits, and other robotics

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and computer kits, provide relatively inexpensive opportunities for learners to experiment and invent for themselves. Most are accessible and usable by students possessing a wide range of skills and age levels. The availability of affordable tools and technologies and the ability to share inventions and resources online “has fueled this evolutionary spurt in this facet of human development. New tools that enable hands-on learning—3D printers, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computers, e-textiles, ‘smart’ materials and new programming languages—are giving individuals the power to invent” (Martinez & Stager, 2019, para. 2). Accessibility of these affordable maker technologies is due, in part, to the democratization of the field and medium. “When used in the context of the maker movement, ‘democratization’ refers to the decreasing cost of the tools and technologies credited with spurring the movement” (Britton, 2014, para. 12). Even though there is a cost attached to them, these tools and technologies are more accessible to those with fewer financial resources than similar ones were in the past. This results in the increased potential of anyone, anywhere, to be a maker, an inventor, and an innovator— including students coming from lower income and marginalized populations.

A Crowdsourcing and Participatory Culture The maker movement and makerspaces are driven by principles of crowdsourcing and participatory cultures. Makers, as a group, freely share their projects so others can replicate and/or improve upon them. Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) has defended “sharing as a vital aspect of maker culture that is intrinsic to the underlying ethos of what it means to be a maker, and by extension, a human being” (quoted in Frauenfelder, 2018, para. 2). This type of sharing is a trademark of a participatory culture. Many maker movement initiatives are rooted in the idea of participatory culture, a term coined by media expert Henry Jenkins. Jenkins identified the key elements of a participatory culture to include low barriers to engagement and expression, support for

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creating and sharing one’s creations with others, and informal types of mentorship whereby those with the most experience pass along information, strategies, and resources to beginners (Fleming, 2015). Dale Dougherty, considered by many to be the father of the maker movement, has stated, “The Maker Movement is spurred by . . . the increasing participation of all kinds of people in interconnected communities, defined by interests and skills online as well as hyper-local efforts to convene those who share common goals” (Dougherty, n.d., para. 1). Likewise, Massimo Banzi, inventor of the popular technology Arduino, has noted how a participatory maker culture spurs creativity. Whenever a tool is designed that allows people to be creative, there are also people who start to be creative with that tool. This is a world where people become more involved in the creation of products (Orsini, 2014).

Open-Source Resources Open-source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone at any time and for any reason. It is created and developed by diverse populations and distributed under licenses that comply with this open-source definition. Makers often share their projects so others can reproduce and/or improve upon them. For example, Thingiverse is one of the largest and most well-known online repositories of open-source 3D designs. A quick search of the website (www. thingiverse.com) shows designs for everything from prosthetic devices to footwear to toys. The sharing culture that comprises the maker movement has wider effects in that many technology companies make their software and hardware open source: Open-source hardware shares much of the principles and approach of free and open-source software. In particular, we believe that people should be able to study our hardware to understand how it works, make changes to it, and share those changes. To facilitate this, we release all of the original design files (Eagle CAD) for the Arduino hardware. These

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files are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, which allows for both personal and commercial derivative works, as long as they credit Arduino and release their designs under the same license. The Arduino software is also open-source. (Arduino, n.d.) The bottom line is that educators in both formal and informal settings would be foolish not to take advantage of this plethora of resources, tools, and strategies that currently exist.

CHAPTER 2

Why Maker Education Is Important for a 21st Century Education

We are living during an unprecedented golden age for maker education, but problems arise when educators, administrators, and learners exclusively associate making with high-tech devices and robotics. These tools are exciting and seductive, for sure, but they are also mostly out of reach for schools serving lower-income students. In addition, they can also be intimidating for educators who consider themselves to be less tech savvy. The first and primary step to prevent educators, curriculum developers, and administrators from being scared off from using maker education activities in their schools and classrooms is to develop, use, and embrace a more inclusive definition of maker education. Adam Savage has this to say about how making can and should be defined: What is making? It is a term for an old thing, it is a new term for an old thing. Let me be really clear, making is not simply 3D printing, Art Lino, Raspberry Pi, LEDs, robots, laser and vinyl cutters. It’s not simply carpentry and welding and sculpting and duct tape and drones. Making is also writing and dance and filmmaking and singing and photography 12

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and cosplay. Every single time you make something from you that didn’t exist in the world, you are making. Making is important; it’s empowering. It is invigorating, but why? There are lots of results that are good that come from making. We improve the world around us. We show people how much we care about them. We solve problems, both personal and societal. (quoted in Lomasney, 2016, paras. 11–12) Extending this definition, making includes but is not limited to drawing, painting, sculpting, cooking, baking, creating music, dancing, crafting cardboard creations, folding origami, performing puppetry, doing science experiments, writing stories, and making with e-textiles, paper circuits, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, micro:bits, littleBits, and web tools. Regardless of the type of making, maker education has some defining characteristics—characteristics that can lead to powerful outcomes that fit into what is expected of 21st century learning. Maker education • • • • • • • •

Is hands-on and experiential. Has a low barrier to entry and high potential for engagement. Enhances voice and choice. Supports and reinforces content-area learning. Values play and fun. Facilitates a growth mindset. Fosters a collaborative learning community. Builds social-emotional skills.

Maker Education Is Hands-on and Experiential John Dewey’s writings reflect the importance of experiential learning: “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results” (1916, p. 191). Hands-on learning is also known as learning by doing, experiential learning, hands-on/minds-on, and active participation.

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A key characteristic of maker education activities is that they are hands-on and often engage our sense of sight, sound, touch, and sometimes even taste. “Making overlaps with the natural inclination of children to learn by doing. The maker movement values human passion, capability and the ability to make things happen and solve problems anywhere, anytime” (Martinez, 2019, para. 6). The learning-bydoing approach is not new to education. Theories and initiatives such as project-based learning, Jean Piaget’s constructivism, John Dewey’s progressivism, and Seymour Papert’s constructionism have been around for a long time. Each helps to explain and showcase the remarkable accomplishments of young makers and remind educators that every classroom needs to be a place where “knowledge is a consequence of experience” (Piaget quoted in Martinez, 2019, para. 8). Hands-on learning often mimics real-world learning. For example, if someone wants to learn to cook, drive, swim, or play an instrument, they need to do those things. They do not get a textbook on the topic, read about it, and then take a test to demonstrate they learned the skills. The same can be said of the content areas typically associated with school. Professionals in the areas of science, engineering, technology, journalism, and the arts spend much of their time doing in order to learn and grow in their respective professions. There is evidence that hands-on learning produces some powerful results within school settings. A meta-analysis covering 15 years of research on the advantages of hands-on learning (which included 57 studies of 13,000 students in 1,000 classrooms) demonstrated that students in activity-based, hands-on programs performed up to 20 percent better than students who were exposed to traditional textbook approaches. The greatest gains occurred in creativity, attitude, perception, and logic (Bredderman, 1983), which are skills often associated with 21st century learning outcomes. A more recent study conducted and published in 2014 by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) found that student-centered practices, such as hands-on learning, can be effective in closing the gap. “Student-centered learning

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proves to be especially beneficial to economically disadvantaged students and students whose parents have not attended college” (para. 40). How this should translate into most, if not all, educational practices is evident—whenever possible, hands-on learning should be incorporated into your lessons. This often translates into seemingly chaotic, loud, and messy learning environments, but the results of student engagement and achievement are well worth it.

Maker Education Has a Low Barrier to Entry and High Potential for Advanced Projects Mitch Resnick (2016), director of MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group, has discussed Seymour Papert’s belief that kids’ use of technology should be about low floors and high ceilings, whereby novices can get started in relatively easy and painless ways (i.e., a low floor) but also have ways for them to work on increasingly sophisticated projects over time as they gain expertise (i.e., a high ceiling). Making of all kinds typically has a low floor or entry point. Almost anyone can do the basics of music, art, simple paper circuits, cooking, sewing, and simple robotics, which translates to an easier time getting started and experiencing success. Making using these same—or similar—mediums also has high potential for very advanced learning and projects. Along with a low barrier to entry, making is characterized by high engagement. When learners of any age are making, most—if not all—of them are fully engaged. “We want our kids so engaged in projects that they lose track of time or wake up in the middle of the night counting the minutes until they get to return to school (Martinez, 2019, para. 34). This is known as a state of flow. When someone is in a state of flow, concentration becomes so laser-focused that everything but the task at hand falls away. Action and awareness become one. Performance becomes incredibly heightened—and that includes creative performance (Kotler,

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2014). A flow state equals full engagement in the learning task, and engagement has been shown to increase student achievement. This is brought into instructional practice by ensuring maker activities address curricular goals and are based on students’ (current and potential) interests. Enough time then needs to be allocated for students to engage in those activities fully.

Maker Education Enhances Voice and Choice Another characteristic of maker education is that it facilitates learner choice and voice. Even with more structured projects such as cooking or making paper circuits, learners can embed themselves into the process. When making, learners often have a choice of types of projects, colors, styles, and so on, which leads them to feel as though their voice matters. Indeed, education is more effective when people have opportunities to find and develop their voices and talents.

Maker Education Supports and Reinforces Content-Area Learning “Making provides a context to place academic learning in the ‘heart, mind, and hands’ in pursuit of deepening students’ conceptual understanding of content” (Vanderwerff, 2014, para. 6). Learning facts and knowledge about a content-area topic is an important prerequisite to understanding that topic and developing expertise. Key to this understanding is providing a context for facts, which becomes the glue to increase the stickiness—or longevity—of longterm retention of those facts, concepts, and knowledge. This is especially true for abstract concepts. Maker education, given the characteristics of being interdisciplinary, authentic, hands-on, passion-driven, and where voice and choice are embraced and honored, gives content-area learning this needed context. It is therefore critical to embed making into the curriculum to enhance content-area learning.

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Maker Education Values Play and Fun The maker movement—and the related maker education movement—can counteract the negative effects that school and society have on children’s, young people’s, and even adults’ playfulness and creativity. Play is naturally embedded into maker activities. Dale Dougherty, the founder of Make: magazine, who coined the term making and helped launch the maker movement, says it all started with play. “I had this strong sense that play was important, and I didn’t want to justify what I was doing beyond that—play being important in and of itself. . . . If we think of a classic childhood, kids had lots of opportunities to make. We’re getting back to that” (Dougherty, quoted in Bindel, n.d., paras. 2–3). The maker movement wasn’t originally designed for kids, but over the years, it has affected and been affected by educational philosophies. The term playful making has been associated with maker education in some educational circles. At its core, making is fun, engaging, and motivating. When students make something, they become committed and focused. Their creativity is piqued, and they are able to produce things that began in their imaginations. “Playful making is how we see the intersection of the wonderful world of play and the power of making things. It is a form of play where the construction of a product or artifact becomes as a way of learning and being in the world” (Gravel, Bers, Rogers, & Danahy, 2018, p. 11). Playful making could even be considered an exercise in redundancy since making by its very nature is playful and fun. Educators need to embrace the attitude that play should be part of learning. Students will persist longer and accept failure in the context of play.

Maker Education Facilitates a Growth Mindset The maker movement encourages a growth mindset that tolerates risk and failure—and often encourages it. A truism that is rarely acknowledged in formal education is that failure is a necessary

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step on the road to success and innovation (Fleming, 2015). Dale Dougherty (2016) discusses the intersection of a maker mindset and a growth mindset. The growth mindset emerges as makers “learn new tools and methods as well as experiment without certainty of success” (p. 145). Most makers are optimistic and “fully engaged, doing something they love to do, and believing that what they do is worth sharing” (Dougherty, 2016, p. 141). A maker mindset involves having a can-do attitude—in other words, a belief that one’s skills and capabilities can be developed, improved upon, enhanced, and expanded. In addition, it involves taking risks, failing (and learning from those failures), exploring new possibilities, and developing one’s full potential (Hos-McGrane, 2013). The intersection of a growth mindset and maker education includes the following characteristics: • Effort is valued. Lots of effort is needed when learners are engaged in maker activities. This effort should be valued as persistence and grit emerge. • Hard work leads to positive results. Learners’ tenacity and perseverance often result in successful maker projects. • Growth and development are at the forefront. By nature of their hands-on characteristics, maker activities lead to learning—regardless of whether they are successfully completed. Failure leads to learning, as does success. As such, growth occurs. • Capabilities and skills can be developed, improved, and expanded. Because maker activities are driven by a growth mindset, it follows that there is a belief by both learners and educators that one’s skills can be developed. • Everyone can do. Making and doing are the goals of maker activities. This translates into activities that anyone can attempt and do to some degree. • The process of learning is the focus. When the process becomes the focus, the results become secondary. • One’s personal strengths, creativity, and curiosity breed results. Making is driven by creativity and curiosity, so drawing upon these yields progress.

Why Maker Education Is Important for a 21st Century Education

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• Challenges are opportunities. Challenges during making become opportunities to gain new knowledge and learn new skills. • Failure is approached as iterative and viewed learning opportunities. Failures drive future learning. • Feedback, both positive and constructive, is openly accepted and used for growth. Feedback from the learning community is given and received with the best intentions—to assist one another in making progress with their making projects. In terms of integrating a growth mindset into one’s practice as a maker educator, a shift needs to occur whereby the focus becomes acknowledging effort and multiple iterations of learning projects as opposed to generating a single, correct answer that is typical of more traditional education.

Maker Education Fosters a Collaborative Learning Community The maker movement, given its culture of sharing and collaborating, can be viewed as a knowledge-building community (Martin, 2015). A knowledge-building community is similar to a scientific community in that it works collectively to build and share new knowledge, which distinguishes it from the typically replicative nature of classroom learning where the goal often is to acquire a set of preexisting knowledge. “Making focuses on enacted knowledge and a non-competitive discourse, both central to the definition of a knowledge building community” (Martin, 2015, p. 36). The best kind of collaborative and shared learning occurs naturally and when needed. In all the settings where I facilitate maker education experiences—school, camp, professional development workshops—learners of all ages, genders, and ability levels naturally use one another to share ideas and get help. Once the educator permits and encourages this sharing of ideas and resources (which is sadly not part of traditional schooling), students learn to ask for and give help to their peers on an as-needed basis.

20 • Learning in the Making

Traditional classrooms often expect students to work independently and not share ideas with one another. Often, students are expected to stay quiet and not even talk with one another during class time. When making is brought into both formal and informal education settings, collaboration, sharing, and constructive discussions should not only be accepted but also be encouraged, acknowledged, and rewarded.

Maker Education Builds Social-Emotional Skills CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, n.d.) has identified five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies related to social-emotional learning. What follows are descriptions of how each of these core competencies are addressed within and throughout the making process.

Self-Awareness Self-awareness is the ability to accurately recognize and identify one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism. Making in all its forms requires a full range of skills, including cognitive, physical, and affective skills. Given this need for a multiple and diverse skill set, effective and successful making comes from an accurate assessment of one’s strengths and limitations as well as having optimism and confidence that challenges can be overcome during the making process. This can be reinforced during maker activities by conducting periodic check-ins with students before, during, and after the activities and by asking them about their feelings, strengths, and limitations after the specific activity in which they are engaged.

Self-Management Self-management is the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in a variety of different

Why Maker Education Is Important for a 21st Century Education

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situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals. Making, especially making something new, often requires individuals to develop goals on the fly, revise those goals, and manage frustrations as we work through and learn new skills, processes, and knowledge. This can be done during the maker activities (as described for the self-awareness element) and/or the educator can do check-ins with individual students who might be getting frustrated with their projects. The educator can offer general suggestions for managing frustration (e.g., take a break, ask for help from a peer) or ask the student what he or she can do to manage those frustrations.

Social Awareness Social awareness is the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures; to understand social and ethical norms for behavior; and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports. A key area of social awareness is empathy—listening well and understanding others’ perspectives. For many, design thinking goes hand in hand with the maker movement and maker education. A major component of design thinking is having empathy. Not all making is about attempting to design solutions for community and world problems, but building with those ends in mind has the potential to create more meaningful projects. Education needs to give students the skills to create their own jobs. “This requires more than technical skills; it requires empathy, context, and innovation. . . . The heart of innovation is not technology but people. Great innovators are able to deeply understand human needs and create useful solutions. Innovation simply requires empathy and experimentation” (Falck, 2014, paras. 3, 10). The maker educator can reinforce SEL (social and emotional learning) competency by having students specify for whom (i.e., which population: kids, teens, adults) their maker project is best suited, along with specifying what characteristics make it so.

22 • Learning in the Making

Relationship Skills Relationship skills include the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed. One of the characteristics of maker education discussed earlier is that it is marked by a collaborative learning community. The power of being a maker is amplified when one works collaboratively on projects, gets help from others, and shares findings with others. The maker educator can encourage and reinforce these skills as part of students’ making process.

Responsible Decision Making Responsible decision making is the ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of oneself and others. This competency requires learners to consider how their decisions (1) affect the safety of themselves and their peers, (2) respect the rights of others, and (3) factor the possible larger consequences for themselves and others. Responsible decision making can be reinforced by educators asking questions during and after making: • What are you doing to ensure that you and your peers are safe? • What other steps can you take to ensure that everyone, including yourself, remains safe? • How have you been and will you continue to be respectful of the other learners in the room? • As you look through our maker environment, can you see anything that can make you or another maker feel emotionally or physically unsafe? • What positive and/or negative consequences does your project have on your local learning community or the

Why Maker Education Is Important for a 21st Century Education

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larger maker community that exists outside of this learning environment? Planning educational activities that incorporate social-emotional learning has broad benefits. Research shows that SEL can have a positive effect on school climate and promote a host of academic, social, and emotional benefits for students. A recent meta-analysis of 213 rigorous studies of SEL in schools (CASEL, 2015) indicates that students receiving high-quality SEL instruction demonstrated • Better academic performance. They earned achievement scores an average of 11 percentile points higher than students who did not receive SEL instruction. • Improved attitudes and behaviors. Students had a greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behavior. • Fewer negative behaviors. Students displayed decreased disruptive class behavior, noncompliance, aggression, delinquent acts, and disciplinary referrals. • Reduced emotional distress. There were fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal. These are just some of the benefits for integrating SEL skills into the curriculum. This provides an additional research-supported reason for incorporating maker education activities into the curriculum. With maker activities, it is very easy and natural to include SEL-based skills.

CHAPTER 3

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses Maker Education and Authentic Education Traditional classrooms are often marked by students sitting quietly at their desks and completing the same tasks at the same time. By contrast, a maker education learning environment is often loud, seemingly chaotic, and messy, but authentic and engaged learning is often messy. Learning is often done through trial and error; it’s a personal discovery that involves trying things in a controlled, step-by-step fashion—sometimes trying anything no matter how preposterous it might seem. Ultimately, though, it should be lots of fun. “The best part of messy learning is that besides staining your clothes, or the carpet, or the classroom sink in ways that are very difficult to get out . . . it is also difficult to get out of your memory” (Crosby, n.d). Many look to the philosophy and writings of John Dewey as the foundation of experiential education, which is at the core of maker education. In a maker education environment, the learners are at the center of the learning process and it’s their interests that drive the activities. This mirrors the thinking and writings of John 24

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 25

Dewey who said, “The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education” (Dewey, 1897, p. 77). Dewey believed that children too often passively absorb facts from the teacher. Learning through play, exploration, and inquiry is sidelined for compliance. He thought school should be a place where children are actively learning through their own selfdirected experiences. He also believed that traditional schooling is disjointed from the real world and therefore cannot adequately prepare children for their adult lives. “I believe that the school must represent present life—life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground” (Dewey, 1897, p. 79). “Doing and learning through play, tinkering, exploring, and making are critical components of maker education. . . . Central to the maker pedagogy is that learning must be meaningful and have a purpose for the child. It is about creating meaningful products— not just doing for the sake of doing. Children must be involved in tasks that include real-life problem solving that is relevant and meaningful to them and their world” (Hogg, 2014, paras. 2, 4). The Association for Experiential Education (www.aee.org), established in the early 1970s, proposed that the following principles mark the practice of experiential education. I have taken the liberty of emphasizing those phrases and practices I believe also characterize maker education (see Figure 3.1). • Experiences are structured to require the learners to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for results. • Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning. • Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully, and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the learning task is authentic. • The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.

26 • Learning in the Making

FIGURE 3.1

Principles of Maker Education as Experiential Education

Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully, and/or physically

Learners actively engage in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curious, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and constructing meaning.

Learners take the initiative, make decisions and are accountable for results

Learners may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking, and uncertainty.

Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.

Results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future experience and learning.

Design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes.

Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large.

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 27

• Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to others, and learner to the world at large. • The educators and learners may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-taking, and uncertainty, because the outcomes of experience cannot totally be predicted. • The educator’s primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, ensuring physical and emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process. • The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for learning. • The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes. (Association for Experiential Education, n.d.) Dale Dougherty’s (n.d) writings also support maker education as meeting the core tenets of experiential education: Fostering the maker mindset through education is a fundamentally human project to support the growth and development of another person not just physically but mentally and emotionally. Learning should focus on the whole person because any truly creative enterprise requires all of us, not just some part. It is the difference between a child who is directed to perform a task and one who is self-directed to figure out what to do. That kind of transformation, that kind of personal and social change, is what making is about. (para. 15) For centuries, people learned by doing—through direct observation of experts and through apprenticeships. Once education became institutionalized, thought leaders such as John Dewey and Marie Montessori supported these centuries-old methods of learning. In essence, the maker movement and maker education represent a return to these methods but with one big exception: technology. The maker movement can transform education by having students become creators and makers of their own educational lives rather than being consumers. It helps them move from

28 • Learning in the Making

being directed to do something to becoming independent and selfdirected learners. “Increasingly, [learners] can take advantage of new tools for creative expression and for exploring the real world around them. They can be active participants in constructing a new kind of education for the 21st century, which will promote the creativity and critical thinking we say we value in people like Steve Jobs” (Dougherty, 2012).

Maker Education and Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Heutagogy The addition of technology in education has helped reconceptualize pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy (the PAH continuum) into this picture. The PAH continuum is also contextualized as moving from Education 1.0 through Education 2.0 toward Education 3.0. This translates into moving from an education approach driven by essentialism or instructivism to one that is based on constructivism and connectivism.

Pedagogy (Education 1.0) Too many schools still function with an Education 1.0 model. Although too many educators and administrators will likely deny this, they still focus on an essentialist-based curriculum with its related ways of teaching and testing. An essentialist curriculum is based on traditional disciplines of math, science, history, foreign language, and literature. Essentialists believe that classrooms should be teacher-oriented, and teachers or administrators decide what is most important for students to learn—with little regard to students’ interests. Teachers use achievement test scores as a means of evaluating progress, and students in this system often sit in rows and are collectively taught in a group. Students learn passively by sitting and listening. Keats and Schmidt (2007) provide an excellent comparison of how Education 1.0 is similar to Web 1.0, the first generation of the internet. It’s a one-way process in which the dissemination of information is provided to the user or recipient. In other words,

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 29

students go to school to get education from teachers who supply them with information in the form of a routine that often includes the use of lectures, handouts, textbooks, videos, and online learning. Students become isolated consumers of informational resources that are delivered to them. Rarely do the results of those activities contribute back to the information resources that students consume. It is based on three Rs: receiving, responding, and regurgitating (see Figure 3.2).

FIGURE 3.2

Pedagogy (Education 1.0) Learners are receptacles of knowledge. Receiving Responding Regurgitating

Even in an era of ubiquitous information and technology, this essentialist, instructivist, pedagogical teaching approach is still the most predominant model in current K–16 public education settings. Learners in this type of environment, given 21st century technologies and teacher instruction, may

30 • Learning in the Making

• Access information via e-books and websites, but these often lack any type of interactivity or capability for the learner to comment, share, or interact with the content. • Watch, learn, and take notes from live and/or video lectures that focus on didactic dissemination of content and information. • Use technologies and mobile apps based on “drill and grill” where learners are given direct instruction and asked to provide the correct answers via quiz questions. (I call these technologies worksheets on steroids.) Some maker education activities, such as learning how to do paper circuits or program a Makey Makey or Arduino, may require direct pedagogical instruction for students to learn basic knowledge and skills. However, even though some beginning maker activities may need this type of scaffolding, a goal of maker education is for learners to create self-initiated and self-developed projects—ones that are unique to them, their immediate learning communities, and the larger society. Having learners engage in maker education activities that are copies of other projects is on par with having students use the same materials to make templated construction paper Thanksgiving turkeys. The results will be predictable and uninteresting. Students gain some foundational knowledge and skills to become more creative and innovative, but the bigger picture becomes limited.

Andragogy (Education 2.0) The andragogical, more constructivist orientation takes on the characteristics of Education 2.0 where the principles of active, experiential, authentic, relevant, socially networked learning experiences are built into the learning process. Education 2.0, like Web 2.0, permits interactivity between the content and users—and among users themselves. Education 2.0 has progressive, humanistic roots where the human element is important to learning. The teacher-to-student and student-to-student relationships are considered important parts of the learning process. Education 2.0 focuses

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 31

on the three Cs: communicating, contributing, and collaborating (see Figure 3.3).

FIGURE 3.3

Andragogy (Education 2.0) Learners are communicating, connecting, and collaborating.

An andragogical, constructivist learning environment typically has the following characteristics or goals as identified by Honebein (1996): • Provides experience with the knowledge construction process. • Provides experience in and appreciation for multiple perspectives. • Embeds learning in realistic and relevant contexts. • Encourages ownership and voice in the learning process. • Embeds learning in social experience. • Encourages the use of multiple modes of representation. • Encourages self-awareness in the knowledge construction process. (p.11).

32 • Learning in the Making

How this connects to maker education and how it transforms more traditional education is through connecting and sharing of maker tools, resources, and ideas via social media. As discussed earlier, learning communities are characteristic of maker education whereby students are encouraged to connect to one another and experts through face-to-face and social networking avenues and by helping one another and sharing their learning and findings with others. These types of sharing are encouraged and reinforced in andragogical-rich maker learning environments.

Heutagogy (Education 3.0) Education 3.0 is heutagogical approach to teaching and learning. The teachers, learners, networks, connections, media, resources, and tools create a unique entity that has the potential to meet individual learners’, educators’, and even societal needs. Education 3.0 is based on the belief that content is freely and readily available. It is self-directed, interest-based learning where problem solving, innovation, and creativity drive one’s education. Heutagogy is usually defined and described for adult learners but given that we are living with open education resources and information abundance, learners as young as the elementary level have the potential to engage in educational experiences based on heutagogical principles. In other words, learners can engage in self-determined and self-driven learning where they are not only deciding the direction of their learning journey but also producing content that adds value and worth to the fields of STEM, STEAM, and maker education. Education 3.0 is characterized by learners playing a key role as creators of shared knowledge artifacts. “The distinction between artifacts, people, and process becomes blurred, as do distinctions of space and time. . . . [There is] an emphasis on learning and teaching processes with the breakdown of boundaries between teachers and students, institutions, and disciplines” (Keats & Schmidt, 2007, para. 8). (See Figure 3.4.) Learners in heutagogical educational environments (i.e., Education 3.0)

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 33

• Determine what they want to learn and develop their own learning objectives that are based on a broad range of desired outcomes. • Use their learning preferences and technologies to decide how they will learn. • Form their own learning communities via social networking tools suggested and/or set up by the educator. Networks include Facebook, Twitter, Edmodo, Instagram, YouTube, various blogging sites, and other social networks. • Utilize the expertise of educators and other members of their learning communities to introduce content-related resources and online tools that allow students to demonstrate and produce learning artifacts.

FIGURE 3.4

Heutagogy (Education 3.0)


 

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34 • Learning in the Making

• Demonstrate their learning through methods and means that work best for them. This can include using mobile devices to blog, create photo essays, do screencasts, make videos or podcasts, draw, sing, dance, and so on. • Take the initiative to seek feedback from educators and their peers. Ultimately, it is their choice whether or not to utilize that feedback. Maker education programs in both formal and informal educational settings promote the best of self-determined learning whereby learners determine what they want to make, how they want to make it, how they want to share the processes and products of their learning, and how they judge the degree of success of their makes. In other words, they take on the characteristics of learner agency. Agency is about autonomy and choice along with empowerment. “A key finding of the research of Agency by Design, a research group from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, is that maker learning helps to empower students to see themselves as builders and shapers of their world. By taking on a maker-centered approach to learning we help our students recognize that our society has been designed by people, and that their generation is not only empowered to, but obligated to use their skills and knowledge to change the world for the better” (Weisgrau, 2016, para. 4).

A Note on Constructionism If the desire is to have learners in a maker education setting have agency and develop skills for self-determined learning, a fuller understanding of this process will emerge through examining the thoughts and writings of Seymour Papert, one of the pioneers of the constructionist movement in education. Papert defined constructionism as follows: “Constructionism . . . shares constructivism’s view of learning as ‘building knowledge structures’ through progressive internalization of actions. . . . It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe” (Papert & Harel, 1991, p.1).

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 35

“Piaget described constructivism as being the process whereby students constructed their own unique systems of knowing, in consequence of which the teacher should focus on this individual process of internal construction rather than standing at the front and spouting their own models. Seymour Papert, a student of Piaget, expanded on this to describe constructionism in terms of helping the student produce constructions that others can see and critique” (Changing Minds, n.d., para. 3). Constructionism stresses student-centered discovery learning. Students, in a constructionist setting, learn through participation in hands-on and project-oriented learning where they make connections between different ideas and prior knowledge. This is facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than using direct instruction or step-by-step guidance. Constructionism posits that learning can happen most effectively when students are active in making tangible, real-world objects. The key or most significant part of this theory is that learning can happen most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects in the real world. For more information, see the following resources: • Situating Constructivism: http://www.papert.org/articles/ SituatingConstructionism.html • Piaget’s Constructivism, Papert’s Constructionism: What’s the Difference?: http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/ publications/EA.Piaget%20_%20Papert.pdf • Education, Learning, and Knowledge: A Review of Research and Theory about Constructionism and Making: https:// blogpitopcom.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/pi-top-researchresources.pdf

Implementation of Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Heutagogy This section offers some suggestions for how to be more intentional with these instructional approaches in the maker education environment. Education 1.0 does have a place in maker education.

36 • Learning in the Making

Learners may need to have activity instructions scaffolded so they can gain necessary knowledge and basic skills. Direct instruction is provided through structured and prescribed activities with the goal of learners being able to eventually go in self-determined directions. There has been some criticism leveraged against out-of-the-box maker education kits, programmable robots, and step-by-step maker activities. This criticism is similar to the criticism leveraged against paint-by-number paint kits. The criticism centers on the question “How much can someone learn if they are doing such a paint-by-numbers project?” This is different, though, in situations where learners need to develop skills in maker activities such as paper circuits, 3D printing, and programmable robotic components, especially when they have no experience with these activities. My contention is that learners often don’t know what they don’t know and that giving them the basic skills frees them to then use their creativity and innovation to take these tools in self-determined directions. All instructional styles have a place in maker education, but I believe that maker education projects and programs should go beyond pedagogical teaching. The overriding goal of maker education is for learners to create something—anything—they haven’t made before, which becomes a heutagogical experience. Figure 3.5 distinguishes and describes maker education within the PAH framework.

Exploring Maker Education Through Different Lenses • 37

FIGURE 3.5

The PAH of Maker Education Pedagogy

Driving Question: How well can you create this particular maker education project? Purpose or Goal: To teach basic skills as a foundation for future projects—scaffolding. Role of the Educator: To teach, demonstrate, and help learners do the maker education project correctly. Making Process: Use of prescribed kits, templates, step-by-step directions, and tutorials. Finished Product: A maker project that looks and acts like the original model.

Andragogy

Driving Question: How can this prescribed maker project be adapted and modified? Purpose or Goal: To provide some structure so learners can be self-directed. Role of the Educator: To facilitate, assist learners, and mentor. Making Process: Use of some templates; learners add their own designs and embellishments. Finished Product: A maker project that has some attributes of the original model but that includes the learner’s original ideas.

Heutagogy

Driving Question: What do you want to make? Purpose or Goal: To establish an environment where learners can determine their own goals, learning paths, processes, and products for making. Role of the Educator: To coach, mentor, be a sounding board, and be a guide very much on the side. Making Process: Open ended; determined by the learner. Finished Product: A maker project that is unique to the learner (and to the learning community).

CHAPTER 4

Inclusion and Maker Education

A discussion of maker education would be incomplete if exclusion and inclusion were not discussed. If one of the characteristics of the maker movement is democratization of related tools, software, and techniques, then efforts need to focus on the education institutions that serve children (school, libraries, museums, after-school programs), especially those that serve underrepresented and underserved children. Nation of Makers, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping support America’s maker organizations through community building, resource sharing, and advocacy within the maker movement and beyond, had its inaugural conference during the summer of 2018, and its theme was intentional inclusion. One of the most profound takeaways from the conference was: Before we consider intentional inclusion, we need to consider and explore unintentional exclusion. The rise of the maker movement—and related tools for democratization—have the potential to create opportunity for all. What can be done to ensure that all learners, of all socioeconomic levels, ages, and genders, have access? “It is essential to understand and address the social structures and identity categories that are inherent in the maker movement before the tools of production that play such a prominent role are truly democratized” (Britton, 2014, para. 19). 38

Inclusion and Maker Education

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One of the challenges for maker education is related to equity— the ability to provide maker education for all students regardless of background. A big challenge for maker education is making it not just the purview of middle- and upper-middle-class white students and white teachers whose schools can afford tools such as laser cutters, high-tech robotics, and 3D printers (Westervelt, 2016). Maker movement initiatives are often driven by white affluent males. When the language, culture, and tools of the current makerspaces, maker faires, and maker publications are examined, they tend to be less inclusive of females and people of color. Makerspaces and activities are often promoted as being inclusive, open spaces. However, this type of rhetoric tends to ignore social inequalities that impede access and participation, where privilege, oppression, and domination over some groups of people are not acknowledged (Dunbar-Hester, 2014). If technical tinkering, STEM, and digital fabrication are the economic forces that will empower makers, and if women and people of color are not participating in these activities in a visible way, then that power will remain unequally distributed. It is possible that the maker movement will have a transformative effect and create opportunity for upward mobility, but we must acknowledge the fact that the idea of “making” is still a privileged idea (Britton, 2014). Unintentional exclusion can be understood in terms of implicit biases. An implicit bias is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. Implicit biases are influenced by one’s experience and upbringing and are based on learned associations between various qualities, including race or gender. Individual perceptions and behaviors can be affected by these biases without intention or awareness. Therefore, perceptions, attitudes, and stereotypes can operate without conscious intention. Recent research sadly indicates that implicit bias is pervasive and insidious in K–12 makerspaces. Researchers from Drexel University’s ExCITe Center studied makerspaces across 10 states and found a non-inclusive culture with a lack of attention to implicit biases (Torres, 2018):

40 • Learning in the Making

Per the study, student participation rates change dramatically from K–8 (where there’s nearly equal participation by gender) to high school (where male students outnumber females by a factor of three). Program leaders and instructors remain predominantly male, and a language analysis of recruiting and instruction materials revealed evidence of implicit bias. “Implicit bias is pervasive and insidious,” the report states. “Our evidence is specific to gender, but there may be other forms. We recommend open and frank discussions that raise awareness of implicit bias, particularly in language, internal and external communications, and design curricula that may lead to bias.” The most urgent recommendation . . . is to create concerted efforts around recruitment and language that combat existing bias in gender, race, and beyond. (Torres, 2018, paras, 3, 8, 10) Because these stereotypical biases are often implicit and unconscious, it makes them especially resistant to awareness, exploration, and modification. Due to this, it is probably close to impossible to create a neutral makerspace. Nevertheless, strong efforts should still be made toward that goal or end. All students of all socioeconomic levels, ages, and genders should be given the opportunity to benefit from maker education, which emphasizes student-driven learning and fosters the development of 21st century skills. Although makerspaces are increasingly popular in schools, not all makerspaces and activities are created equal. Some feature tools such as 3D printers, programmable robots, microcomputers, and high-tech construction toys—equipment that carries a hefty price tag not all schools can afford (Meyer, 2017). For the maker education movement to be credible, it must appeal to and embrace the interests and talents of a broader population. This can mean embracing activities such as auto mechanics, pottery, hip-hop music, and other topics beyond the typical 3D printing and robotics projects. “When planning maker spaces for

Inclusion and Maker Education

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young people, schools need to be careful to avoid the tendency of the maker movement to cater to a specific segment of the population” (Meyer, 2017, para. 13). Increased inclusivity comes with a greater understanding of the cultural backgrounds of the users (and potential users) of the makerspace. Creating equity in this area isn’t about providing standardized and cookie-cutter STEM activities to less privileged communities. It’s about making sure the maker activities are relevant and honoring the cultural backgrounds and intelligences of all potential users (Hwang-Lynch, 2018). Inclusivity can be enhanced by changing perceptions about what activities are considered “making,” about how to group learners, and about what a maker mindset is. Being proactive in changing these perspectives can create more inclusive maker education programs. To increase inclusivity, we can begin by expanding our perceptions about what constitutes maker activities. All educators must understand that entry into maker education experiences doesn’t need to come exclusively through high-tech devices. Teachers can create more equitable makerspaces by reconsidering their definition of making, along with the activities, materials, and tools they use with maker education. Shirin Vossoughi, assistant professor of learning sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, said, “Rich forms of making, building, crafting, and artistic activity exist already in a range of ways within all communities. So what does that mean for how we design making programs and activities in ways that draw on the range of intellectual, cultural, and artistic resources and experiences that kids bring to this setting?” (Meyer, 2017, para. 15). Children can watch or help family members fix electronics, furniture, or bikes, or they can engage in home repair or sewing. There are a wealth of activities that can be brought into the maker environment. Suzette Duncan recommends using a more inclusive definition of making: Many times, people assume that making is just the arts of coding, physical computing, 3D printing, soldering, and the like. People who are involved in textile or culinary arts, for

42 • Learning in the Making

example, may not identify as makers, or can feel excluded from the maker movement with its emphasis on STEM. Both students and non-STEM focused makers can benefit from using the most inclusive definition of making to design programs and supply spaces. (Duncan, 2016, para. 6) The traditional education model groups students by manufacture date—in their cohort groups by age and date of birth. During the summer, I have the privilege of running maker camps. The campers’ ages range from 6 to 12 and come from a variety of backgrounds. Age and gender does not make a difference in their skills levels or projects they produce, though. All students are able to complete the tasks presented to them. Because there are no expectations regarding the quality or types of products, students are all successful in producing some form of final project. In fact, the younger girls often came up with projects that were “copied” and co-opted by some of the older boys. The reason for their success is because I let go of expectations about what their products should be but still expected that all campers produce something—anything—regardless of their age, gender, or background. Every makerspace should be aware of its capacity to serve all people: children and adults, from all backgrounds, and representative of a wide range of interests, including the arts, engineering, science, math, sewing, electronics, and technology. “Even in the best-resourced maker environments, there should be constant vigilance about the assumptions that are made about the people who might want to use them” (Martinez, 2015, para. 8). The benefits of having diverse groups in makerspaces cannot be overstated. Diversity of groups often leads to broader perspectives, deeper problem solving, and richer products, and this diversity is enhanced through multi-age, mixed-gender groups. As David Kelley, founder of IDEO consultants and Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, notes, “Diversity is the number one thing that correlates to better innovation” (JSK, 2013, para. 10). Maker education is about the learning—not the technology. Likewise, making is about a mindset and the act of doing—not the “stuff.” It’s hard to deny that technology is seductive. 3D printers,

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Arduinos, littleBits, Makey Makeys, Spheros, laser cutters . . . oh my! Given all the media coverage these tools get, an educator new to maker education may get the impression that it is all about this kind of high-tech stuff. For less affluent schools or after-school programs, it may seem like maker education is out of their reach, given budgetary restraints. The truth is that a maker education program can be fully implemented with minimal cost and supplies. Cardboard boxes, recycled materials, tape, glue guns, scissors/ knives, and markers—in conjunction with learners’ imaginations, creativity, and innovative ideas—can be the stuff of which makerspaces are made. A makerspace could just be a space with simple, donated art supplies. It’s a mindset and a set of values. A maker mindset involves having a can-do attitude and a growth mindset—a belief that your capabilities can be developed, improved, and expanded. It’s not just a matter of what you know; it’s a matter of taking risks and failing and learning from those failures. It’s a matter of being open to exploring new possibilities and developing your full potential. If making, the maker movement, and maker education are viewed as a mindset—as a way to be creative and innovative—then the types and kinds of materials don’t matter. What matters, first and foremost, is the act of making.

CHAPTER 5

The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator

As we have seen, the process of bringing maker education into formal and informal educational settings involves different approaches and strategies than those found in traditional education. As such, the roles of the educator as a maker educator are also different. There are eight educator roles necessary to be a maker educator (see Figure 5.1): • • • • • • • •

Lead Learner Process Facilitator Safe Environment Manager Normalizer of Ambiguous Problem Finding and Solving Resource Provider Technology Tutor Relationship Enabler and Builder Feedback Facilitator

Lead Learner The educator’s role has always been to model and demonstrate effective learning, but somewhere along the line, the educator’s major role became content and knowledge disseminator. Today, content is freely and abundantly available, and it is more important than ever to help learners in the process of how to learn. 44

The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator • 45

FIGURE 5.1

Educator as a Maker Educator

Lead Learner

Safe Environment Manager

Relationship Enabler & Builder Resource Provider Educator as a Maker Educator Process Facilitator

Normalizer of Ambiguous Problem Finding and Solving

Technology Tutor

Feedback Facilitator

In most traditional education settings, the emphasis is on what students “need” to learn, and little emphasis is given to teaching students how they should go about learning the content or what skills will promote robust and effective learning. John Dunlosky, a professor of psychology at Kent State University, said that “teaching students how to learn is as important as teaching them content, because acquiring both the right learning strategies and background knowledge is important—if not essential—for promoting lifelong learning” (Dunlosky, 2013, p. 13 ). Because maker education is as much (or even more) about the processes of learning as it is about the products, it becomes important for educators to understand and model the processes— or the “how-to”—of maker education. This often requires teachers to express out loud the metacognitive strategies they use when

46 • Learning in the Making

approaching and doing maker activities, including how they learn about the task at hand, find resources, develop an overall goal for the activity, organize and keep track of materials, develop and manage timeframes, and judge their success. Importantly, it also requires teachers to explain what they do when they struggle with a make. This will help learners emulate these learning processes when they work on their own maker projects. Figure 5.2 provides methods and strategies that can be used by the educator to model effective making processes for their learners. If educators embrace the prospect of being a lead learner, then it naturally follows they should be lead innovators, too. Lead innovators model eight characteristics of the innovator’s mindset; they are empathetic, problem finders, risk takers, networked, creators, observant, resilient, and reflective (Couros, 2015). “Ultimately, what [innovation] really is about in education is creating new and better ways of learning, which is something educators should all get behind. If I can help more educators see themselves as innovators, and help them embrace this mindset, our students will have better opportunities in learning. . . . It is meant to not only help see change as something we embrace and model ourselves but help create the foundation where change is more likely to happen with others” (Larken, 2015, paras. 2, 3). A common characteristic of making across settings, age levels, socioeconomic backgrounds, and genders is that it taps into the innovation of the participating learners. When educators model innovation by trying new projects, new teaching procedures, and new technologies, they are not only showing and telling students that innovation is valued in their classrooms but also demonstrating a willingness to take risks often associated with innovation—especially in the sometimes noninnovative environment of traditional schools.

Process Facilitator Another hallmark of maker education is that the making processes are equally as important as the products created. The processes used to make something often carry over to future projects and

The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator • 47

FIGURE 5.2

Maker Educator as a Lead Learner Maker Project Process

Question Addressed

Sample Behaviors to Model for Students

Sample Teacher Comments

Introducing and Launching the Maker Project

What strategies can I use to successfully launch my maker project?

Show the first steps to take when beginning a new project, including deciding the first steps and collecting and organizing materials and resources.

• What prior knowledge and skills can help me with this project? • I wonder what I need to do to begin my project. • I need to gather and organize the materials for my maker project prior to getting started. • What resources can I use to help me with my project? User guides? Online resources like YouTube tutorials? Other learners in the room?

Developing Goals and Subgoals

What are my specific goals for this maker project? What are some subgoals that will help with meeting the bigger goals?

Show students personalized goals for a specific maker project that the teacher has worked on.

• What are my goals for this maker project? • What will I do if I get stuck? Where can I get help and assistance? • What are my subgoals for my maker project? Are there smaller goals that will help me reach my bigger goals?

Organizing Tools and Materials

How can I keep my tools and materials organized?

Show students how you organize your tools and materials while you are working on a maker project.

I need to keep my tools and materials organized so I can focus my energies on my project rather than searching for things.

(continued)

48 • Learning in the Making

FIGURE 5.2

Maker Educator as a Lead Learner (continued) Maker Project Process

Question Addressed

Sample Behaviors to Model for Students

Sample Teacher Comments

Establishing Pacing and Timing

What is my timeline and pacing for each step of my maker project?

Show students a timeline of a maker project that you have completed.

I have [amount of time] for my project. After each subgoal or step is completed, I will evaluate how well my pacing is going and adjust my timeline accordingly.

Finding and Using Resources

What resources will help me do my maker project?

Show students how to use the internet to find and use online resources.

I need to know more about how to do this part of my project. I am going to search the internet to find how-to tutorials, preferably with images, drawings, and/or videos.

Assessing One’s Progress

How am I doing with my maker project?

Conduct a self-assessment that shows students what is working, what is not working, and what you would like to improve.

Do I need to go back through my maker project to fill in any gaps or correct any mistakes?

Troubleshooting and Managing Struggles

What should I do if something is not working the way I like or the way I planned?

Show students what you do if you run into problems creating your maker project.

• I am getting frustrated with not being able to complete this task, so I am going to [take a break; ask for help; try something new]. • I know that making is an iterative process that often requires multiple attempts to get right.

The Role of the Educator as a Maker Educator • 49

products. To truly focus on the process—rather than on the products of learning—the educator needs to let go of expectations and preconceived notions about what the specific products students produce “should” look like. This approach translates into several benefits for learners: • Learners are not limited by educators’ expectations or the expectations of a lesson or assessment developed by an outside entity (e.g., textbook or testing company). • Learners’ engagement, motivation, curiosity, and excitement increase. • Learners learn to tolerate and embrace ambiguity. • Natural differentiation and individualization result. • Learners gain skills such as self-directed learning, taking initiative, locating resources, and asking for help—all of which can be transferred to all learning endeavors. • It reflects and models how learning occurs outside of school. • Learners take an increased investment and pride in their work. • Learners develop both a sense of confidence and a sense of competence.

Safe Environment Manager An educator’s role as safe environment manager is a two-pronged one. First, teachers must ensure that the learning environment is physically safe. Because a maker environment often contains lots of tools, ranging from scissors and knives to hot glue guns to power tools, the maker educator must establish an environment in which learners’ physical safety is of primary concern. Second, teachers must make sure that learners also feel safe emotionally— that they are willing to take risks and know that their ideas will be accepted and valued by everyone in the classroom. There are some general guidelines for creating a physically safe makerspace. Consider the following as you set up your own maker environment:

50 • Learning in the Making

• Research how the tools you plan to use in your maker program operate and the safety procedures associated with them. • Teach students how to safely use all of the tools in the maker area, including seemingly “simple” tools such as scissors and hot glue guns. Don’t make any assumptions. • Develop and review procedures about what to do if students notice an unsafe practice or if there is a medical emergency. • Establish behavioral expectations that students know and understand. These will be guided by the age of your students but can include rules such as no horseplay and keep your hands to yourself. • Establish, post, and teach clean-up procedures. More information about creating a physically safe makerspace can be found at https://makezine.com/2013/09/02/safety-in-schoolmakerspaces. Because making often involves taking risks, dealing with failure, asking for help, getting and receiving feedback, and sharing projects with peers, it is important that you also establish a work-learning environment that is emotionally safe for all students. This should be thought out and factored into your maker program from the beginning to develop a healthy sense of community. This can be accomplished through team-building activities with a STEM or maker education focus. Activities such as these help students learn to work collaboratively, communicate, and problem solve with one another. Students also learn to support one another. Visit https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/teambuilding-activities-that-support-maker-education-stem-and-steam for some ideas and activities. As a safe environment manager, teachers should teach and model what emotional safety looks, sounds, and feels like in the learning environment. It then becomes the students’ responsibility to maintain and reinforce that emotional safety. Comments that reflect an emotionally safe and supportive environment include • “Your effort shows and is admirable.” • “I like the way you are helping and supporting one another.”

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• “Failure is OK; just give it another attempt.” Students should be acknowledged when they are heard using such comments.

Normalizer of Ambiguous Problem Finding and Solving Another difference between traditional education and maker education is that the former too often presents problems that have a single, correct answer, whereas maker education embraces ill-defined problems that don’t often have obvious or “correct” answers. Iteration and related failure often accompany maker projects that are based on ill-defined problems and solutions. Failure often has a negative connotation in education, but within the maker mindset, failure is celebrated. Adam Savage, former host of the popular TV show Mythbusters, often wears a shirt that says, “Failure is always an option.” Maker educators should normalize iteration and failure by emphasizing and reemphasizing the idea that ill-defined and ambiguous problems and solutions are part of the making process—and real life.

Resource Provider Because there is so much free information available online, the maker educator needs to be a curator of content. As a curator, the maker educator locates and vets resources, especially those that will be used by younger students. These resources can include YouTube videos; tutorials from companies such as Sparkfun, Make: magazine, Instructables, and Adafruit; relevant books and magazines; social media accounts and hashtags (e.g., #makered, #stem); and online communities, such as Facebook groups. Since the goal is to have learners use self-directed or heutagogical practices, the educator—as a maker educator—should offer resources as suggestions based on individual learners’ projects. Nevertheless, students should make the final decision about which resources to use and to what degree they want to use them.

52 • Learning in the Making

The educator as a resource provider means that he or she becomes a coach or a mentor to learners. Educators are the adult experts in the room, and learners will often go to the educator for assistance, especially when they get stuck on a problem or need feedback. “The best coaches encourage young people to work hard, keep going when it would be easier to stop, risk making potentially painful errors, try again when they stumble, and learn to love [their learning]” (Tomlinson, 2011, p. 92). The educator as a resource provider also implies that he or she has multiple skill sets—expertise in the process of learning, expertise in how to navigate online environments, and the ability to mentor learners during their maker education experiences. They need to model how to vet the resources and determine their usefulness and value. They scaffold resource curation and ultimately release responsibility to students as they become more skilled at finding and vetting their own resources.

Technology Tutor For learner agency and self-directed learning to occur, educators need to keep abreast of current and emerging technologies. There is an assumption that young people are universally digitally savvy and know how to use every form of emerging technology. However, teachers “are increasingly finding that their students’ comfort zone is often limited to social media and internet apps that don’t do much in the way of productivity” (Proffitt, 2012, para. 2). Technology can dramatically enhance maker experiences since it provides access to resources and tutorials. It also provides a means for learners to share their processes and products. With this in mind, the maker educator can help learners find resources (as previously discussed) and teach them how to use educational technology such as blogs, videos, video creation tools, e-books, podcasts, collages, sketches, and Google apps to document and share their learning.

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Relationship Enabler and Builder Another important hallmark of the maker movement is its strong focus on community. The maker education community, both the in-person and broader global one, is overwhelmingly based on sharing with and learning from one another. Though not every maker shares his or her knowledge or creations, the existence of large online communities shows that many do. People share for various reasons: to exchange information, educate others, get feedback, and feel connected. This type of collaboration often comes naturally in a making environment, but educators can and should facilitate it through asking—sometimes coaxing—learners to share their ideas, opinions, resources, successes, and failures with other maker learners. To help facilitate this process, maker educators can ask students to share what they’ve accomplished so far with their project, where they think things are going in the project, and what issues they have experienced or anticipate experiencing. Students can also document and share their processes and findings in a manner that allows both other students in the class and the larger maker community to review and comment (see Chapter 9).

Feedback Facilitator Learners getting feedback on their work is always valuable and important—even more so in the maker environment. Indeed, the maker environment should be rich in feedback. As a feedback facilitator, maker educators not only provide learners with feedback about their maker projects but also teach and facilitate a process for learners to give and receive feedback to one another. Too many educational environments don’t actively teach learners methods and strategies for giving and receiving feedback. Since one of the characteristics of the maker environment is that it is community based, facilitating a feedback process supports and reinforces this sense of community. Because making is often an iterative process, feedback from other community members often facilitates and accelerates that process.

54 • Learning in the Making

Promises to My Learners as a Maker Educator Because maker education is so different from traditional education, and because the maker educator’s roles are also so different, I developed the following promises to my learners as a facilitator of their learning as makers: 1. I promise to make the making environment positive, joyful, and physically and emotionally safe so you feel safe enough to take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, and test things out. 2. I promise to provide you with resources and materials that help you create, make, and innovate. 3. I promise to respect and support your unique ways of thinking, learning, creating, and interacting with others. 4. I promise to work with you to create learning experiences that are personally relevant to you. 5. I promise to support and help you understand and navigate the ups and downs, the mistakes and failures, and the trials and errors associated with making. 6. I promise to give you time and opportunities to collaborate and share with other makers (of all ages). 7. I promise to provide you with positive feedback on things you can control—such as effort, strategies, and behaviors. 8. I promise to encourage you to critically think, formulate questions of your own, and come up with your own conclusions. 9. I promise not to intervene with your learning process unless you ask me to do so. 10. I promise to support you as you embrace the joy of creating, playing, innovating, and making.

CHAPTER 6

How to Set Up the Classroom or Library as a Makerspace

The term makerspace is poorly named because it suggests that making is isolated to a certain space in a particular environment. Making is something that should happen across content and curricular areas and can easily span grade levels. With the realization that maker education does not have to be about shiny new toys, more school administrators, librarians, and educators may be willing to embrace maker education within their own work settings. Realistically, a classroom or library can be at least partially transformed into a makerspace through the realistic actions described in this chapter.

Remove Archaic, Nonflexible Classroom Desks When most people think of a classroom desk, the image that often comes to mind is a plastic chair with chrome legs and a fiberboard tabletop that partially encloses a student’s body. The first step toward creating a classroom or library space that supports making is to get rid of these archaic pieces of furniture that were probably 55

56 • Learning in the Making

invented for control rather than for productive learning. The idea that students must be seated at desks and working in rows in order to learn is quickly becoming obsolete. “Technology and collaborative work environments are changing the design of learning spaces. Experts hope that the emerging paradigm will translate into improved learning spaces” (TeachThought Staff, 2015, para. 2), which includes removing those nonfunctional desks found in traditional school environments.

Create an Agile and Nimble Learning Environment The intentional use of flexible seating that forms agile and nimble learning spaces supports the learning intentions typically associated with maker education: creativity, innovation, iterative learning, collaboration, and unique utilization of resources. “An agile learning environment is an educational playground that is intentionally designed to be adjustable, exchangeable, and moveable. The learning space is designed to support idea generation, collaboration, and experimentation” (Byrne, 2016, para. 1). Agile learning environments promote interaction among learners, their classmates, and the maker materials. The goal of an agile learning environment is always flexibility. The furniture in the space is flexible so it can be configured and reconfigured to suit the different needs of a maker environment— for example, hands-on making, collaborating, accessing resources online, and sharing work with the entire group. An agile learning environment can turn a static space into a dynamic one. Furniture with wheels, lightweight work tables, overstuffed pillows, moveable whiteboards, and shelving that offers multiple ways of storing materials and projects all help create an agile work environment. Consider requesting donations of appropriate furniture (e.g., tables, chairs, lamps, shelving) from families and friends of the school. Alternatively, perfectly good furniture can also be purchased cheaply from thrift stores. With some creativity and flexibility, the maker educator can set up a unique, multipurpose space to serve the specific goals of making and the learners in that space as

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well as the more general, multipurpose uses typically associated with libraries and classrooms.

Establish Spaces for Playing, Tinkering, Making, Collaborating, Discussing, Researching, and Reflecting Educators may wonder how they can create these agile and nimble spaces that foster and promote playing, tinkering, making, collaborating, discussing, researching, and reflecting. First and foremost, they need to develop an innovator’s mindset—a mindset that thinks outside of the box of what a classroom should look, sound, and be like. George Couros (2015) defines this mindset as the “belief that abilities, talents, and intelligence are developed, leading to the creation of new and better ideas” (p. 33). Second, practitioners need to become intentional to help ensure that a full spectrum of skills, attitudes, and knowledge is offered to learners. To do so, makerspaces should have • Materials for learning to be creative, flexible, and innovative. • Lots of “loose parts” and manipulatives with which learners can play and tinker. • Furniture and work tables that permit students to be active during learning. • Both print and online resources students can use with their projects. • Surfaces and floors that permit the messiness that often comes with making. If these are in place, educators and librarians who are creative, innovative, and resourceful can offer a variety of learning activities. There are some amazing products on the market that can help you create a sleek, active learning space (e.g., specialized seating, mobile desks and whiteboards), but the goal is to implement maker education activities with minimal costs. Add tennis balls to desks and chair legs so workspaces can be moved without a huge

58 • Learning in the Making

disruption or damage to floors. Use whiteboard paint on desks and walls. Add rugs and throw pillows to your classroom to create discussion and collaboration spaces.

Make Affordable Materials Easily Accessible In a learner-centered classroom where making is promoted, materials are displayed openly. They should be easily accessible on an as-needed-when-needed basis. Many elementary school classrooms already have general consumables (e.g., printer paper, butcher block paper, crayons, scissors, tape, markers, rubber bands, paper clips) that should be stored openly in bins or cubbies for learners to use when needed. Materials such as these can provide a foundation for making, brainstorming, prototyping, and reflecting, and they should be freely available for learners to use without needing to ask the teacher. Having them clearly displayed can also spark learners’ ideas. Cardboard is probably one of the best maker materials around, and it is often free for the taking from big box stores, grocery stores, and recycling centers. “It’s the more low-tech tools and materials that are often the most helpful in most any maker-based classroom. When materials are more affordable, less precious, both teachers and learners are more inclined to experiment or prototype with them” (Herz, 2018, para. 13). There are so many ways to acquire materials suitable for transforming your classroom or library into at least a part-time makerspace. You can use donor sites (e.g., DonorsChoose) or ask students’ families for materials, but one of the best ways to acquire materials for making is by scavenging. See Figure 6.1 for a list of affordable materials. Once educators open themselves up to all of the possibilities of making and the materials that can be used for maker activities, they will find free materials everywhere—discarded cardboard at stores, recycled plastic bottles at school or the local recycling center, old science kits in the school storage closet (they’re filled with all kinds of making supplies). Old technologies and appliances for

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learners to take apart and build new inventions are everywhere. You just need to open your eyes and look.

FIGURE 6.1

Materials for a Classroom or Library Makerspace The Classroom or Library Makerspace: Getting Started Ask for donations; scavenge; apply for grants; look through suppy and storage closets

q Cardboard

q Toothpicks

q Modeling Clay

q Shoe Boxes

q Popsicle Sticks

q Play-Doh

q Scissors

q Wood Scraps

q Pipe Cleaner

q Duct Tape

q Straws

q Paper (for sketching, origami, etc.)

q Rubber Bands

q Old Battery Operated Toys; Computers; Appliances

q Poster Board

q Glue

q Markers

q Plastic Cups

q Paint q Brushes

q Nails, Nuts, Bolts, Screws

q Yarn & String

q Magazines

q Felt q Fabric Scraps

q Aluminum Foil q LEDs q Copper Tape q LEGO bricks q Discarded Books

q Greeting Cards

Promote Materials and Activities That Spark Diverse Learners and Interests As previously discussed, the maker education and makerspace movements are too often symbolized by the machines (e.g., 3D printers, laser cutters, and high-tech components such as Raspberry Pi and Arduino), and too often it is white males who are attracted to these devices and technologies. According to a 2015 survey done by members of the Maker Education Initiative that examined about 51 youth-serving makerspaces, white users are

60 • Learning in the Making

the primary users of most makerspaces (Peppler, Maltese, Keune, Chang, & Regalla, 2015). With an expanded definition of making, it follows that the activities and materials we use and have available should also reflect the diverse learners and interests that are a reality in our classrooms. Making in the classroom or library can include, but should not be limited to, drawing, painting, making paper crafts, sewing, sculpting with modeling clay or recycled materials, building with LEGO bricks or Kiva planks, creating with online tools, engaging in photography or videography, writing, and composing music. For example, one of the maker education lesson plans found in Chapter 10 focuses on making a display for Día de los Muertos—the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. In this lesson, Hispanic students are able to share their culture and their classmates can learn more about Mexican culture and the holiday. The learning activities also honor and tap into students’ diverse interests; they make paper crafts with Marigold tissue flowers, bake and cook with chocolate skulls, draw and decorate paper skulls, make paper circuits for their skulls, and program micro:bits to go with their displays.

Create a Space That Supports Chaos and Messiness Traditional classrooms and libraries are often marked by students at desks completing their learning tasks quietly and independently with as little movement as possible. This is the polar opposite of what happens in a maker environment. The classroom or library, as a makerspace, becomes loud—seemingly chaotic and messy— but authentic and engaged learning is often messy business. Messy learning is part trial and error, part excitement in discovery, part trying anything you can think of no matter how preposterous it might seem, part excruciating frustration, and part the most fun you’ll ever have. Messy learning often taps into a sense of flow; when there is full attention on the task at hand, time seems to go by in a flash. When the library or classroom supports a makerspace, the librarian or educator needs to accept and embrace messiness and

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all that it entails. Things in that space are going to get messy, but the payoff—excited, joyful, engaged students persisting through inquiry—is well worth the messiness.

Utilize Accessible, Low-Entry, High-Ceiling Materials and Activities As discussed in Chapter 2, the best maker activities have “low floors” and “high ceilings.” For an activity to be effective, it should provide an easy and accessible method for novice learners to get started (i.e., a low floor) but also a way for learners to work on increasingly sophisticated projects over time (i.e., a high ceiling) (Resnick, 2016). I conduct conference presentations in which I have educators and librarians make paper circuits and turn toothbrushes into BrustBots (see www.makereducation.com/bristlebots.html). The success rate for these projects is 100 percent, which translates into a very low entry into making. Similar materials can also be the foundation to create a high ceiling or more complex activities, such as advanced art projects, most complex paper circuit projects, and more advanced maker technologies. Sample projects that have low entry and high ceiling can be found in Chapter 10 and at http://makereducation.com and www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/ projects.

Foster a Learning Environment Driven by Learner Choice and Voice A learning environment based on the tenets of making naturally enhances learner voice and choice. And let’s face it: when choice and voice are intentionally built into learning, then school and education work. In terms of setting up a library or classroom makerspace, this translates into having a menu of available activities along with being open to adding new maker activities and related materials based on students’ suggestions. Survey students’ interests and use the results to determine which maker activities

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you should offer. There are many general interest surveys available online. Examples can be found at https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/wpcontent/uploads/sites/953/2015/07/cc_ialsecond.pdf and www. scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/student_survey. pdf. Students’ interests will change as the population changes. Their interests will also change as their skills develop. For example, students may learn basic paper circuits and then want to move to more advanced circuitry that involves soldering. They may learn how to use robotics with simple snap-together components and then want to move into building their own complex robotics. They may make a simple pottery pinch pot and then want to move onto advanced ceramic sculptures. As such, determining students’ interests needs to be an ongoing process and maker educators need to be astute ethnographers of their students. The teacher as an ethnographer gets to know students as individuals and is able to assess what each student needs. He or she also spends time with each student during their making time, asking questions related to their level of engagement and enjoyment and about goals related to future maker projects. The ultimate goal, though, is to adapt your activities and related maker materials to students’ changing desires and interests.

Create a Space That Screams of Fun and Engagement Piaget famously noted that play is the work of children, and I believe that all humans maintain a child’s sense of wonder. Embedding fun into making—into learning in general—increases engagement, joy, creativity, innovation, and collaboration. In the often overly structured traditional classroom, there is little room left for unexpected, unplanned, or spontaneous teachable moments. “It is a strangely disastrous way to prepare our children for a future where it appears that the only constant will be continual change” (Teachosaur, 2012, para. 1). For real learning about life to take place, children, teens, and even adult teachers need time to engage in unstructured play that is user controlled and directed.

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Fun should be felt, seen, and experienced as soon as learners and visitors walk into the makerspace. I love watching the faces on visitors when they enter my own classroom. They light up as they see my sofas, chairs, lamps, and making supplies in cubbies in the back of the room. Most of all, I enjoy watching them marvel at my learners’ work displayed around the room.

Emphasize the Maker Mindset— Not Stuff The battle cry of educators using educational technology is that the pedagogy needs to come before the technology. I am baffled, then, when I go to educational technology conferences and find so many sessions on the technology (e.g., 60 apps in 60 minutes). The same seems to be true for the maker movement these days. Practitioners talk about the maker mindset and then speak of the shiny new toys they use without talking about the context—of what skills and knowledge students learn from it. For example, I hear people talk about the products they’ve made with a 3D printer, and I think, “So what?” It really is about having a maker mindset and not about the shiny new maker tools. It’s about the making process—about the engagement, creativity, innovation, struggles, and sense of accomplishment. A cardboard box, for example, can become a chariot, rocket, robot, marble run, foosball game, dollhouse, car track, house, fort, castle, or game. “We must exercise the discipline to refrain from attaching too quickly to an idea just because it’s new. Making is no exception, so to truly prepare ourselves to be successful in this new venture, let’s be sure we set our students up to have the right mindset to be courageous innovators” (Pierret, 2016, para. 8). With a maker mindset and some of the strategies outlined in this chapter, any classroom or library can become a makerspace.

CHAPTER 7

A Framework for Implementing Maker Experiences

This chapter describes the stages of making and a framework for implementing maker experiences that requires learners to be prepared for and ready to reflect on them. Providing a framework for maker education activities helps ensure that their use is intentional and that meaningful learning is extracted from these experiences. The educator, using this framework, becomes proactive in framing maker experiences and in debriefing or processing them to increase the chances that learning will occur. Framing (or frontloading) involves clarifying the purpose of an activity prior to actually doing it; it helps to set the purpose and intention for the activity. Reflecting on maker activities after their completion can be done through a variety of methods: talking, writing, drawing, and using technology such as online creation tools and social media.

Stages of Making One of the roles of a maker educator is to scaffold learning experiences so students engage in self-determined learning. Direct instruction is provided through structured and prescribed

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activities with that goal in mind. There has been some criticism leveraged against out-of-the-box maker education kits, programmable robots, and step-by-step maker activities, but I would caution you to take that criticism with a grain of salt. Learners often don’t know what they don’t know; giving them the basic skills frees them to then use their creativity and innovation to go in self-determined directions. As such, it might be in the best interests of makers, both the educator and the learners, to go through the five stages of making described here (see Figure 7.1).

Copy In this age of information abundance, there really is an unlimited number of DIY resources, tutorials, YouTube videos, and online instructions for making all kind of things. These resources provide a good starting point for acquiring solid foundational skills and knowledge for learning how to make something new. Copying a maker project with step-by-step directions helps build a foundation for future projects. It helps to start with the basics so scaffolding can be more efficient and effective. During this stage, the question becomes “What basic skills and strategies do my learners and I need to make this project, and what types of direct instruction do they need to acquire those skills?” Educators can introduce their learners to new maker activities and skills through direct instruction or by providing learners with online tutorials to get them started. These are essentially “paintby-numbers” activities that are on par with following a recipe. The copy stage is a good place to start making something neither the teacher nor the students have ever made before. There is no shortage of tutorials online you can use to learn a specific project and then teach it to your students. Alternatively, you can direct learners to these tutorials so they can make the project for themselves. For example, paper circuits are popular, low cost, and accessible projects that can be made by most age groups. (With some guidance, I have even done them with kindergarten students.) Step-by-step tutorials can be found at https://makezine. com/projects/simple-paper-circuit.

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FIGURE 7.1

Stages of Making

Create create something new, different than what has been created before

Modify take what others have done; modify or morph it into something new

Embellish add something to that which has been done; add a little of one’s self to it

Advance gain more advanced knowledge and skills by doing similar projects

Copy make something almost exactly as someone else has done.

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Advance During the advance stage, learners who want to learn more about a given skill, project, or product gain more advanced skills and knowledge by exploring additional and more advanced resources. They then use these resources to create more advanced makes. Some of these projects are similar to the maker activities completed during the copy stage but require more advanced skills and knowledge. The role of the educator during this phase is to help facilitate the learning of more advanced skills related to a given project. The question driving this stage becomes “How can my students and I learn more about given maker projects and more advanced skills?” For the paper circuits example, these skills may include making parallel circuits, adding switches, and creating battery holders. These, plus other advanced techniques, can be found at https://chibitronics.com/how-to-page.

Embellish When embellishing, learners extend their copied and/or advanced projects to include their own ideas and embellishments. The question during this stage is “How can my learners take the skills they have acquired during the copy and advance stages and embellish the projects to make them more of their own work?” Example embellishments include adding one’s choice of colored LEDs to paper or squishy circuits or adding self-selected decorations to robotics projects. For the paper circuits example, Chibitronics offers a kit that allows learners to add LED lights with loops and variables, program switches with conditional statements, and make complex light patterns with multithreaded programming. A kit such as this provides both the educator and learners with an opportunity to develop advanced skills and embellish their creations with their own ideas. Another resource that can act as inspiration for embellishing paper circuits can be found at https:// makercamp.com/project-paths/light-it-up.

Modify When modifying, learners take something that has been created before but tweak it to make something new. It becomes a type of

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synthesis whereby learners take what they know and what they’ve learned in the previous stages and then modify a project into their own creation. The question at this stage becomes “How can my learners modify one of their maker projects to truly make it their own?” The educator’s role during this stage is to support learners and provide them with suggestions and online resources that will help them modify and personalize maker projects. For the paper circuits example, the educator can encourage students to make their own paper circuit designs and try using different materials. A guide for this project at this stage can be found at https://learn. sparkfun.com/tutorials/the-great-big-guide-to-paper-circuits.

Create During this stage, learners create something unique or new. It doesn’t have to be unique in the world, but it should be unique to and in the learner’s world. This is the stage where learners become self-determined learners. The question during this stage is “What can I make that takes advantage of all of the skills I learned, combined with my imagination?” The educator’s role during the create stage is just to support learners and provide feedback as they make their own creations. A simple example of this is when kids (and adults) take apart toys and then use those parts to create new toys, games, or inventions. A more complex example that has connections to paper circuit designs is the interactive painting of a dandelion field created by Jie Qu, which can be viewed at http://technolojie.com/ pu-gong-ying-tu-dandelion-painting. Progression through these five stages is determined by several factors: • Successful completion of the tasks and learning the skills at each stage. • Formative assessments that provide feedback to both the teacher and student about what was learned. • Student interest and desire to progress and learn more advanced skills.

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Getting to the create stage will not occur for every learner, but keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be that unique or earth shattering. It just requires students to make something—anything—more different or unique than what they’ve made before. I do believe, though, that maker learners need to get beyond the copy and advance stages to add something of themselves to their projects. This is what true making is all about.

Framework for Implementing Maker Education The framework presented here is based on an experiential learning cycle (see Figure 7.2), which was proposed and popularized by Kolb (1984) and is a model for understanding how the process of learning works. An experiential learning cycle has several characteristics that make it applicable to maker education: • It acknowledges that hands-on/minds-on experiences are important for learning. • There is a belief that reflecting on one’s learning experiences is imperative for solidifying learning. • Learning is viewed as a process that is iterative and scaffolded and that one learning experience should lead directly into subsequent learning experiences. Learning is built and expanded through this iterative process. • Learning is enhanced when the learners examine the conclusions that others have made from similar experiences. This can occur through discussions with others, reading and research about what has been written, and/or listening to the talks and conclusions others have made.

Framing and Frontloading the Maker Experience Frontloading is the process of clarifying an activity’s purpose before actually doing it. If students clearly understand the purpose

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of an activity beforehand, then the activity is exponentially more effective at producing the skills and knowledge you want to see. During this process, the educator tells or guides learners to recognize what they should focus on during the activity. Benefits include helping learners set a purpose and intention for the activity and distributing expertise to learners before the activity begins (as opposed to the educator being the only expert) (Jump! Foundation, n.d.).

FIGURE 7.2

Experiential Learning Cycle

Frontloading or Framing the Experience

The Experience: Doing & Redoing

The Conceptualization: Researching

The Reflection: Assessing

Individual maker experiences and activities can be framed or frontloaded using the following themes or ideas, either individually or through a combination of several of them:

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• • • • •

Using and reviewing essential questions. Using scenarios. Specifying standards (in learner-friendly language). Asking questions related to the development of personal skills. Asking questions to help sequence and scaffold the maker experiences. • Asking questions to help facilitate the use of peer support.

Using and Reviewing Essential Questions Essential questions are questions that are not answerable within a single lesson or with a brief sentence. Essential questions are designed “to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and to spark more questions, including thoughtful student questions, not just pat answers. They are provocative and generative. By tackling such questions, learners are engaged in uncovering the depth and richness of a topic that might otherwise be obscured by simply covering it” (McTighe & Wiggins, 2013, p. 3). As a part of the frontloading process, essential questions are explicitly discussed before maker activities begin. Some examples include • • • •

What are the attributes of having a maker mindset? What skills do you need to be an inventor? An engineer? What are the steps to the design process? How do inventors, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and/ or artists solve problems? How do they overcome challenges?

Using Scenarios Using scenarios as a form of frontloading can do wonders in stimulating learners’ creativity and imagination. Some relevant examples for maker education include • You have been hired to create an invention that brings kindness into the world. This invention will be shared with everyone in the United States. • The kids at the local homeless shelter or group home would love to have one of the latest and greatest of toys. Make them one of these.

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Specifying Standards Maker educators should make it a habit to introduce standards and explain what they mean in terms of the upcoming maker activities. Depending on the age of the learners, the standards should be stated in kid-friendly language. For example, they could use the Next Generation Science Standards: • Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost. • Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem (Next Generation Science Standards, n.d.). The International Society for Technology in Education revised their student standards to include an Innovative Designer category in which “students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.” The set of standards for this category are • Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts, or solving authentic problems. • Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks. • Students develop, test, and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process. • Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance, and the capacity to work with open-ended problems. (ISTE, 2019)

Asking Questions Related to the Development of Personal Skills The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (Battelle for Kids, n.d.) has identified learning and innovation skills that are increasingly recognized as skills students need to be prepared for the complex life and work environments of the 21st century.

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An emphasis on creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration is essential to prepare students for today’s world. To frontload a maker activity with a focus on the development of these skills, prepare students with a question such as “What personal attributes related to creativity, critical thinking, communication, and/or collaboration do you possess that will assist you during your maker activity?”

Asking Questions to Help Sequence and Scaffold the Maker Experiences Since the experiential learning cycle is based on cycling back to previous activities and learnings, the maker educator should—as part of the frontloading process—revisit and make connections to previous learning. This will help learners move forward with their existing knowledge and skills with the goal of developing skills to direct their own learning. When the educator scaffolds maker education activities, learners increase their skill and knowledge levels related to the learning goals of those experiences. For example, “In this next activity, you will be asked to . What skills did you learn in [previous activity] that will help you do in this upcoming activity? What skills do you want to learn/think you should learn to more effectively direct your own learning?”

Asking Questions to Help Facilitate the Use of Peer Support One of the central characteristics of maker education is a collaborative learning environment. Kurti, Kurti, and Fleming (2014) noted, “As the students collaborate to meet the challenge, they are both actively engaged in learning and teaching new concepts to each other” (p. 8). “The best companies, engineers, and researchers in the world know the power of teams—today’s science is not a solo sport. The challenges are simply too complex for any single individual to create the solution” (p. 11). Though collaboration often occurs naturally in maker education environments, it can still be facilitated through asking questions such as “How can you better collaborate with your co-learners during your next maker activity? How might you use your

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co-learners’ support if and when you get stuck or reach an impasse while working on the next activity?”

The Experience: Doing and Redoing The experience component of the experiential learning cycle is when learners actually engage in the work and do their making. It’s the “doing” step of the process. “Redoing” implies that the maker process is iterative. Often, students’ first attempts at a maker project—whether they are at the copy stage or the create stage— require tweaking. Sometimes, only a minor tweak is necessary. Sometimes, a major fix is required and beginning again is the best course of action. The idea of experience as part of the learning process is central to John Dewey’s beliefs about powerful education, and it is an integral part of the experiential learning cycle, which emphasizes that the nature of experience is fundamental to effective education. He believed that all experiences should be understood to be continuous. Each experience influences each future experience. It becomes the educator’s responsibility to structure and organize a series of experiences that positively influence each individual’s potential future experiences (Dewey, 1938/2007). In other words, “good experiences motivate, encourage, and enable students to go on to have more valuable learning experiences” (Neill, 2010, para. 16).

Reflecting on the Maker Experiences Reflecting deeply on what worked and what didn’t work during the doing phase—and exploring reasons why—is an integral component of this framework for maker education. When reflection becomes part of the maker education process, learning from direct experience is not left to chance. Reflection after the activity is just as important as how it is framed and often gets overlooked or cut out when time runs short. The educator becomes proactive in debriefing or processing the experiences to increase the chances that learning occurs.

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A recent research study published via Harvard Business Review concluded that • Learning from direct experience can be more effective if coupled with reflection—that is, the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience. • Reflecting on what has been learned makes experience more productive. • Reflection builds one’s confidence in the ability to achieve a goal (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn translates into higher rates of learning. (Di Stefano, Gino, Pisano, & Staats, 2016) Reflection is built into the process so learners can revisit their projects with a critical eye. Ensuring that a reflective piece is included in maker education helps learners develop their own criteria of excellence and evaluate their performance based on that criteria. The reflection process is as important as the making itself. John Dewey famously stated, “We don’t learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience.” The reflection process can be a form of making in itself. Educators may miss powerful learning opportunities if they gloss over the process and are not intentional and strategic about what was learned. Figure 7.3 shows a board game to help with the reflection process. Following the doing part of the maker activity, the educator can use this game to facilitate a discussion in order to help learners reflect on their maker experiences. As stated previously, reflection helps solidify the learning experience. Some of the benefits of using a board game such as this are • Games are inherently engaging for most people. • The questions provide prompts but are open enough to be personalized by learners. • The game promotes discourse and active listening. • The interactive structure of the game makes it fun for learners. Because of the success I’ve had with my own learners and in my PD workshops for teachers, I was motivated to create a similar

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tool for maker reflections. I created a set of reflection cards that I believe can facilitate deeper reflection (see Figure 7.4). Learners can randomly select and answer them with a partner or in a small group of fellow learners. Similar to the board game in Figure 7.3, these cards can be used following the doing–making part of the maker experience to facilitate learner reflection.

How did you either make something better or create something new?

START

Tell the group one thing you wished you had done differently during making your project.

You celebrated your progress and successes. Move ahead 3 spaces.

How were you resourceful in finding resources and materials for your maker project? You hurried through part of your making project. Go back 1 space.

How did you share your work and findings with others?

How and when did you show that you were open to new possibilities?

You kept working even when you made mistakes and had failures. Move ahead 2 spaces. Tell someone in your group something that impressed you about their maker project.

What new things did you learn while making your project?

When and how did you ask other people for feedback or to work with you?

You gave up before you tried out different making options. Move back 2 spaces.

You got way too frustrated or angry while making your proect. Go back 2 spaces.

You used lots Tell someone in your of resources in group what you liked creating your maker about how they project. Move created their ahead 1 space. maker project.

When and how did you accept failure as part of your making process?

A Maker Reflection: The Game

FIGURE 7.3

Tell a group member what you noticed about their making process.

FINISH!

I am a Powerful Maker

Tell the group the thing you are most proud of doing during making your project.

When and how did you play and have fun during making your project?

You asked your co-learners about their maker projects. Go ahead 1 space.

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FIGURE 7.4

Maker Reflection Cards

CHAPTER 8

Integrating Maker Experiences into the Curriculum As has been discussed throughout this book, maker education needs to be intentional. It follows, then, that if we want to bring maker education into more formal and traditional classrooms—as well as more informal environments such as afterschool and community programs—it needs to be integrated into the curriculum using lesson plans. This chapter begins with a discussion of the characteristics of an effective maker education curriculum and then suggests a lesson plan framework for maker education– enhanced lesson plans. A powerful maker education curriculum includes the following elements: • Instructional challenges are hands-on, experiential, and naturally engaging for learners. • Learning tasks are authentic and relevant, and they promote life skills outside of the formal classroom. • Challenges are designed to be novel and create excitement and joy for learners. • Learner choice and voice are valued. • Lessons address cross-curricular standards and are interdisciplinary (like life). 79

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• Learning activities get learners interested in and excited about a broad array of topics, especially in the areas of science, engineering, math, language arts, and fine arts. • Communication, collaboration, and problem solving are built into the learning process. • Reading and writing are integrated into learning activities in the form of fun, interesting books and stories and through writing original stories, narratives, and journalistic reports. • Educational technology is incorporated in authentic ways; the emphasis is not on learning technology just for the sake of learning it. • There is a natural building of social and emotional skills, such as tolerance for frustration, expression of needs, and working as a team. A way to be intentional is to use maker experiences to support content-area learning. Rather than relegating maker experiences to an afterschool program, add-on activity, or activity that is implemented only after students have finished their regular lessons, it should be part of the regular, day-to-day curriculum. Ayah Bdeir (2015), inventor of littleBits, has this to say about integrating maker education into the curriculum: It’s time for maker ed to move into the mainstream. Making should not be relegated to the times spent outside of class, e.g. lunch or after school. Nor should it only flourish in private schools, which don’t have to teach to standards. We need to work to show how making is a rigorous process that leads to valuable new technologies, products and experiences. Specifically, we need to tie maker projects to standards-based curriculum and show clearly the kinds of knowledge, skills and practices students learn as part of making. (para. 11) Albemarle County Public School District in North Carolina strives to integrate maker projects directly into the curriculum. Maker education activities can support just about any subject area, from language arts to science to history. Maker education

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can be a tool for teaching the curriculum that teachers already use, even though some maker projects may initially appear disconnected from the curriculum. “What may look like an arts and crafts activity, or just a bunch of kids playing with Legos, is actually a way to teach about ancient Rome or how to write a persuasive essay” (Edutopia, 2015, para. 8). To do this, though, educators need to approach their curriculum and lessons with a maker mindset. With this mindset, they can figure out creative ways to integrate maker activities into existing lessons and instructional activities. Educators in these situations start with the standards and objectives of their lessons, as they typically do with “regular” lessons, and then design or identify maker activities that meet the standards and the lesson. It simply becomes a matter of “How can I add a making element to my lessons to reinforce concepts being learned?” For subjects such as science, it is a little easier since the labs that often accompany science lessons already incorporate STEM or maker education. With a little tweaking, these labs can become a more relevant maker education type of activity. For example, if students are learning about circuits, they could wire cardboard model houses with lights and fans. For subjects such as language arts, this integration is a little more challenging. Nevertheless, with a little creativity, it is possible and exciting. An example of a lesson that uses maker education activities to support literacy skills can be found in Chapter 10. As an example of lesson plans that integrate language arts and hands-on maker-based activities, the Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach’s program Novel Engineering (www.novelengineering.org) is an innovative approach to integrate engineering and language arts in elementary and middle school using existing classroom literature—stories, novels, and expository texts—as the basis for engineering design challenges. These challenges help students identify problems, design realistic solutions, and engage in the engineering design process while reinforcing literacy skills. The benefits of this type of curriculum integration include all of the benefits of maker education but also include increased learner

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interest in and engagement with content-rich lesson activities. These activities may become a gateway to content areas for learners who have not shown much interest in that content area in the past. For example, making in language arts may spark a STEM interest among students who were previously only interested in language arts. To help integrate maker education into the curriculum, I have developed a lesson plan template to assist teachers with the process. Figure 8.1 provides a general structure for maker education lesson plans. The rest of the chapter includes more detailed descriptions of the lesson plan elements. Specific lesson examples using the lesson plan template can be found in Chapter 10.

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners Every lesson should be guided by a vision for the student learning outcomes. This vision and rationale become the umbrella for the rest of the lesson. It provides a big picture for the desirable essential learning and provides both the educator and learners with the reason for the lesson. There are several considerations to have in mind when drafting a vision and rationale: • What is the overarching purpose of this lesson? • What do you want the students to learn? • How does making enhance this lesson? How can it address and strengthen content-area learning? • Why is making an effective approach to this topic and these learning outcomes?

Student Needs, Interests, and Voice As discussed in Chapter 6, student voice is an important part of integrating maker education into the curriculum. Maker education is characterized as a learner-centric approach. As such, the educator should be intentional in ensuring their students’ needs, interests, and voices are incorporated into the lesson. Answering

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and addressing the following questions as lesson plans are being developed can assist with this: • What are the students’ interests and needs? • How are their voices incorporated into the development of this lesson?

FIGURE 8.1

Maker Education Lesson Plan Lesson Component Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners Student Needs, Interests, and Voice Standards Addressed Lesson Challenge Statement Materials and Tools Needed Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills Lesson Vocabulary Getting Started: The Hook Tinkering and Experimentation Direct Instruction of Skills and Knowledge Learner Planning Time Learner Creation Time Learner Sharing and Feedback Time Documenting Learning and Reflection Assessment Sharing Out

Lesson Details

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Standards Addressed .

Especially in more formal and traditional educational settings, the use of standards is expected and assumed. In fact, lots of administrators and teachers wouldn’t even consider a lesson “legitimate” unless standards were embedded into it. One of the strengths of maker education is that the activities tend to be cross curricular. Therefore, as lessons are developed, cross-curricular standards (including 21st century skills) should be identified and included. There are plenty of content standards and related online resources from which to identify standards for the lesson: • Science standards (see the Next Generation Science Standards at www.nextgenscience.org or your state standards). • Math standards (see the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice at www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice or your state standards). • Language arts standards (see the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts at www.corestandards.org/ ELA-Literacy or your state standards). • Social studies standards (see the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies at www.socialstudies.org/standards or your state standards). • Arts standards (see the National Core Arts Standards at www. nationalartsstandards.org or your state standards). • ISTE standards, which have been revised to include standards in the following categories: Empowered Learner, Digital Citizen, Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, Creative Communicator, and Global Collaborator. ISTE standards also have lots of potential connections to maker-enhanced lessons. (For detailed descriptions and sub-standards, see www.iste.org/standards/ for-students.) • Framework for 21st Century Learning standards also have lots of potential connections to maker education activities and reinforce the development of 21st century skills. Standards have been developed for global awareness; financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy; civic literacy;

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health literacy; environmental literacy; creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solving; communication; collaboration; information literacy; media literacy; ICT literacy; flexibility and adaptability; initiative and self-direction; social and cross-cultural skills; productivity and accountability; and leadership and responsibility. (For detailed descriptions, see www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p2.)

Lesson Challenge Statement The challenge statement is the challenge that learners will be asked to explore, dissect, and develop information and solutions. It encompasses the essential questions learners will be asked to explore. “These are questions that are not answerable with finality in a single lesson or a brief sentence—and that’s the point. Their aim is to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and to spark more questions, including thoughtful student questions, not just pat answers. They are provocative and generative” (McTighe & Wiggins, 2013, p. 3). The questions that should guide the development of this part of the lesson plan include • • • •

How will the maker lesson be framed or frontloaded? What is the big challenge for this activity? What essential questions do you want learners to explore? What overarching concepts do you want learners to investigate? • Is the challenge open and ill-defined so there are multiple opportunities for student interpretation, innovation, and creativity?

Materials and Tools Needed This is a list of all the tools and materials for the lesson, which is often extensive given the heavy use of materials and tools in maker education. The list needs to include all the consumable materials but also all the tools that students could possibly need. I tend to keep a fairly large amount of general supplies and tools on hand

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that students seem to use in many of their projects (e.g., tapes and glues, scissors and cutting knives, different types and colors of markers, LED lights, batteries, screwdrivers, hammers, soldering wands, dowels and toothpicks, wood and cardboard scraps, all kinds of paper).

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills These are the skills and knowledge that students should have gained or should know prior to the lesson. These skills are required for students to be successful. The educator should determine what skills and knowledge students need to use during the lesson that won’t necessarily be taught as part of the lesson. This may even be more important for maker-enhanced lessons as they are often driven by hands-on activities that require the use of tools. For example, will learners need to know how to use tools such as scissors, hammers, screwdrivers, and glue guns? Will they need to know how to use the internet to conduct research?

Lesson Vocabulary For this part of the lesson plan, you address the question “What vocabulary do you want learners to learn and use?” This list is posted somewhere that is easily accessible, such as on a whiteboard or Smartboard or via Google Classroom. At the conclusion of the lesson, students can be asked to use the vocabulary words as part of their final reflections.

Getting Started: The Hook This part of the lesson plan focuses on the question “What high-impact activity will you do to get learners excited about or hooked on the upcoming lesson?” Some ways to hook students’ attention and get started include • Video • Hands-On Demonstration • Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Simulation

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Online Virtual Simulation or Virtual Field Trip Live Guest Speaker (in person or via Skype/Google Hangouts) Game (analog or digital) Group Discussion about the Learning Challenge

Tinkering and Experimentation Tinkering means experimenting with materials and ideas to fully understand their capacities. “Tinkering is about hands-on experiences, learning from failures, and unstructured time to explore and invent. And through the processes of exploration and invention lies the potential for innovation” (Doorley, 2012, para. 6) Will learners benefit with some free-play tinkering with and exploring the materials before getting into the content of the lesson? If so, time and materials should be provided at the beginning of the lesson.

Direct Instruction of Skills and Knowledge This part of the lesson plan addresses the question “What, if any, knowledge and skills do you need to teach directly prior to the maker activity in order to build learners’ background language?” “Background knowledge is essential to comprehension, to making connections, and to understanding the big ideas” (Lent, 2012, pp. 47–48). This is in line with traditional teaching whereby the educator directly instructs learners about the knowledge and skills that will be needed for them to successfully navigate the lesson. However, unlike more traditional teaching, the educator can do so in a variety of ways. Lent (2012) suggests several ways to build background knowledge: 1. Use picture books to build background. Picture books include visuals that have the potential to access and activate other remembered images as well as elicit an emotional response. Deep learning often occurs through picture books due to their focus on a single story or topic.

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2. Virtually build background. “Websites allow students virtual experiences, such as listening to speeches or music from different eras; watching video clips or newscasts; or examining all sorts of primary documents” (Lent, 2012, p. 42). 3. Use direct experiences to build background. Marzano (2004) believes that direct experience is one of the best ways to build background knowledge. “The most straightforward way to enhance students’ academic background knowledge is to provide academically enriching experiences” (p. 14). With maker-enhanced lessons, this can be done through a simple hands-on activity or experiment. 4. Use reading to build background. This can include reading about current events either in print or online, exploring primary source documents, or reviewing technical manuals or books.

Learner Planning Time This is when learners research and plan what they will do for the maker challenge. It includes activities such as conducting research on similar projects, brainstorming ideas for the actual make, sketching out those ideas, and choosing what they believe is the best solution. Learners often want to jump into the process of actually making or creating without adequate planning.

Learner Creation Time During this time, learners create and try out several iterations of their ideas, if needed. As making is about creating new and unique projects, this part of the lesson should take the most time. Educators need to make sure that students are given enough time to create. Too often, in more traditional educational environments, a culture is developed whereby a lesson is finished and educators and learners move quickly on to the next lesson. It is important not to rush students through this part. The focus for this section, as well as maker-enhanced lessons as a whole, is to provide learners with the time and resources to contribute to their depth of learning.

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Learner Sharing and Feedback Time This is a time for learners to share what they are making with their peers, who then give feedback. This is a type of formative assessment and, if done periodically during the creation time, has the potential to dramatically improve the learners’ final products. Alrubail (2015) described the benefits of peer feedback: “In seeing that their peer feedback is relevant, students will be more engaged and invested in working to complete the task successfully. Peer feedback also gives students an opportunity to have their voices heard, and to listen to each other. It is often easier for us to understand concepts from people who are similar in age as we are” (para. 4).

Documenting Learning and Reflection This component of the lesson plan includes specific directions about how learners will document and reflect on their learning. (Documenting learning is discussed in more detail in Chapter 9.) Prompt learners to reflect on their learning with an assortment of the following questions: • What new skills have you learned because of the maker experience? • What are the most important learning moments you will take with you from this maker experience? • Would you do this or a similar maker project again? Why or why not? • Has this maker experience changed you? If yes, how? • Describe what you have learned about yourself as a result of your maker experience. • What would you like to change about your maker experience? • What were the benefits from your participation in this maker activity? • What surprised you the most during your maker experience? • What did you do that seemed to be effective? • What did you do that seemed to be ineffective?

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• What were the most difficult parts of the maker experience? Why? • What were the most satisfying parts of the maker experience? Why? • What personal characteristics made this maker experience successful for you? • Describe an awareness about a personal characteristic that has been enhanced by your maker experience. • How does the maker experience relate to your long-term goals? • How have you been challenged during the maker experience? • How do you feel about what you made? What parts of it do you particularly like or dislike? • What lessons can you learn from the maker experience? • What positives can you take away from the maker experience? • How can you apply what you learned from the maker experience to your life? • What advice would you give to someone else who is working on maker activities? • What did you learn through this experience and how can you use it in the future? • Looking back on your maker experience, what two things stand out to you the most? Why?

Assessment How will learners be assessed? (This is covered in more detail in Chapter 9, so only a rough outline is provided here.) Rubrics are qualitative statements of expectations about the processes and products related to the maker-enhanced lesson plan. They are often developed from the identified standards and objectives and can fall into two categories: (1) teacher-generated rubrics, or (2) student-generated rubrics. As maker-enhanced lessons often include the creation of some product or artifact, portfolios are a good option for assessing maker learning activities. The Maker Education Initiative (2016)

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has invested a lot of time and energy into developing and disseminating a process for integrating portfolios into maker education learning environments. They have written a guide entitled A Practical Guide to Open Portfolios, which can be found at https:// makered.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Maker-Ed-OPP-APractical-Guide-to-Open-Portfolios_final.pdf. These artifacts can be submitted to a blog or website (e.g., Google Sites, Weebly, Wordpress, Kidblogs) or to a teacher-administrated web portfolio platform (e.g., Seesaw, Bloomz).

Sharing Out As has been discussed, one of the central characteristics of the maker movement is the learning community that develops around it. This is true not only within a single classroom but also within the larger maker community. As such, you should include in your lesson plans how learners will share out what they learn with a larger maker education community. Will your students • Use social media? • Make presentations to local students and community members? • Seek news coverage? • Teach others? Integrating maker education into the curriculum does take some extra planning and effort. However, it is very feasible, especially if the following strategies are used: • Integrate maker education activities into existing lesson plans. • Take small steps toward creating maker-enhanced lessons. This might include adapting one part of a lesson at a time to include a making component. • Work with other educators to develop and implement makerenhanced lesson plans.

CHAPTER 9

Maker Education and Assessment

Reflection can and should lead directly into assessment. Institutionalized education has given assessment a bad reputation, and it often leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many teachers and students. This is primarily due to the testing movement—the push toward using student assessment in the form of tests as a measure of student, teacher, principal, and school accountability. Educators should be clear about how and why they include assessment in their instruction. They need to be strategic and intentional in its use. Assessment should be about informing learners about their performance so increased learning and future improvements can result. “Assessment is the process of gathering and discussing information from multiple and diverse sources in order to develop a deep understanding of what students know, understand, and can do with their knowledge as a result of their educational experiences; the process culminates when assessment results are used to improve subsequent learning” (Huba & Freed, 2000, p. 8). When control is given to students to direct their own learning within a maker education setting, then it follows that students should also be in charge of their assessments. One of the goals of maker education should be self-determined learning, which includes learners developing and engaging in their own personal 92

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and personalized forms of assessment. If students are to take charge of their learning, then they can’t assume a passive role in the assessment process. When students are left out of assessment considerations, they often lose all investment in the process. When that happens, we fail to leverage the best asset we have: the learners themselves. Consider for a moment what might happen if students were instead at the heart of the assessment process, using goals and results to fuel their own learning? (Frey, Fisher, & Hattie, 2018). As maker education infiltrates more formal educational settings, there has been and will continue to be efforts to include assessment in its implementation. It is important, though, to keep in mind the characteristics of maker education and the role assessment has within it. The act of making naturally generates evidence of learning. “The artifact that results, in addition to the process that a student works through, provides a wealth of evidence, indicators, and data of their learning. Assessment is critical for understanding the scope and impact of learning, as well as the associated teaching, environment, culture, and content” (Chang & Ratliff, 2016, para. 13). Assessing student learning is just part of being a teacher. It is a constant in all educational settings at all grades and with age levels. Evaluating maker education projects is qualitatively different than giving the kinds of tests that are typically used in traditional public schools. With maker education, assessment should expand from assessing the products (typical of traditional schools) to include assessing the processes of learning and the development of the soft skills associated with creativity, communication, collaboration, and problem solving. “For instance, one of the most important lessons maker education can teach is not to fear failure and to take mistakes and let them inform an iterative design process—a research-informed variation of ‘guess and check’ where students learn a process through a loop of feedback and evaluation” (USC Rossier School of Education, 2017, para. 2). Likewise, feedback and assessment need to look different from what is found in traditional classrooms. They need to be crafted to accurately document and encourage learning. Assessment in

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maker education settings should be student driven, whereby students evaluate their own work and learning progress. Self-assessments conducted by students become a valuable learning tool and part of the overall assessment process. Through self-assessment, students can • Identify their own skill gaps and areas where their knowledge is weak. • Identify where they need to focus their attention in learning. • Set realistic goals. • Revise their work. • Track their own progress. This helps students stay involved and motivated, and it encourages self-reflection and responsibility for learning. “Witnessing the wonders of making in education teaches us to foster an environment of growth and self-actualization by using forms of assessment that challenge our students to critique both their own work and the work of their peers. This is where the role of self-assessment begins to shine a light. Self-assessment can facilitate deeper learning as it requires students to play a more active role in the cause of their success and failures as well as practice a critical look at quality” (Flores, 2015, p. 44). This shift from teacher-driven to student-driven assessments obviously requires maker educators to change their attitudes and behaviors from being an assessor to teaching students how to be their own assessors. This may take a concerted effort, but it is worth every minute.

Documenting Learning Learners engaged in the self-assessment process should be asked to document their learning throughout their making process—not just at completion. When they document their practices throughout, not only do they learn more about the learning and making processes, they also get to experience the beauty of building shared knowledge. “Documentation is a hard task even for adults, but it is not so hard if [educators] design a reason and a consistent

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expectation that everyone will collect and organize the things they will share” (Tesconi, 2015, p. 36). Documenting learning can include one or a combination of the following methods: • • • • • •

Taking notes. Talking to a fellow learner or two. Making sketches. Taking photos. Making audio recordings. Making videos.

When educators ask their students to document their own learning, they help students develop an attitude and related skills that will become an organic and expected part of the process. Students tend to resist documentation when it feels added on without a clear reason. Educators, therefore, should help students consider how documentation and reflection can help them adapt and improve the projects they are working on. Students need to recognize the value of taking time to stop and think. Documenting learning during the making process serves several purposes related to assessment: • It acts as ongoing formative assessment. • It gives learners the message that the process of learning is as important as the products of learning. “The more students stop to think about their learning and document their progress, the more they focus on developing skills. They begin to advocate for themselves and articulate their needs as learners” (Tucker, 2018, para. 10).

Maker Project Reflections Because many students haven’t had the experience of reflection and self-assessment, they might need to be eased into the process. I ask my above-level students to blog about their reflections after almost all of their maker education activities. They take pictures of their makes, and I ask them to discuss what they thought they

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did especially well and what they would do differently in a similar future make. See Figures 9.1 and 9.2 for some examples.

FIGURE 9.1

Reflecting on the Toy Making Process 1

In my game, you are a remote control bunny named William and you have to find your way back to your owner. But you look very realistic and there is a hunry pack of wolves waiting in your way. You must outsmart them and get home safe. I am most proud of the goal of the game. I think it is very clever and it would be a very fun game. I would improve the outcome of when you beat the wolves, for example, maybe go again and use your coins to make William a better and faster bunny.

Teacher and Peer Feedback Learners’ peers and their educators can view their products, documented learning, and reflections in order to provide additional feedback. Their role as a feedback provider differs from an assessor. Feedback in maker education settings revolves around what the feedback giver thinks is working and not working, and it includes questions they have about the maker’s process and products, along with recommendations for improvement. Because it is feedback—not an assessment—learners are encouraged to take what they think will be of value and discard what they think is not.

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FIGURE 9.2

Reflecting on the Toy Making Process 2

In this blog I will discuss my prototype game, Rabbit Run. The aim of the game is, as a rabbit, to run through a forest without being shot by hunters. Other obstacles are natural occurrences in the forests such as predators, forest fires, and floods. Rabbit run is a simplistic game, and that is what I am most proud of in my game. The pure simplicity in the concept of the game is possibly what would make it so enticing. What I would change in the future is adding more to the bare structure of my simplistic game, but overall I think this has a good potential.

A culture of learning is established within a maker education community that sees peer feedback offered and accepted on an ongoing basis. With this type of openness and transparency, individualized feedback benefits everyone. All students can learn from what worked and didn’t work, which in turn helps them with their own makes.

The Use of Assessment Rubrics “While many teachers are excited about the maker movement and may even be creating projects for their classrooms, assessment can be puzzling even to veteran classroom teachers. How can

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teachers prove that deep, rich learning is occurring through making? How do we justify a grade to students and parents alike?” (Yokana, 2015, para. 1) A well-crafted rubric can provide proof that learning has occurred and help students develop skills for self-assessment. Due to the many dimensions of making, both process-related and product-related rubrics should be designed. The process elements are connected to how students worked during the making, whereas the product elements focus on the final products the students created. Maker education values both process and product, so both should be included. Figure 9.3 shows an example rubric that was written for student voice and input. Obviously, it should be modified for specific grade levels, for the overall goals of the project, and for the types of projects students are making. Assessment should be an ongoing process, so students should visit the rubric at regular intervals during their project. In this way, the rubric acts as a formative assessment, allowing students to reflect on their performance and change course, if desired. Another option is to have learners create their own assessment rubrics. This supports the goal of self-determined learning. There are online rubric generators (e.g., http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ index.php and https://rubric-maker.com) students can use to create their own rubrics. They can also be given a checklist of possible general criteria for their assessments and asked to develop descriptions of those items for their own rubrics based on the goals for their maker project: • • • • • • • • • •

Effort and Tenacity Engagement and Enjoyment of the Maker Project Originality Expression and Creativity Materials Management Dealing with Frustration and Failures Usefulness Craftsmanship and Attractiveness Resolution and Completion Collaboration

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FIGURE 9.3

Example Maker Project Rubric Unsatisfactory

Proficient

Exemplary

Effort and Tenacity How much effort and stick-to-itness did you put into your project?

I didn’t really put in much effort.

I put in enough effort to satisfactorily finish the project.

I put in a lot of effort. I worked even harder when things got difficult.

Use of Materials and Tools Did you safely use the materials? Did you use the materials in ways that supported your making project?

I wasn’t very safe, careful, and/or organized with my materials.

I managed my materials, in general, keeping them organized and using them correctly and safely.

I was very intentional in the use of tools and materials. I made sure I used them correctly and safely, and I kept them organized.

Engagement, Dedication, and Enjoyment Did you enjoy making your project? Were you fully engaged and dedicated to it?

I really didn’t like or enjoy doing my maker project.

I thought the activity was mostly fun and engaging.

I really enjoyed doing my project, and I felt engaged throughout the project. I was dedicated to its successful completion.

Emotional Management Did you successfully manage any frustrations that occurred during your project?

I got frustrated during my maker project, which caused me to lose my temper and/or give up.

When I got frustrated, I felt like giving up and did for a little bit of time but ended up coming back to my project.

I used effective coping strategies, such as taking a time out or asking for help when I got frustrated.

Documentation of Learning How did you document your learning throughout your project creation?

I didn’t document my learning.

I took pictures, made videos, made sketches, and/or wrote notes during my maker project.

I took lots of photos and videos, made lots of sketches, and wrote copious notes to fully document my maker project process.

Collaboration How well did you work with your colearners?

I didn’t work with others during my maker project.

I worked with others periodically during my maker project.

I worked with a partner or small group during my maker project.

(continued)

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FIGURE 9.3

Example Maker Project Rubric (continued) Unsatisfactory

Proficient

Exemplary

Feedback How well did you give and receive feedback?

I didn’t give or receive any feedback.

I periodically asked for and gave feedback during my maker project.

I gave and received feedback throughout my entire maker project process.

Expression and Creativity Do you think your project demonstrates the best of your personal expression and creativity?

I don’t believe my maker project was creative, nor do I believe it reflected my personal expression.

I was satisfied with how creative my maker project was and how it reflected my personal expression.

I was very pleased with my creativity and personal expression during my maker process.

Craftsmanship and Attractiveness Do you have pride in your work? Is your project attractive, and does it show craftsmanship?

My maker project was sloppy and/ or not attractive.

My maker project was neat and attractive.

I was very satisfied with the craftsmanship of my project, and I believe it was attractive, neat, and complete.

Usefulness Does your final product answer questions, solve a problem, or meet a need?

There was no usefulness to my maker project.

I found that my maker project was useful in terms of helping me answer a question, solve a problem, or meet a personal need.

I think my maker project has usefulness to people in addition to me. It has the potential to meet a need or solve a problem that others might have.

Concept and Knowledge Acquisition What new things did you learn? What new skills did you acquire? What related content standards did you learn?

I didn’t learn any new skills or knowledge.

I learned some new things and developed some new skills.

I am really excited about all the new things and skills I learned during my maker project.

Maker Education and Assessment

• Giving and Receiving Feedback • Knowledge and Concepts Learning Related to Content Standards • Reflection

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CHAPTER 10

Example Maker Education Lessons

As discussed, if maker education activities aren’t integrated into an already existing curriculum, maker education as a whole may just become another passing educational fad. This chapter presents sample lessons that show how maker education activities can take on many forms and that demonstrate how maker education can support cross-curricular standards and goals. The following lessons use the lesson plan template shown and discussed in Chapter 8.

Design Thinking Meets Maker Education This lesson has learners explore and create projects to help develop their design thinking skills. Figure 10.1 provides an overview, and a more detailed explanation of the lesson follows. The following sections describe this lesson plan in more detail. Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners: Design thinking is an approach to learning that addresses real-world problems, research, analysis, original ideas, and experimentation. Often, it also involves building things by hand. Design-thinking projects help students learn how to make products, use tools, have 102

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FIGURE 10.1

Design Thinking Lesson Plan Using Gamibots and Squishy Circuits Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners

This lesson focuses on having students understand and develop skills for design thinking using Gamibots and Squishy Circuits. The goal is for the learners to work on their own, incorporating self-selected problems in which they will apply the design thinking.

Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice

Even though this lesson contains more structured projects, they are open ended enough for learners to develop projects based on their own ideas.

Standards Addressed

Standards addressed by this lesson include those from the Next Generation Science Standards, ISTE Standards, and 21st Century Skills. (See the more detailed descriptions for the specific standards.)

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

none

Lesson Vocabulary

design thinking, empathy, engineering, iteration, communication

Lesson Challenge Statement

How can you use your empathy to design a project for another person?

Materials Required

Activity 1 (Gamibots): blank business cards, small motor, coin batteries, cardstock, markers, googly eyes Activity 2 (Squishy Circuits): modeling clay, LED lights, 9V battery, 9V battery terminal

Getting Started

Watch The Engineering Process: Crash Course Kids #12.2.

Direct Instruction

Each activity will be introduced separately. Once Activity 1 (Gamibots) is completed, Activity 2 (Squishy Circuits) will be introduced. Activity 1: Use https://otherlab.com/blog/ post/howtoons-gami-bot Activity 2: Use tutorials found at www.makereducation.com/squishy-circuits.html

Tinkering and Experimentation

Activity 2: Following the tutorial on Squishy Circuits, learners will get an opportunity to tinker and experiment with them prior to being introduced to the design challenge.

(continued)

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FIGURE 10.1

Design Thinking Lesson Plan Using Gamibots and Squishy Circuits (continued) Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Planning Time

Activity 1: Learners are given time to develop the backstory for the Gamibots, giving their Gamibots a personality, and creating an environment for the Gamibot out of cardstock and art supplies. Activity 2: Learners are given time to interview and plan Squishy Circuits for their partners.

Creation Time

Learners are given enough time for each activity in order to fully complete it, especially given that they may need to do multiple iterations of the project.

Sharing and Feedback Time

Students utilize a show-and-tell format to present their projects to the class. Students should also field questions from their peers.

Documentation and Reflection

Students take photos of the design projects they made for their classmates and then discuss their process.

Lesson Assessment

Maker Project Rubric (see chapter 9, page 99)

Sharing Out

Students can share their highlights via a blog post or another form of social media. You can also share highlights via your own blog posts and social media accounts.

empathy for others, solve challenges, overcome setbacks, and stay motivated during long-term problem solving. The projects also help students “build on the ideas of others, vet sources, generate questions, deeply analyze topics, and think creatively and analytically. Many of those same qualities are goals of the Common Core State Standards” (Schwartz, 2013, para 8). This lesson focuses on having students understand and develop skills for design thinking. Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice: Even though this lesson contains more structured projects, they are open ended enough for learners to develop projects based on their own ideas.

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Standards Addressed: Next Generation Science Standards (www.nextgenscience.org) Defining and Delimiting Engineering Problems • The more precisely a design task’s criteria and constraints can be defined, the more likely it is that the designed solution will be successful. Specification of constraints includes consideration of scientific principles and other relevant knowledge that are likely to limit possible solutions. Developing Possible Solutions • A solution needs to be tested, and then modified on the basis of the test results, in order to improve it. • There are systematic processes for evaluating solutions with respect to how well they meet the criteria and constraints of a problem. • Sometimes parts of different solutions can be combined to create a solution that is better than any of its predecessors. • Models of all kinds are important for testing solutions. Optimizing the Design Solution • Although one design may not perform the best across all tests, identifying the characteristics of the design that performed the best in each test can provide useful information for the redesign process—that is, some of those characteristics may be incorporated into the new design. • The iterative process of testing the most promising solutions and modifying what is proposed on the basis of the test results leads to greater refinement and ultimately to an optimal solution. ISTE Standards (www.iste.org/standards/for-students) • Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems. • Students develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.

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• Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems. 21st Century Standards (www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/ frameworks-resources) • • • • • •

Think creatively. Work creatively with others. Implement innovations. Make judgments and decisions. Solve problems. Collaborate with others.

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills: None. Lesson Vocabulary: design thinking, empathy, engineering, iteration, communication Lesson Challenge Statement: This is done by presenting learners with the essential question “How can you use your empathy to design a project for another person?” Materials Required: • Activity 1 (Gamibots): business cards, small motor, coin batteries, cardstock, markers, googly eyes • Activity 2 (Squishy Circuits): modeling clay, Play-Doh, LED lights, 9V battery, 9V battery terminal Getting Started: Show the following video to students: The Engineering Process: Crash Course Kids #12.2 (found at www.youtube. com/watch?v=fxJWin195kU). Activity 1: An Environment for a Gamibot Direct Instruction: Frontload content with the question “Why is empathy important in design thinking?” Lead students through creating a Gamibot (see https://otherlab.com/blog/post/howtoons-gami-bot). With available art materials (e.g., markers, googly eyes), have students decorate the Gamibot. Planning Time: Have students develop a backstory for their Gamibots, giving them a personality. This is reported via a blog post, a podcast, or video. Students then design an environment

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for their Gamibots out of cardstock and art supplies. They should be encouraged to make sure it fits their Gamibots backstory by designing an environment that is tailored for their Gamibot. Creation Time: Learners are given enough time to fully complete the project, especially given that they may need to do multiple iterations of it. Sharing and Feedback Time: In a show-and-tell format, have learners explain why their Gamibots fit their environments. During their presentations, learners field questions from their peers. Documentation and Reflection: Have students take photos of their creations and write/blog about them using the vocabulary for this lesson. See Figure 10.2 for an example reflection. Activity 2: Squishy Circuits—Designing for a Human Being Direct Instruction: Say, “Now you are going to design a Squishy Circuit product based on the specifications given to you by a classmate or the client, including the type of product, its size to scale, the color of the conductive clay, the color of the insulating clay, and the number and colors of the LED lights.” Lead learners through the steps of creating a Squishy Circuit. Resources can be found at www.makereducation.com/squishy-circuits.html. Tinkering and Experimentation: Following the tutorial on Squishy Circuits, learners will get an opportunity to tinker and experiment with them prior to being introduced to the design challenge. Planning Time: Have partners decide who will be the designer and who will have a product designed for him or her: the client. The designer should find out the following from his or her partner or client: • What do you want me to build? • What size do you want it to be? It needs to be scaled in some way. • What color clay? How many and what color LED lights? The designer should construct the design while the client gives feedback. The client is not permitted to touch the Squishy Circuit during the design process. After completion, roles are switched.

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FIGURE 10.2

Example Gamibot, House, and Reflection

Creation Time: Learners are given enough time to fully complete the project, especially given that they may need to do multiple iterations of it. Sharing and Feedback Time: In a show-and-tell format, students should explain how their projects meet the requirements set forth by the clients. Each student should field questions from their peers. Documentation and Reflection: Have students take photos of the design projects they made for their classmates and then discuss their process. An example can be seen in Figure 10.3.

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Lesson Assessment: The final projects are assessed by the students, their peers, and/or the teacher using a rubric similar to the one found in Chapter 9 (page 99). Sharing Out: Have students share their highlights via a blog post or another form of social media (e.g., Instagram, Twitter). You, as the teacher, can also share highlights via your own blog posts and social media accounts (which I do with my own students and their projects).

FIGURE 10.3

Squishy Circuit Design and Reflection

Social Entrepreneurship: A STEAM Unit This lesson asks learners to choose a product to make, market, and sell in order to raise money for a local nonprofit organization.

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Figure 10.4 provides an overview of the lesson. A more detailed explanation of the lesson then follows. The following section describes this lesson plan in more detail. Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners: The goal is to assist learners in developing an entrepreneurial mindset and skills along with the creativity and innovation that comes with these skills. Entrepreneurship activities benefit students from all socioeconomic backgrounds because they help build unconventional talents and skills. Entrepreneurship “creates opportunity, ensures social justice, instills confidence, and stimulates the economy. Because entrepreneurship can, and should, promote economic opportunity, it can serve as an agent of social justice. . . . Furthermore, entrepreneurship has historically spurred minorities, women, and immigrants to create better lives for themselves and their families” (Rodov & Truong, 2015, paras. 3, 7). Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice: Student voice becomes part of the lesson as the learners get to choose the types of products they would like to make, market, and sell. Standards Addressed: Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) Mathematics • Represent and interpret data. English Language Arts • Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace. ISTE Standards (www.iste.org/standards/for-students) • Students use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning. • Students use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints.

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FIGURE 10.4

Social Entrepreneurship Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners

To have learners develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skills along with the creativity and innovation that comes with these skills.

Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice

Student voice becomes part of the lesson as the learners get to choose the types of products they would like to make, market, and sell.

Standards Addressed

Standards for this lesson include: ISTE Standards, 21st Century Skills, Common Core State Standards for Math and ELA. (See the more detailed description for the specific standards.)

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

Use of Google apps - docs and sheets.

Lesson Vocabulary

entrepreneur, product, cost analysis, budget, marketing

Lesson Challenge Statement

What are the benefits for you now and in the future of engaging in social entrepreneurship projects?

Materials Required

Depends on the products learners decide to make and sell.

Getting Started

Watch the video Entrepreneurship: It’s a Fact. Play online games that focus on entrepreneurship. Begin reading Kidpreneurs.

Tinkering and Experimentation

Depends on the products learners decide to produce and sell.

Planning and Creation Time

There are a series of activities for this entrepreneurship lesson that require both planning and creation time: Market Survey, Expense Form, Business Plan, Promotional Flyer, Product Creation and Distribution, Sales Record.

Sharing and Feedback Time

Learners work in small teams to create the documents required for the lesson. For each document, teams share their work with one another for feedback and revision suggestions.

Documentation and Reflection

Learners create a presentation that includes all their artifacts and comments about what they learned from creating them (as well as how they met the student-friendly version of the content standards for the lesson).

Sharing Out

The learners prepare and send out a press release inviting the local news media to cover this story.

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• Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal. • Students explore local and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions. 21st Century Skills (www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/ frameworks-resources) • Understand the role of the economy in society. • Use entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options. • Think creatively. • Work creatively with others. • Implement innovations. • Make judgments and decisions. • Solve problems. • Collaborate with others. Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills: Use of Google apps, such as Google Docs and Google Sheets. Lesson Vocabulary: entrepreneur, product, cost analysis, budget, marketing Lesson Challenge Statement: Students explore the social entrepreneurship projects of students from Fair Haven, CT (found at www. fairhaveninnovates.com), and are presented with the essential question “What are the benefits for you now and in the future of engaging in social entrepreneurship projects?” Materials Required: It depends on what projects the students decide to make and sell. Getting Started: Have students watch Entrepreneurship: It’s a Fact (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8z3OM8iwSU). Then have them play online games that focus on entrepreneurship: • Lemonade Stand: www.coolmath-games. com/0-lemonade-stand • Coffee Shop: www.coolmath-games.com/0-coffee-shop • Building Rush: www.coolmath-games.com/0-building-rush

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• Cookie Tycoon: www.addictinggames.com/strategy-games/ cookietycoon.jsp • The Uber Game: https://ig.ft.com/uber-game Begin reading Kidpreneurs (the free book can be ordered at https://kidpreneursbook.com/free-book) and doing exercises from the accompanying workbook. These readings and exercises are continued throughout the unit as a form of direct instruction. Activity 1: Market Survey Based on their own interests and hobbies (and with the help of the Kidpreneur workbook), learners decide on possible products they could sell, add possible organizations where profits would go, and develop a market survey from this information. Learners request that their respective classes and family members take the survey. (See Figure 10.5 for an example from one group of students and Figure 10.6 for an example of the results.) In this example, the school community decided to make and sell stress balls, glitter slime, and parachute cord bracelets and then donate the profits to Pete’s Place, a center that serves the homeless. Students tested out making these products—different sizes and types of bracelets and different slime recipes—to discover which would be best for production. Activity 2: Expense Form Students use Google Sheets to create their budgets and expense forms. For my students, I act as a bank and purchase the materials for them to make stress balls and slime. I save the receipts, make copies of them, and have each learner create his or her spreadsheet to record expenses (see Figure 10.7). Activity 3: Business Plan From all this information, learners develop a business plan using a template simplified for kids (http://bizkids.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Kids-Business-Plan.pdf). It should include • • • •

A business name. Startup costs. Item costs. Marketing strategies.

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FIGURE 10.5

Market Survey

Activity 4: Promotional Flyer Students create a promotional flyer using Google Docs. (See Figure 10.8 for an example.) If your school has a color printer, print them out in color to post throughout the school. Students can then visit different classrooms to present their project plan and objects for sale. Activity 5: Product Creation and Distribution In this example and based on their orders, students made their stress balls, slime, and parachute cord bracelets. They then return to the classrooms to distribute the products and collect money. Activity 6: Sales and Record Sheet Students should also create this document—the order form (see Figure 10.9)—so they can track their orders. Sharing and Feedback Time: Learners work in small teams to create the documents required for this lesson. For each document, teams share their work with one another for feedback and revision suggestions.

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FIGURE 10.6

Market Survey Results

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FIGURE 10.7

Sample Budget

Documentation and Reflection: Learners create a presentation that includes all their artifacts and comments about what they learned from creating each of those artifacts, as well as how they met the student-friendly version of the content standards for this lesson (which were introduced during the frontloading step of the lesson). Sharing Out: Because of the service-oriented nature of this project, it has special connections to the town in which the nonprofit is situated. As a result, learners can prepare a press release to send to local news sources. Here is an example of a press release written and distributed by a group of students who participated in this lesson: The 5th and 6th grade gifted students raised money for Pete’s Place, also known as the Interfaith Community Shelter,

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which offers hope and a safe place for anyone who is homeless or vulnerable as they overcome adversity. ICS is more than an overnight shelter for those who do not have a place to sleep. Students surveyed the student body about what products they would buy and what charity they would give the money to. The student body voted on bracelets, stress balls, and slime, and they also picked Pete’s Place to give the money to. Students in the gifted class made and sold the products with love and pride. They ended up raising over $250 in profits after they paid off their debt. “It was hard work, but I know it’s going to be worthwhile when we give the money to Pete’s Place,” said one of the students.

FIGURE 10.8

Sample Promotional Flyer

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FIGURE 10.9

Sample Order Form

Maker-Enhanced Writers’ Workshop The following lesson describes how creative writing can be enhanced with maker activities. Figure 10.10 provides an overview of the lesson. A more detailed explanation of the lesson then follows. The following section describes this lesson plan in more detail. Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners: The vision for this lesson revolves around having learners embrace and enjoy the creative writing and storytelling processes through a variety of activities, which incorporate the arts, transmedia, and technology. Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice: Student voice is integral to the success of their projects, and all parts of this lesson—from character and plot development to creating scenes for their stories—are based on their own imagination and ideas. Standards Addressed: Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org)

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FIGURE 10.10

Maker-Enhanced Writers’ Workshop Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners

The vision for this lesson revolves around having learners embrace and enjoy the creative writing and storytelling processes through a variety of activities, which incorporate the arts, transmedia, and technology.

Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice

Student voice is integral to the success of their projects, and all parts of this lesson are based on students’ imagination and ideas.

Standards Addressed

Standards addressed by this lesson include those from the Common Core State Standards, ISTE Standards, and National Arts Standards. (See the more detailed descriptions for the specific standards.)

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

Students need to have basic writing skills.

Lesson Vocabulary

characters, setting, plot, conflict, climax, resolution, dialogue

Lesson Challenge Statement

What does it take to be a master storyteller?

Materials Required

Computers with a connection to the internet; miscellaneous art supplies (e.g., construction paper, cardboard, markers, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, markers, yarn); micro:bits, and/or Makey-Makeys.

Getting Started

Learners are shown the video World & Character.

Direct Instruction

The National Novel Writing Month’s Young Novelist Workbook is used to provide direct instruction and guidance during the writing process.

Planning and Creation Time

Each activity has its own instructional, planning, and creation time.

Sharing and Feedback Time

Throughout the story creation process, learners share their different components (characters, plots, settings) to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.

Documentation and Reflection

Students are asked to create their own rubrics or checklists based on the Common Core State Standards.

Sharing Out

Learners include all the artifacts for their stories via a blog post and share them out via social media.

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• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. • With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. • Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting. ISTE Standards (www.iste.org/standards/for-students) • Students use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning. • Students use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts, or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints. • Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal. National Arts Standards (www.nationalartsstandards.org) • Artistically literate citizens use a variety of artistic media, symbols and metaphors to independently create and perform work that expresses and communicates their own ideas, and are able to respond by analyzing and interpreting the artistic communications of others. Prerequisite Skills and Knowledge: Students need to have basic writing skills. They need to know how to write clear and coherent sentences and paragraphs and be able to develop a voice for their story characters.

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Lesson Vocabulary: characters, setting, plot, conflict, climax, resolution, dialogue Lesson Challenge Statement: What does it take to be a master storyteller? Present students with this scenario: “You have been hired by a company such as Pixar to write a story with likeable characters and an exciting plot. You will also design the setting for the story. As is true for film and animation companies, you will need to work as a team to create these elements.” Materials Required: Computers with a connection to the internet; miscellaneous art supplies (e.g., construction paper, cardboard, markers, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, markers, yarn); micro:bits, and/or Makey-Makeys. Getting Started: Learners are shown the video World & Character (www.youtube.com/watch?v=tREPH6hJsYg), available from Khan Academy and part of the Pixar in a Box program. If learners have access to mobile devices, they can play with the Toontastic app to learn about story elements (https://toontastic.withgoogle.com). Direct Instruction: The National Novel Writing Month’s Young Novelist Workbook (found at https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/ writer-resources#workbooks) is used to provide direct instruction and guidance during the writing process. There are workbooks for elementary, middle, and high school levels. Activity 1: Character Development Students use the National Novel Writing Month’s Young Novelist Workbook to guide their character development and write in detail about their character. To bring in maker education principles and make their characters come to life, students (1) create artistic depictions of their characters by drawing and/or making sculptural representations using art materials (see Figure 10.11), and (2) use Scratch to code interactive elements that describe key facts about their characters. After learners draw and make their characters, they attach them to a piece of cardstock (file folders work well for this). Six holes are punched along the bottom—five for facts and one for the Makey Makey ground wire (see Figure 10.12). Large brass

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fasteners are inserted so that one of the fastener legs is bent, which holds it in place, and the other hangs over the edge. This permits the connection between the object and the Makey Makey. Students then choose five facts about their character—one fact for each of the Makey Makey keys. These facts are made via text-tospeech blocks. Students can even change accents and languages with these blocks (see Figures 10.13 and 10.14). More about this activity can be found at https://labz.makeymakey.com/cwists/ preview/1506-biography-bottlesx.

FIGURE 10.11

Character Descriptions

Alexa Martinez is fourteen years old. She has shoulder length brown hair. Alexa lives in Los Angeles California. Alexa likes to dance and do cheerleading. Her favorite food is pepperoni pizza. Her favorite movie is “Leap!” because she likes to dance. Her favorite TV show is “Cheer Squad”. Her favorite book is “Wonder by R. J. Palacio.” Alexa can do cheerleading better than anyone. Alexa has a sister named Judy Martinez/Judy Juice. They live with Judy’s best friend Victoria in a nice, big mansion. Alexa’s and Judy’s parents left to North Carolina to keep their careers as an actress and professional ice cream taster. her sister is a singer actress and Victoria is a singer along with Judy.

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FIGURE 10.12

Cardboard Character Depictions Prepared for Makey-Makey Circuits

FIGURE 10.13

Using Scratch to Code Character Descriptions

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FIGURE 10.14

Scratch Code for Using a Makey-Makey to Describe a Character

Activity 2: Plot Development Have students group themselves by similarity of their characters. They should form groups of two to four. The groups then spend time developing their story plots using the activities from the National Novel Writing Month’s Young Novelist Workbook. Act as a sounding board, and give feedback as needed. Representatives from each group can pitch their stories and then return to their groups to report on the feedback you provide. To reinforce the elements of plot and help students include transmedia elements, students should use an online graphic organizer (e.g., the story cube creator found at www.readwritethink. org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/cube-creator-30850. html or the plot diagram found at www.storyboardthat.com/ articles/e/plot-diagram). See Figure 10.15 for an example of a plot organizer. Activity 3: Creating a 3D Setting In conjunction with plot development, students can create a real-life storyboard setting using art supplies and a programmable robotic kit such as littleBits, LEGO WeDo, Makey Makey, Arduino,

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or Hummingbird. They can also create a virtual version of that setting using CoSpaces Edu, which provides a blank canvas that is the perfect place for kids to let their imagination unfold (see https:// cospaces.io/edu/3d-creation.html). Students can go even further and add code to make their spaces lively (see Figure 10.16).

FIGURE 10.15

Example Storyboard Beginnings

FIGURE 10.16

3D Virtual Reality Story Setting Using CoSpaces

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Activity 4: Putting it All Together Students make e-books using their storylines and plots, scanned sketches and images of their characters, and their 3D virtual creations. Options that allow students to upload images of their characters and photos of their settings include Book Creator and Mixbook. Sharing and Feedback Time: Throughout the story creation process, learners will share the different components they create— characters, plots, settings—to get feedback and suggestions for improvement from their peers. Documentation and Reflection: Students are asked to create their own rubrics or checklists based on the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. They then use that rubric to assess their group’s work. Keep the following standards in mind: • Write narratives to develop imagined experiences and events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. • Develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, and trying a new approach. • Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others. Sharing Out: Learners include all the artifacts for their stories via a blog post and share them out via social media.

Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) Interdisciplinary Lesson The following interdisciplinary lesson focuses on the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) holiday. Figure 10.17 provides an overview of the lesson. A more detailed explanation of the lesson then follows. The following sections describe this lesson plan in more detail.

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FIGURE 10.17

Day of the Dead Interdisciplinary Lesson Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners

Teachers should help students become global citizens and facilitate learning about other cultures.

Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice

Students write their own personalized Day of the Dead stories and then create displays (ofrendas) based on those stories.

Standards Addressed

Standards addressed by this lesson include those from the Common Core State Standards, 21st Century Skills. Next Generation Science Standards, and National Arts Standards. (See the more detailed descriptions for the specific standards.)

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills

Google Docs

Lesson Vocabulary

Día de los Muertos, ofrenda, calavera, parallel circuits

Lesson Challenge Statement

The teacher facilitates a group discussion using the following questions: • Who has any relatives or friends from Mexico or other countries in Central or South America? • Who has seen the movie Coco? What is it about? What did you like about it? • What do you know about Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, Día de los Muertos?

Materials Required

Depends on the activity; see the more detailed description of each activity.

Getting Started

Students watch videos and explore online resources about Day of the Dead.

Tinkering and Experimentation

Students’ displays can include a micro:bit microcontroller, so they should be given time to tinker and experiment with them.

Direct Instruction

Direct instruction and/or tutorials are provided for each of the activities.

Planning and Creation Time

Learners begin by writing a story about Day of the Dead. They then create displays using micro:bits or sugar skulls.

Sharing and Feedback Time

Individual groups of students share their stories via a projector with the class in order to get feedback about how to make their stories better and more understandable. (continued)

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FIGURE 10.17

Day of the Dead Interdisciplinary Lesson (continued) Lesson Component

Lesson Details

Documentation and Reflection

Learners take photos of all their artifacts, upload them to a blog or website, and discuss their processes.

Assessment Strategies

Students reflect via small-group discussions or blog posts.

Sharing Out

Students’ stories and ofrendas are displayed at a central location so they can be viewed by the entire school community.

Vision and Rationale for the Lesson and Learners: Because of the cultural heritage of my students and because I find the Day of the Dead holiday so intriguing and beautiful (the movie Coco helped bring its beauty to a wider audience), I find this to be one of my most popular lessons. I also believe that teachers should help their students become global citizens and facilitate learning about other cultures. As such, I decided to focus on having students create Día de los Muertos stories and displays (ofrendas). Incorporating Student Needs, Interests, and Voice: Students write their own personalized Día de los Muertos stories and then create displays (ofrendas) based on those stories. Standards Addressed: Common Core State Standards (www.corestandards.org) • Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. Next Generation Science Standards (www.nextgenscience.org) • Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

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• Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem. • Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred. National Arts Standards (www.nationalartsstandards.org) • Artistically literate citizens use a variety of artistic media, symbols, and metaphors to independently create and perform work that expresses and communicates their own ideas and are able to respond by analyzing and interpreting the artistic communications of others. 21st Century Skills (www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/ frameworks-resources) • Using 21st century skills to understand and address global issues. • Learning from and working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions, and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work, and community contexts. • Understanding other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages. • Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts). • Elaborate, refine, analyze, and evaluate their own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts. • Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts). • Elaborate, refine, analyze, and evaluate their own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts. Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills: Ability to use and share Google Docs Lesson Vocabulary: Día de los Muertos, ofrenda, calavera, parallel circuits

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Lesson Challenge Statement: The teacher facilitates a group discussion using the following questions: • Who has any relatives or friends from Mexico or other countries in Central or South America? • Who has seen the movie Coco? What is it about? What did you like about it? • What do you know about Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, Día de los Muertos? Materials Required: The various materials are described in each activity. Getting Started: To introduce and show students the traditions related to Day of the Dead, give time to explore the Smithsonian Latino Center’s Theater of the Dead (found at http://latino.si.edu/ dayofthedead), which includes an interactive activity that allows students to build their own ofrenda. Also show the following videos: • Day of the Dead: Flavor and Tradition: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=rdlL45ljkEY • What is Day of the Dead? (National Geographic): https://youtu. be/_sSawpU81cI • Dia de los Muertos (Film School Shorts): https://youtu.be/-v41wFEzM0 Tinkering and Experimentation: Students’ displays can include a micro:bit microcontroller, so they should be given time to tinker and experiment with them. Activity 1: Writing a Story about Day of the Dead Planning and Creation Time: Students write a story with a Day of the Dead theme. They should work on their stories with a partner or in a group of three using a shared Google Doc. Sharing and Feedback Time: Individual groups of students share their stories via a projector with the class in order to get feedback about how to make their stories better and more understandable. Activity 2: Creating Artifacts for Display

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Planning and Creation Time: Students make the following artifacts and then decide how they want to use them in their Day of the Dead displays to reflect the stories they wrote. Decorated Skulls with Paper Circuits for Eyes. The materials for this activity include a skull outline and parallel circuit outline (one for each student), 5 mm LED lights, copper tape, coin batteries, transparent tape, and markers. Students decorate their paper skulls and make parallel paper circuits to light up the eyes. Templates for skeleton skulls are easily found online. I printed out one for each student and made an outline of a parallel circuit so that when connected and joined with the top part, the LEDs would show up as pupils in the decorated skull (see Figure 10.18).

FIGURE 10.18

Example of a Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) Display

Students cut out and decorate their skulls with markers. Images of decorated skulls can be projected via a whiteboard so students can see examples. They then trace their cut-out skulls onto the paper circuit template and cut that out. The bottom piece, containing the parallel circuit design, is then wired with copper tape. The copper tape is affixed from the battery placeholder to the end of its outline so the coin battery can be placed on top of that. A longer piece of copper tape is attached with about 1.5 inches left

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at the end near the battery. This extra is folded onto itself so that after the battery is in place, this part of the copper tape can be taped on top of the battery. Students should be reminded how to find the polarities of both the LED lights (the longer leg is positive) and the coin battery (it has a + symbol on top). Students then tape their batteries and LEDs in place, ensuring that the positive legs of the LED lead to the positive side of the battery, and vice versa. (For more about paper circuits, see www.makerspaces.com/paper-circuits.) The LEDs are then poked through the eyes of the decorated skull, and the top and bottom pieces are stapled together. See Figure 10.19 for examples.

FIGURE 10.19

Learner Decorated Skull with LED Eyes

Sugar Skulls. The materials for this activity include sugar, meringue powder, and sugar skull molds. Sugar skulls are incredibly easy to make. You just need to combine the dry ingredients of sugar and meringue power with a little water so it becomes the consistency of damp beach sand. More directions, along with specific amounts, can be found at www.mexicansugarskull.com/ sugar-skull-craft-instructions/sugar-skull-making-instructions. After waiting at least 24 hours for the skulls to harden, students can decorate them using edible markers or royal icing.

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Micro:bit Driven Skull. The materials for this activity include micro:bits (one for each team), heavy stock cardboard, servos with jumper wires, and alligator clips (if movement is designed). A micro:bit is half the size of a credit card and is equipped with 25 red LED lights that can flash messages. It features an embedded compass and accelerometer, and it has mobile and web-based programming capabilities. It is compatible with a number of online code editors across a number of different languages. For this activity, students cut out a skull with a window in the middle for the micro:bit (see Figure 10.20). They then used https://makecode. microbit.org to create a message on the LEDs about the Day of the Dead and code the servo to rotate the skull in a small arc from side to side (see https://sites.google.com/view/microbitofthings/ 7-motor-control/11-servo-control?authuser=0 for how to do this). Documentation and Reflection: Learners take photos of all their artifacts, upload them to a blog or website, and discuss their processes.

FIGURE 10.20

Skull with a Micro:bit

Assessment Strategies: Students pick three reflection cards (see Chapter 7, page 78). The reflections occur via small-group discussions or blog posts. See Figures 10.21 and 10.22 for student examples.

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FIGURE 10.21

Día de los Muertos Student Reflection 1

Sharing Out: Students’ stories and ofrendas are displayed at a central location so they can be viewed by the entire school community, including other students, teachers, administrators, staff, and families.

Example Maker Education Lessons • 135

FIGURE 10.22

Día de los Muertos Student Reflection 2

Question 1: What were the most difficult parts of the maker experience? Why?

Question 2: What surprised you the most during your maker experience?

Question 3 How have you been challenged during the maker experience?

Question 4: What lessons can you learn from the maker experience?

Question 5: Describe what you learned about yourself as a result of your maker experience.

Question 6: What advice would you give to someone else working on the maker activites?

References

Alrubail, R. (2015, December 17). The power of peer feedback. [blog post] Edutopia. Retrieved from www.edutopia.org/discussion/power-peerfeedback Arduino. (n.d.). FAQ: What do you mean by open-source hardware? [website] Retrieved from www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ#toc3 Association for Experiential Education. (n.d.). What is experiential education? [blog post] Association for Experiential Education. Retrieved from www.aee.org/what-is-ee Battelle for Kids. (n.d.). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved from www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21. Bdeir, A. (2015, September 24). Building connections between maker ed and standards. [blog post] EdSurge. Retrieved from www.edsurge.com/ news/2015-09-24-building-connections-between-maker-ed-and-standards Bindel, A. (n.d.). A movement in the making. [blog post] Toca Boca. Retrieved from https://tocaboca.com/magazine/maker-movement Bredderman, T. (1983). Effects of activity-based elementary science on student outcomes: A quantitative synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 499–518. Britton, L. (2014, August 18). Democratized tools of production: New technologies spurring the maker movement. [blog post] Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School. Retrieved from https://tascha.uw.edu/2014/08/democratized-tools-of-production-new-technologies-spurring-the-maker-movement Byrne, P. (2016, October 18). The primary goal of an agile learning environment. [blog post] SchoolNews. Retrieved from www.school-news.com. au/teaching-resources/the-primary-goal-of-an-agile-learning-environment CASEL. (n.d.). Core SEL competencies. [website] Retrieved from https:// casel.org/core-competencies 136

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Index

The letter f following a page locator denotes a figure. chaos, classroom, 60–61 character development lesson plan, 121–122, 122f, 123f, 124f choice, facilitating learner, 16, 61–62 classrooms, traditional, 60 classrooms/libraries agile learning environments, 56–57 chaos in, 60–61 collaboration spaces, 57–58 discussion spaces, 57–58 diversity in, 59f engagement in, 62–63 flexible seating in, 55–56 fun in, 62–63 learner choice driving, 61–62 low-entry, high-ceilings, 61 maker mindset, emphasizing, 63 materials, 58–61, 59f messiness in, 60–61 nimble learning environments, 56–57 play spaces, 57–58 reflection spaces, 57–58 research spaces, 57–58

access, equal, 38–40 accountability, 25, 26f achievement, 23 advance stage of making, 66f, 67 agency, 34, 52 andragogy, 30–32, 31f, 35–36, 37f Arduino hardware, 10–11 assembly line education, 3–4 assessment defined, 92 importance of, 93 in lesson planning, 90–91 purpose in, 92 rubrics, 90, 97–98, 99–100f student-directed, 92–97, 96f, 97f Association for Experiential Education, 25 behavior management, 23 bias, implicit, 39–40 business plan lesson plan, 113–114 camps, maker, 42 capabilities, improving, 18 challenges as opportunities, 19 challenge statement lesson plan, 85 143

144 • Learning in the Making

classrooms/libraries—(continued) technology, deemphasizing, 63 tinkering spaces, 57–58 voice driving, 61–62 collaboration spaces, 57–58 collaborative learning communities, 19–20, 22, 32 Common Core State Standards Day of the Dead lesson plan, 128 social entrepreneurship lesson plan, 110, 112 writers’ workshop lesson plan, 118, 120 communities collaborative, 19–20, 22, 32 knowledge-building, 19–20 connectivism, 28 constructionism, 14, 34–35 constructivism, 14, 28, 30–31, 34–35 copy stage of making, 65, 66f create stage of making, 66f, 68–69 creation time, lesson plans addressing, 88 Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, 10–11 creativity, 3, 5, 10, 18 crowdsourcing, 9–10 culture DIY, 5–6 participatory, 9–10 of sharing, 9–11, 19–20, 53 curiosity-results link, 18 curriculum, characteristics of effective, 79–80 curriculum integrating maker experiences, 80–82. See also lesson plan examples decision-making skills, 22–23, 25, 26f democratization, 9, 38

design thinking lesson plan, 102, 103–104f, 104–109 desks, flexible, 55–56 Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) lesson plan, 126, 127–128f, 128–135 direct instruction, 87–88 discussion spaces, 57–58 diversity, 42, 59f doing and redoing experience, 70f, 74 do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, 5–6 do-it-yourself (DIY) websites, 5, 8 education authentic, 24–25, 27–28 experiential, 24–25, 26f, 27–28 factory model, 3–4 traditional, 24–25 education, maker. See also 21st century learning, maker characteristics for challenges, 39 characteristics, 25, 26f, 27 described, 1 foundation, 24–25 goals, 30, 92–93 implementing, 43 key characteristics, 14 precedence, 3–5 Education 1.0, 28–30, 29f, 37f Education 2.0, 30–32, 31f, 37f Education 3.0, 32–36, 33f, 37f educators (maker) promises to learners, 54 educators, roles of maker feedback facilitator, 45f, 53 leader learner, 44–46, 45f, 47–48f normalizer of ambiguous problem finding and solving, 45f, 51 primary, 27

Index • 145

educators, roles of maker— (continued) process facilitator, 45f, 46, 49 relationship enabler and builder, 45f, 53 resource provider, 45f, 51–52 safe environment manager, 45f, 49–51 technology tutor, 45f, 52 effort, valuing, 18 embellish stage of making, 66f, 67 emotional distress, 23 empathy, 21 empowerment, 34, 39 engagement in experiential learning, 25, 26f in makerspace classrooms, 62–63 potential for, 15–16 STEM and STEAM for, 6–7 environment, maker, 24–25. See also classrooms/libraries equity, 39–40 essentialism, 28–29 essential questions, using and reviewing, 71 exclusion, unintentional, 38–42 expense form lesson plan, 113, 116f experiential learning, 13–15 experiential learning cycle doing and redoing in the, 70f, 74 experience component, 70f, 74–76, 77–78f framing and frontloading in the, 69–72 questions in the, 71–74 reflecting on the, 70f, 74–76, 77–78f exploration, lesson plans addressing, 87 factory model school, 3–4 failure-learning link, 19, 51, 93 feedback, 89, 96–97

feedback facilitator role, 45f, 53 feedback-growth link, 19 flow state, 15–16 frustration, managing, 21 fun, valuing, 17, 24, 62–63 growth mindset, 17–19 hardware, open-source, 10–11 hard work-positive results link, 18 heutagogy, 32–36, 33f, 37f hooks, 86–87 implementation framework, 69 inclusion, intentional, 38–42 industrialization, 3 information access and abundance, 8, 29–30 innovation, 21, 42 instructivism, 28–29 interests, lesson plans addressing, 82–83 internet heutagogy and the, 33–34 information access and abundance, 8 for information access and abundance, 29–30 Web 1.0, 28–29 Web 2.0, 30 ISTE Standards design thinking lesson plan, 105–106 writers’ workshop lesson plan, 120 knowledge, 86–88 leader learner role, 44–46, 45f, 47–48f learning. See also 21st century learning; experiential learning assessment and, 94–95 content-area, facilitating, 16

146 • Learning in the Making

learning—(continued) by doing and redoing, 13–14, 27, 70f, 74 hands-on, 13–15 lesson plans addressing, 89–90 making and, 4 meaningful, 25 messy, 24 minds-on, 13 project-based, 14 real-world, 14 self-directed, 27–28, 34–35, 52 shared, 19 learning communities, collaborative, 19–20, 22, 32 learning environments. See also classrooms/libraries agile/nimble, 56–57 flexible, 55–56 safe, 45f, 49–51 learning-failure link, 19 learning results, personalization of, 26f, 27 lesson plan examples design thinking, 102, 103–104f, 104–109 Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), 126, 127–128f, 128–135 social entrepreneurship STEAM unit, 109–110, 111f, 112–118, 114f, 115f, 116f, 117f, 118f writers’ workshop, 118, 119f, 120–126 lesson plans, elements of maker assessment, 90–91 challenge statement, 85 creation time for learners, 88 direct instruction, 87–88 exploration, 87 feedback time, 89 general structure, 83f the hook for getting started, 86–87 learning, documenting, 89–90

lesson plans, elements of maker— (continued) lesson vocabulary, 86 materials needed, 85–86 planning time for learners, 88 prerequisite skills and knowledge, 86 reflection, documenting, 89–90 sharing time, 89, 91 skills and knowledge, prerequisite, 86 skills and knowledge direct instruction, 87–88 standards, addressing, 84–85 student needs, interests, and voice, 82–83 tinkering, 87 tools needed, 85–86 vision and rationale, 82 libraries, 60. See also classrooms/ libraries low-entry, high-ceilings, 15–16, 61 Make: magazine, 4 maker camps, 42 Maker Faires, 4, 7 maker movement background, 4–5, 17 causality, 4 characteristics of, 38 drivers of, 10 education, relevance to, 4 values, 14 maker movement, events creating the crowdsourcing, 9–10 do-it-yourself (DIY) movement, 5–6 information access and abundance, 8, 29–30 maker technologies, affordable, 8–9 open-source resources, 10–11

Index • 147

maker movement, events creating the—(continued) participatory culture, 9–10 STEM and STEAM, focus on, 6–7 21st century skills and competencies, push for, 7 maker movement initiatives, 39 makers empowering, 39 participatory culture of, 9 skills required for, 7 making defined, 12–13, 41–42 drivers of, 18 focus of, 19 historically, 3–4 importance of, 13 playful, 17 requirements of, 21 making, stages of advance, 66f, 67 copy, 65, 66f create, 66f, 68–69 embellish, 66f, 67 introduction, 64–65 modify, 66f, 67–68 progression factors, 68–69 market survey lesson plan, 113, 114f, 115f mass production model, 3–4 materials classroom, 58–61, 59f for lesson plans, 85–86 messiness, classroom, 60–61 mindsets growth, 17–19 innovator, 57 maker, 18, 27, 43, 63 modeling making processes, 44–46, 47–48f, 49 modify stage of making, 66f, 67–68

National Arts Standards, lesson plans addressing, 120–122, 123f, 124f, 125f, 126f National Education Association (NEA), 7 Nation of Makers, 38 Next Generation Science Standards Day of the Dead lesson plan, 128–129 design thinking lesson plan, 105 normalizer of ambiguous problem finding and solving role, 45f, 51 novices, low barrier for, 15–16 open-source resources, 10–11 opportunities, challenges as, 19 participation, active, 13 Partnership for 21st Century Learning, 7 pedagogy, 28–30, 29f, 35–36, 37f peer support, questions facilitating, 73–74 perseverance, 18 planning time for learners, 88 play, valuing, 17, 25 play spaces, 57–58 plot development lesson plan, 124, 125f portfolios, 90–91 problem finding and solving, 45f, 51 process facilitator role, 45f, 46, 49 product creation and distribution lesson plan, 114 progressivism, 14 promotional flyer lesson plan, 114, 117f Prussian model, 4 questions in the maker experience, 71–74

148 • Learning in the Making

reflection documenting, 89–90 maker experience, 70f, 74–76, 77–78f project, assessment and, 95–96, 96f, 97f Reflection Cards, 78f Reflection Game, 77f reflection spaces, 57–58 relationship enabler and builder role, 45f, 53 relationship skills, 22, 26f, 27 research spaces, 57–58 resource provider role, 45f, 51–52 rubrics, 90, 97–98, 99–100f safe environment manager role, 45f, 49–51 sales and record sheet lesson plan, 114, 118f scaffolding, 73. See also making, stages of scenarios, using, 71 self-assessment, 92–94 self-awareness skills, 20 self-management skills, 20–21 sequencing, 73 sharing in lesson planning, 89, 91 in maker culture, 9–11, 19–20, 53 skills and knowledge direct instruction, 87–88 prerequisite, 86 skills development, 18, 72–73 social awareness skills, 20–23 social engagement, 4 social entrepreneurship lesson plan, 109–110, 111f, 112–118, 114f, 115f, 116f, 117f, 118f social networking, 33 software, open-source, 10 spaces, maker classroom setup for, 55–63

spaces, maker—(continued) drivers of, 9 inclusive and equitable, 38–43 safe, 45f, 49–51 size of, 1 Sparkfun Education, 1 standards, lesson plans addressing design thinking, 105–109 online resources, 84–85 social entrepreneurship, 109–110, 111f, 112–118 writers’ workshop, 118, 119f, 120–122, 122f, 123f, 124–126, 124f, 125f standards, specifying, 72 state of flow, 15–16 STEAM unit lesson plan, 109–110, 111f, 112–118 STEM and STEAM, focus on, 6–7 student needs, lesson plans addressing, 82–83 technology, 8–9, 27, 29–30, 63 technology tutor role, 45f, 52 tenacity, 18 testing movement, 92 Thingiverse, 10 3D setting lesson plan, 124–125, 125f tinkering in lesson planning, 87 tinkering spaces, 57–58 tools lesson planning, 85–86 maker, 8–9 21st century learning, maker characteristics for advanced projects, potential for, 15–16 choice, facilitating learner, 16 collaboration, 19–20 content-area learning, 16 engagement, potential for, 15–16 experiential, 13–15

Index • 149

21st century learning, maker characteristics for—(continued) fun, 17, 24 growth mindset, 17–19 hands-on, 13–15 low-entry, high-ceilings, 15–16 play, 17, 25 social-emotional skills, builds, 20–23 voice, facilitating learner, 16 21st Century Skills lesson plans Day of the Dead, 129–133, 131f, 132f, 133f design thinking, 106–109 push for, 7

21st Century Skills lesson plans— (continued) social entrepreneurship, 112–115, 114f, 115f, 116f, 117, 117f, 118f STEM and STEAM for, 6 vocabulary in lesson planning, 86 voice, 16, 61–62, 82–83 Web 1.0, 28–29 Web 2.0, 30 writers’ workshop lesson plan, 118, 119f, 120–126

About the Author

Jackie Gerstein teaches graduate-level online courses for Walden and Western Governors Universities, and she teaches gifted education for Santa Fe Public Schools. Her motto is “I don’t do teaching for a living; I live teaching as my doing and technology has amplified my passion for doing so.” Her background includes a strong focus on experiential learning, which she brings into all of her teaching. Gerstein believes that one of the roles and responsibilities of the 21st century educator is to share resources, ideas, and instructional strategies with other educators. As such, she blogs at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com and tweets at @jackiegerstein.

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Related ASCD Resources: Maker Education At the time of publication, the following resources were available (ASCD stock numbers in parentheses). For up-to-date information about ASCD resources, go to www.ascd.org. You can search the complete archives of Educational Leadership at www.ascd.org/el. Print Products Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs (#109008) Everyday Problem-Based Learning: Quick Projects to Build ProblemSolving Fluency by Brian Pete and Robin Fogarty (#117057) Five Myths About Classroom Technology: How do we integrate digital tools to truly enhance learning? (ASCD Arias) by Matt Renwick (#SF115069) Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today by Eric C. Sheninger and Thomas C. Murray (#117034) Overcoming Textbook Fatigue: 21st Century Tools to Revitalize Teaching and Learning by ReLeah Cossett Lent (#113005) Project Based Teaching: How to Create Rigorous and Engaging Learning Experiences by Suzie Boss and John Larmer (#118047) Real-World Projects: How do I design relevant and engaging learning experiences (ASCD Arias) by Suzie Boss (#SF115043) Setting the Standard for Project-Based Learning: A Proven Approach to Rigorous Classroom Instruction by John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss (#114017) Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner, 2nd Edition by Pérsida Himmele and William Himmele (#117033) ASCD myTeachSource® Download resources from a professional learning platform with hundreds of research-based best practices and tools for your classroom at http://myteachsource.ascd.org/. For more information, send an e-mail to [email protected]; call 1-800-933-2723 or 703-578-9600; send a fax to 703-575-5400; or write to Information Services, ASCD, 1703 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA.

WHOLE CHILD

TENETS 1

HEALTHY

2

SAFE

3

ENGAGED

4

SUPPORTED

5

CHALLENGED

The ASCD Whole Child approach is an effort to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to

Each student enters school healthy and learns about and practices a healthy lifestyle.

Each student learns in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults.

Each student is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.

one that promotes the long-term development and success of all children. Through this approach, ASCD supports educators, families, community members, and policymakers as they move from a vision about educating the whole child to sustainable, collaborative actions.

Learning in the Making relates to the engaged, supported, and challenged tenets. For more about the ASCD Whole Child approach, visit www.ascd.org/wholechild. Become an ASCD member today! Go to www.ascd.org/joinascd or call toll-free: 800-933-ASCD (2723)

Each student has access to personalized learning and is supported by qualified, caring adults.

Each student is challenged academically and prepared for success in college or further study and for employment and participation in a global environment.

D O N ’ T M I S S A S I N G L E I S S U E O F A S C D ’ S AWA R D - W I N N I N G M A G A Z I N E ,

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP If you belong to a Professional Learning Community, you may be looking for a way to get your fellow eeducators’ minds around a complex not delve into a relevant theme issue topic. Why n of Educational Education Leadership, the journal written by educators for fo educators Subscribe now, or buy back issues of ASCD’s flagship publication at www.ascd.org/ELbackissues. Single issues cost $7 (for issues dated September 2006–May 2013) or $8.95 (for issues dated September 2013 and later). Buy 10 or more of the same issue, and you’ll save 10 percent. Buy 50 or more of the same issue, and you’ll save 15 percent. For discounts on purchases of 200 or more copies, contact [email protected]; 1-800-933-2723, ext. 5773. To see more details about these and other popular issues of Educational Leadership, visit www.ascd.org/ELarchive.

1703 North Beauregard Street Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA

www.ascd.org/el

EDUCATION

LEARNING

IN THE

MAKING

IN THE

MAKING IS A DYNAMIC AND HANDS-ON LEARNING EXPERIENCE that directly connects with long-established theories of how learning occurs. Although it hasn’t been a focus of traditional education or had a prominent place in the classroom, teachers find it an accessible, exciting option for their students. The maker movement brings together diverse communities dedicated to creating things through hands-on projects. Makers represent a growing community of builders and creators—engineers, scientists, artists, DIYers, and hobbyists of all ages, interests, and skill levels—who engage in experimentation and cooperation. Transferring this innovative, collaborative, and creative mindset to the classroom is the goal of maker education. A makerspace isn’t about the latest tools and equipment. Rather, it’s about the learning experiences and opportunities provided to students. Maker education spaces can be as large as a school workshop with high-tech tools (e.g., 3D printers and laser cutters) or as small and low-tech as the corner of a classroom with bins of craft supplies. Ultimately, it’s about the mindset—not the “stuff.” In Learning in the Making, Jackie Gerstein helps you plan, execute, facilitate, and reflect on maker experiences so both you and your students understand how the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of maker education transfer to real-world settings. She also shows how to seamlessly integrate these activities into your curriculum with intention and a clearly defined purpose.

LearningintheMaking_FrontMatter_Fpages.indd 1-3

Alexandria, Virginia USA

Browse excerpts from  ASCD books: www.ascd.org/books

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