Classroom MakerSpace Solution

"It was easy and it's the most desired planning time choice. It's great to see what the kids create."

~Laurie Chenevey, Adrian Public Schools

One of my New Year goals is to write a blog post at least once a month (I need to get myself back on blogging track). An unexpected work from home snow day has given me some much needed time to get caught up this month. A bonus is that I get to write this poolside as my kids swim at our local (as in, across the street) family rec center.

Before school was let out for the holiday’s I was lucky enough to visit my son’s kindergarten classroom. Laurie Chenevey is an amazing teacher, she has had both of my children for kindergarten and I am so amazed by her patience, kindness, flexibility, and willingness to try new things. At the end of each school day, Laurie gives her students a 30 minute Planning Time. This is a time for Laurie to get her day wrapped up, folders ready to go home, answer a few quick emails, and get organized for the next day. Kids are given choices such as; iPad time, LEGO’s, scrolling, marble run, and others.

After introducing MakerSpaces to the staff, Laurie took it upon herself to add a creation station to her Planning Time. The creation station consists of random materials like cups, foam, cardboard, and straws. Kids are simply allowed to create! My son LOVES this time! So much he has requested for an old shelving unit I was going to take to the dump be moved into his room so he can display the things he makes during this time.

The beauty about this time is that it is complete student choice. Even before last year and adding the creation station, she essentially had a MakerSpace. A place with really no rules, no standards, no steps. Just a place for students to express their passions and create them with different materials.

Follow Laurie on Twitter or check out her classroom Facebook Page!

To Unfold: What a MakerSpace Taught Me (Part 2)

My four major takeaways from running an elementary MakerSpace: 

1. How to answer the question, What is a MakerSpace?

           My best answer...a space with materials for students to let their curiosity and imagination
            come to life. An informal, playful, atmosphere for learning to unfold. A space where making,    

            rather than consuming is the focus. A space where transdisciplinary learning, inquiry, risk-taking,
            thinking, crafting, tinkering, and wondering can blossom.  

2. Where to find materials for MakerSpace.

           Twenty kids will go through materials quickly. The Lincoln School Improvement Team was lucky
            enough to have received a $1,000 grant from the Adrian Schools Education Foundation to buy
            many of the non-consumable materials, tools, and robotics for the space. However, what really
            makes a MakerSpace is the consumable materials cardboard boxes can be unfolded to make
            cars, boats, and Eiffel Towers. Foam pieces, tubing, and random plastic shapes become the
            lights, windows, hinges, and legs to those creations. The Scrapbox in Ann Arbor, MI was my
            saving grace for finding many of these random and odd materials. Goodwill is where we were
            able to get our free cardboard, and parents also donated materials that they had at home or work.

3. It’s not always about the Making

          Yes, the making is where all the tinkering, creativity, and innovation unfolds. But, in the end most

            of those creations will get taken apart, torn down, and remade or recycled into something new. As
            I see it, a MakerSpace is about investigation, planning, creating, communicating, personal
            learning, and reflection. It is not a place for grades, standards, test, or pressure (and should never
            be in my opinion). During MakerNIght, I watched parents, teachers, students, and community
            members creating and discovering together. What they took home (other than a cardboard
            creation) was a memory. A memory of creativity, community, and fun in their child's school
            building.  

4. To Unfold

           In a MakerSpace environment, there are no specific directions, no rules, no time limits or
            deadlines. It’s a place where ideas can be crumpled up, evaluated and reflected upon, unfolded,
            and recreated. Then repeated, over and over again...and it’s safe.

 

Shift: What a MakerSpace Taught Me

Over the past few months, I have had the pleasure of running an after school MakerClub at my children's school. As amazing and rewarding as this experience was I have had a really hard time preparing this final reflection. If this Google Doc would have been a piece of notebook paper I would have crumpled it up a million times. Ironically, that is what I took away from the MakerSpace, the fact that it is OK to unfold that crumbled paper and start over. No one is watching me write this draft, no one is judging me, no one will give me a grade, and I have as much time as I need.   

Week, after week, I watched the MakerClub kids create, teardown, redo, forget, start again, ask questions, try a different avenue, smile and laugh. In this space no one was watching to make sure they followed directions, no one was judging how their project looked compared to the next kid, no one was grading them, and no one was rushing them. And I bet, you could see more determination, drive, grit, and perseverance in that one hour each week than you would see all year in the classroom. However, that was not evident the first few weeks. The kids had a hard time just being told to "make"; they were a bit lost and looking for directions. All day they are told what to do and how to do it. This "space" in the school, where they were told to do as they pleased, with lots of materials, was a bit confusing for them (and some of us parents).

It’s by no means the teachers fault, they do their best each and every day to make learning meaningful, playful, and creative for our children (and still hold to standards, testing, and evaluation expectations). This is a systems problem. A system that needs a shift. A shift away from the industrial, conveyor belt, spoon feeding system to an inquiring, planning, creating, sharing, communicating, and reflecting system. I am not suggesting that every day should (or can) be filled with cardboard, glue, and popsicle sticks. What I am driven to do is help educators, and stakeholders recognize how to make a shift and keep in meaningful.

Stay tuned...

“Classrooms could once again become places of great joy, creativity, and invention.”

-Invent to Learn

MACUL Hangover: Conference Day 3

For the definition of MACUL Hangover please see Day 1 post

The MACUL MakerSpace was the place to be Friday! I will let you read Mike Kaechele

explanation of how this space came to be and why spaces like this are important for engagement, innovation, creativity, and reflection.

Wednesday at the EdTech Rally I was asked to lead a roundtable discussion on how to start a MakerSpace (a topic I proposed to be discussed because I want to learn more). One of the questions that came about in our discussion was; How do you explain what a MakerSpace is? It’s a great question, how do you explain what a MakerSpace is without it sounding like “just summer camp” as Sylvia Martinez stated in her MACUL session; A Global Revolution Goes to School: The Maker Movement. At that time, I understood that a MakerSpace was a space to give students a place to play, be creative, and experiment with different materials and technologies. Sylvia Martinez explained it as a “Learning Manifesto” (I like her definition better)

But was this a good enough argument for skeptical administrator, board member, or parent?

That afternoon I attended Rushton Hurley presentation Projects Students Will Never Forget. Rushton discussed different types of projects in which students will...

   

       participate actively

creatively discover something new

leave the realm of predictable

show excellence

produce something meaningful

Flash forward to Friday morning at 6:45 AM as I am walking, in the dark, alone, down Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, to get to the COBO center, to help set up the MACUL MakerSpace, WITHOUT having any coffee!  Obviously my subconscious was in charge, telling me that something special was going to happen this day.

After the space was set (and I had had my brain juice, a.k.a coffee) I was able to play (participate actively). I made buttons with Erin Mastin, circuits with Lauren Villaluz, tinkered with Tara Maynard and Kerry Guiliano. As people started to leave for their first sessions I found myself over at the huge scrabble board (creatively discovering something new). I thought it would be fun to spell out selfie and take a pick in front of it to submit to the MACUL selfie contest that was taking place. However, I suffer from long torso-short arm syndrome so this is what I got.

This problem however, gave me an idea, “I NEED A SELFIE STICK! But wait, I am in a MakerSpace, I can make one! (leave the realm of predictable) I automatically found myself on this charge to make a selfie stick. As I rushed around looking for materials I heard someone mention cardboard. Great idea! I found the pile of cardboard and actually found a box that at one time held some sort of electronic device. Perfect! I now needed a handle for my stick. More cardboard and tape, duct tape, of course. So as I wrapped the Kentucky Chrome around and around I realized I needed more stability in the handle. RULERS! Earlier we had found this bag of rulers that nobody could quite figure out what we needed them for, so I grabbed a few for my handle. As I put the finishing touches on my hand made selfie stick I realized that I was in a zone. I would equate this MakerZone to the same zone I get when running in a race. I block out what is around me and focus on what I need to keep the pace and finish (water and chocolate usually help). Then I thought about what this same feeling would mean for one of my own children like when my daughter (7) is her zone, writing a book that “WILL go in the school library”. Or my son (5) is in his LEGO zone to build the ultimate “bad guy catcher vehicle”. That zone where you want to show excellence in a finished product. THIS is what a MakerSpace can do for our students! Give them a zone to: participate actively, creatively discover something new, leave the realm of predictable, show excellence, and produce something meaningful.

Yes, I made a cardboard selfie stick that lasted about an hour before the Kentucky Chrome could no longer hold my mess together. But for a few minutes that “stick” allowed me to capture pictures with people that inspire me on a daily basis (produce something meaningful), like Rachelle Wynkoop who took a man through the space to help him get into his MakerZone and create an activity he could take back to his school and implement only a few days later, to Kit Hard who I am not sure ate anything all day because he spent his time engaging visitors in activities or jumping in to release others, or Jeff Bush who spent his time capturing the event with photo and video to entice conference attendees to the space. 

Kudos to Mike, Kit, Jeff, and Ben for pulling this off. Kudos to all the wonderful volunteers! I now have an answer to what a MakerSpace and MakerZone truly is.

MACUL MakerSpace 2015!