Creating an Authentic Maker Education Rubric

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 teachers prove that deep, rich learning is occurring through making? How do we justify a grade to students and parents alike, especially to the student who "just isn’t good at art"? Part 1: Process The process of making in the classroom needs to be incorporated in the final grade. Photo credit: Lisa Yokana As part of a recent project in my school's senior-level public policy class, students crafted scale models of Lower Manhattan in preparation for a disaster simulation. Students created a scale model of Lower Manhattan in City 2.0 at Scarsdale High School. Part 2: Understanding Students must demonstrate an understanding of materials and tools. Habits of Mind As part of the process grade, you will need to assess your students' habits of mind. What was difficult? The Story of Understanding Part 3: Product

Designing a School Makerspace Makerspaces, STEAM labs and fab labs are popping up in schools across the country. Makerspaces provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering. A makerspace is not solely a science lab, woodshop, computer lab or art room, but it may contain elements found in all of these familiar spaces. Therefore, it must be designed to accommodate a wide range of activities, tools and materials. Diversity and cross-pollination of activities are critical to the design, making and exploration process, and they are what set makerspaces and STEAM labs apart from single-use spaces. A possible range of activities might include: Cardboard construction Prototyping Woodworking Electronics Robotics Digital fabrication Building bicycles and kinetic machines Textiles and sewing Designing a space to accommodate such a wide range of activities is a challenging process. Ask the Right Questions Going Forward

Capture the Learning: Crafting the Maker Mindset You've heard some good stuff about the maker movement such as how making helps students learn through embodied cognition, creates a mindset that's empowering, and builds creative confidence. You're interested in crafting some maker lessons but don't know where to start or how to do something that works in your classroom. Or perhaps you're worried that you don't have time to do a long, involved project. How do you still teach the Common Core or cover the required curriculum? Teaching Creativity? First, identify the content you need to teach. Second, think about the skills that you want students to use and practice. Third, think about restrictions or limitations for the project. Fourth, craft a main question, the simpler the better. The Power of Design Thinking Capture the learning. Grading creative projects can be difficult, so create a rubric that includes students' process. Showcase the projects. Photo credits: Nicola Minchillo (mandalas) and Lisa Yokana (journals) Understanding vs.

Making Room for Making As a teacher, the library has always been an important, almost sacred place for me to go with my students. It was an opportunity to use the computer lab once in a while and look for books to help support research. Over the past few months, the library has taken on a new and different role for all students and teachers. Our library has become a place where I hang out during my prep period and brainstorm with my amazing teacher librarian, Courtney McGuire. We have been looking at our space and trying to think of ways to bring more students in during their study period. We immediately started thinking about what we wanted to see in this space and talking to students and other teachers. Here are some of the things we have done to make the makerspace happen at our school. 1. One of the things that was really important was finding a space that was accessible to all students during the day. 2. 3. Speaking of money, funding a makerspace is not always a cheap prospect. 4.