In 2014, my building principal came to me with an important and exciting question. He had a thousand dollars to spend out of his technology budget, and did I have any ideas on how to spend it? What a ridiculous question! Of course I did!
We had one seemingly small, however very large problem. Our internet speed was slower than slow. Email would often time out. Internet research was tedious. And streaming video? Forget about it. It wasn’t happening. Purchasing any device that would further weigh down our system was not an option.
As a sixth grade reading teacher looking for new and innovative ways to engage my students, it hit me, why not transform a space at our a school to create a learning atmosphere where students could use low-tech materials to mimic high-tech problem solving skills? Although I did not know much about it, I decided to ‘go all in’ to learn about the maker movement.
The Maker Movement
No doubt, makerspaces, or hackspaces, as they are often known, are trendy terms in education right now. Visions of 3D printers, laser engravers, and robots come to mind, and some may argue that they are just another fad. But closer examination of the foundation and processes that are embedded in maker education indicate that these ideas are not all that new.
In fact, many educational pioneers supported early forms of maker education. Seymour Papert, a mathematician who worked with Piaget and founded the MIT Media Lab, defined learning with a theory known as constructivism. He concluded that learning happens most reliably when it is connected to the learner on a personal level by encouraging learners to creatively explore their own path of learning and not be bound by what someone else deems as necessary (Martinez, 2014).
According to Johann Pestalozzi, all children can learn if allowed to use “head, heart, and hands” (as cited in Martinez, 2014, Meaningful Learning section, para. 9). His methods encouraged educators to allow students to think for themselves, one of such students being Albert Einstein. Interestingly, Maria Montessori, creator of the Montessori preschools, was one of the first to prioritize the use of materials for specific learning outcomes. If hands-on learning is a trend, it is one that has a massive amount of staying power.
Makerspace-To-Go
I had been exposed to the idea of makerspaces through a variety of sources including conferences, Twitter, and Pinterest. Libraries across the country were being transformed to include creative learning experiences such as designing, crafting, building, and programming. Students are more open to collaboration, problem solving, and failing when it is not directly tied to curriculum objectives (Graves, 2016).
To begin the journey toward a makerspace at my school, I had my students begin reading short scholarly articles and brainstorming ways we could improve our classroom. I brought in a rug, some pillows, craft materials, and continued to stress the importance of independent research and inquiry-based learning. The students were hooked, but our vision was small and we didn’t have any money.
This gave me the idea to create a bin of creative materials that teachers could borrow from a common space to extend their lessons or simply give students a chance to try innovation. With the help of my ambitious students, a Makerspace-to-Go, filled with numerous creative materials, was born.
The students and I were so thrilled when our boxes arrived. We tore into them and immediately and went to work learning how to use what was inside. It was quite an experience for all of us. We unpacked modeling clay, hot glue guns, a motorized loom, and chenille stems. Students poured over the circuit block instructions and quickly assembled a tripod for the classroom iPad. There was much activity at each of the stations and certainly a great deal of noise. However, the excitement was unmatched by almost any other teaching experience in my career! Students’ eagerness to share what we learned inspired us to lead an after-school professional development session where my students taught the teachers at our school how to use a variety of tools such as littleBits circuits, a Loopdedoo spinning loom, Lego stop motion animation, and Sphero (an app-controlled robot ball). Students demonstrated a great deal of persistence learning how to use these tools well enough to teach others. This was yet another wonderful by-product of our makerspace concept.
However, there was also frustration at this point. It occurred to me that these students had never been asked to solve a problem without the teacher knowing the solution. This was a huge revelation. Even more than the tools themselves, the process of making meaning out of something unknown is supremely important. A true maker will take a break down a complex idea, see how it works, and make it better (Martinez, 2014).
Computational Thinking in Makerspaces
It is no secret that computing has become a necessary skill in the global marketplace. Unfortunately, over a decade ago, research done by the International Technology Association of America indicated that the United States was beginning to lag behind other countries in the world of innovation (CT Leadership Toolkit, 2011). As a result, the National Science Foundation funded programs to increase increase enrollment high school computer science classes. In addition, organizations began to prioritize STEM programs and encouraged nontraditional students to try computing.
However, it became apparent that there was a need for a change in thinking that extended beyond computer programming. Former head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, Wing (2006) suggested that computational thinking was a “universally applicable attitude and skill” for everyone (p. 33).
The Computer Science Teachers Association and International Society for Technology in Education define computational thinking (CT) as the ability to combine critical thinking skills with the power of computing to help us make decisions and find solutions. CT is a problem solving process that may involve the following characteristics:
- Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them;
- Logically organizing and analyzing data;
- Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations;
- Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking;
- Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources; and
- Generalizing and transferring this problem-solving process to a wide variety of problems (CT for an Elementary Audience, 2014).
Integrating CT into a curriculum is a priority with two goals: (a) to prepare young learners to become computational thinkers who understand how to use today’s digital tools to help solve tomorrow’s problems; and (b) to help teachers envision and integrate CT in the classroom across all disciplines (CT for an Elementary Audience, 2014).
Pockets of innovation began to pop up around the country but a more systemic approach was needed to promote nationwide adoption. CSTA, partnered with the ISTE, created a project titled, Leveraging Thought Leadership for Computational Thinking in K-12 Curriculum (CT Leadership Toolkit, 2011). The goal was to bring computational thinking into formal education and require teachers at every grade level and within all content areas to contribute to building their students’ skills.
Expecting all teachers to contribute to the building of computational thinking skills may not be as difficult as one might think. In fact, many teachers may already be requiring students to use basic computational thinking skills and not even know it.
Computational thinking success is achieved by embracing certain habits of mind. We want our students to (1) become more confident when dealing with complex problems, (2) demonstrate persistence when solutions do not come easily, (3) be tolerant of ambiguity and embrace open-ended problems, and (4) communicate and work effectively with others to achieve a common goal (CT Leadership Toolkit, 2011).
Moving Forward
Makerspaces are popping up all over the world as a way to involve students in hands-on, student-centered, meaningful learning. Decades of research indicates that students have a deeper understanding of concepts when they are involved in hands-on methods of learning. Makerspaces utilize a number of different tools including crafting materials, hand tools, and digital technology. Last fall, Cecil Intermediate School secured a grant that was used to renovate a dingy storage room into a dynamic, well-equipped, center of creativity. The room provides students and teachers with a place to create and innovate. Students are using digital technology in our makerspace to share their learning via programs such as Prezi (presentation software), Canva (graphic design software), and Scratch (programming language).
Improving student achievement begins when teachers have the knowledge to pave a proper path. Our goal will be to build activities, lessons, and units that will encourage our students to create, communicate, collaborate, and innovate. If we want our students to MAKE an impact on the world, we need to encourage the use of tools and computational skills to empower them with critical thinking skills to solve tomorrow’s problems.
References
Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2011). Computational thinking leadership toolkit. Retrieved on December 2, 2016 from https://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/471.11CTLeadershiptToolkit-SP-vF.pdf
Graves, C. (2016, September). Crafting professional development for maker educators. Retrieved on October
24, 2016 from
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/crafting-professional-development-maker-educators-colleen-graves
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2014). CT for an elementary school level audience. [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved on December 2, 2016 from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=152&category=Solutions&article=Computational-thinking-for-all
Martinez, S. (2014, October). The maker movement: Standing on the shoulders of giants to own the future.
Retrieved on October 24, 2016 from
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/maker-movement-shoulders-of-giants-sylvia-martinez
Wing, J. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33-35.