Maker Space 101

Maker Spaces seem to be the new fad in education this year. Every school seems to be building one, planning for one or trying to figure out how to incorporate one into their school curriculum. Not wanting to be left out of what seemed like an awesome trend, we decided to dip our toes into the maker movement at Concordia.

We decided to start small. We didn't have a dedicated space that we could use nor did we really know what supplies we would want or need. So I decided that we could start with a temporary maker space. Our school librarian is phenomenal and offered to use part of the library as a temporary maker space.

Step one, find space, check!

Then we needed to figure out what we could put in the space. This was a bit more challenging. I spend several hours reading different blog posts and lists of what should go into a maker space and ended up coming to the somewhat vague answer, "Whatever you want." So the next day I spent most of the day digging through storage closets, cleaning out cupboards, and bothering teachers in order to collect all the excess supplies I could. I ended up with around 50 different bins of supplies. Everything from pipe cleaners to circuit kits, to puzzles missing pieces, to magnets, to sponges. Then, just incase I missed something, I added a sign where students could write down any other items they wanted included.

Step two, gather supplies, check!

After checking in with a few other tech coach friends I learned that sometimes kids need help knowing what to do in a maker space. School has trained kids to follow directions really well and when they are placed in a space with no directions sometimes they don't know what to do. So I printed off a bunch of photos of different things students might try building and placed them on the tables. We also had an iPad in the space that students could use to take photos of their creations.

Finally I needed to figure out a way to get people to come. This was the easiest step. Everyone was really excited about the idea. All I did was send out an email that included a google sheet and teachers signed up for a 40min slot of time to come in and explore the maker space.

Step three, get students into the space, check!

When the week was over I sent out a questionnaire to ask how teachers felt our first foray into the world of making went. Here is the feedback I got:

1) The overall consensus was that teachers wanted a space like this. It would help them integrate engineering into their classes and lessons with greater ease.

2) Our maker space felt a bit crafty. Teachers wanted more things like circuits, motors, levers, magnets etc. to help it feel less like an open ended art lesson and more like STEM (or maybe I should say STEAM?).

3) 40 minute time slots were NOT enough. Teachers said at the minimum you needed an hour in the maker space.

3) Several teachers asked if we could have a mobile maker space so that they could have the tools come to their own classroom.

Based on this, I am now working on designing a mobile maker space. All suggestions and ideas are welcome!