Step 1: What?
- A Makerspace can be any space a school where students and teachers come together to create, invent, design, explore, code, build, draw and more.
- Students can work individually or collaboratively using a variety of high and low-tech tools and materials.
- Makerspaces often have a STEM focus (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths). However, Makerspaces are ideal platforms for projects that work across all subject areas.
Daggert (2014) Identified 5 potentially disruptive trends in education:
- Impact of digital learning
- Heightened demand for career readiness
- Increased emphasis on application-based learning
- Use of data analytics for decision making
- Development of personal skills.
The use of Makerspaces in schools neatly embraces all 5 trends. By embracing the power of technology, and using it effectively every day, learning becomes meaningful and relevant to students. It should be possible to stretch a learner’s thinking which will offer successful outcomes in today’s rapidly developing global environment.
My school currently runs a Maker programme for selected individuals in our school library. I would like to see this introduced across the school community. As we only have limited devices for each class, they could be better utilised by students working in small groups, assisted by one computer to create a meaningful and relevant project.
When assessing the children's achievements, data will become more readily available on each individual student and can be used to better support individualised learning as a way to evaluate what a student knows and is able to do.
Step 2: So What?
According to the NMC Horizon Report (2017) the past decade has seen a 14 fold growth in Makerspaces, with 1,400 user-reported active spaces around the globe as of 2016. Europe is currently leading the trend, being home to nearly 40% of the world’s Makerspaces. Through the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s ‘Lab on Wheels’ initiative, more than 25,000 primary school students are learning how to write code, experiment with robots and drones as part of their investigations on a travelling laboratory on a bus.
The 2016 NZCER national survey of primary and intermediate schools found of all teachers surveyed, 41% indicated their students have opportunities to participate in coding, gaming, or Makerspaces at their school. Another 41% said students did not have these opportunities, and 17% were not sure. Overall, teachers from decile 9–10 schools were slightly more likely to say yes (49%) than teachers from decile 1–2 schools (26%).
Step 3: Now What?
So how do we expand the use of Makerspaces in our school and beyond?
I suggest we look at this in stages:-
- Link the Maker activities with buddy classes to encourage cooperative learning between age groups
- Link to other schools in our area community. This could include a sharing of resources as well as competitive design tournaments and competitions.
- Link to our feeder colleges, allowing students opportunities to work with higher order skills.
- Enter more competitions on a nationwide level. (We already have a small team who are in the final of the ‘Epro8’ challenge)
- Form relationships with local businesses (many of which already sponsor our teaching areas) to experience skills of the workforce of the future.
- Communicate with schools internationally through social media.
Trends come and go in education and the biggest challenge for schools today is to provide a curriculum that offers a breadth of opportunities that will support learners throughout their lives. Hopefully such activities will be more of a fixture rather than a trend.
References:
Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., Freeman, A., Hall Giesinger, C., and Ananthanarayanan, V. (2017). NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from
https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmccosn-horizon-report-2017-k-12-edition/
Bolstad R. (2017) Digital Technologies for Learning: Findings from the NZCER National Survey of Primary & Intermediate Schools: Wellington NZ: New Zealand Council for Educational Research
Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
Peter M. (13 September 2012) Reconceptualising the School Library as Collaborative Makerspace: National Library Wellington. Retrieved from:
https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/reconceptualising-the-school-library-as-collaborative-makerspace
http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Future-focused-learning/Makerspaces
Hi Toni. Hearing about maker space makes me want to be a primary student again. It certainly is a whole new world! I think you have summarised well the connection between the education trends and the ability of maker space to deliver experiences that students need to develop 21st century skills and competencies. I think you have analysed the next steps effectively. I was particularly interested in the community connection, by bringing in local business. This is a whole network of expertise that we sometimes forget to tap into. Great job, Toni!
ReplyDeleteHi Clare. Thanks for your kind comments. I have to halve the amount I write on my blogs as I get too carried away with reading and such. I need to be more concise and keep to the rubric... We are always needing teachers at Borough!
DeleteHi Toni.
ReplyDeleteI am currently working through some STEM activities with my Year 1 & 2 students and they are highly engaged, full of questions and making many discoveries - such fun!!!
I wondered in your blog how the small group of students were selected? Does this group of students change so many students get the opportunity? Your ideas for moving forward are fantastic - I hope you manage to put them into practice. Perhaps through our CoL many of them can be addressed and actioned.
To be quite honest, I think the Maker groups are created by selecting the students that show an aptitude for design and technology. I can only go on the students in our area and I would like to see it offered to a wider catchment. We would get fewer abuses of Tech and a more on-task response from those students who are considered 'not tot be thriving'
DeleteHi Toni,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting - I've never heard of Maker Spaces before! Sounds very interesting. STEM challenges are such a good way to engage learners and provides them with such important learning such as collaboration and problem-solving. Good suggestions for moving forward. Would be great to link in with other schools around our local area - I would definitely be keen to see one in action!
I think the future lies with schools pooling resources and people skills Shaye as there will only ever be a limited budget for tech in schools. If area schools communicate with each other or dare I say it pool resources then the use of tech could be put to better use with a wider spread. Just a thought. Good luck with the rest of the course.
ReplyDelete