Starting a Makerspace? Your Beginner's Guide -
If your facility is interested in launching a Makerspace, we have a few tips and suggestions to help guide yours through the process. What makes the maker movement exciting is that making is about celebrating creativity by learning how to do new things through hands-on, human interaction and experimental play. According to the Makerspace Playbook, makers believe “if you can imagine it, you can make it.” While makers aren’t typically in it for the money, the movement is neither definitively for profit nor anti-commercial. What makers need is a place to turn their ideas into actual stuff: A Makerspace, where individuals or students can gather to “create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of materials,” according to Renovated Learning. What to Consider When Starting A Makerspace The thought of starting a Makerspace can be daunting. 1) Get up to speed on the latest Makerspace trends and guidelines 2) Find the right space: 3) Get the right tools and materials Works Cited
Setting Up Your Own MakerSpace
Since you already know that you want to set up a MakerSpace you know that it is an area that provides hands-on, creative ways for students to design, experiment, and invent as they engage in science, engineering, and tinkering.” (definition from edutopia) Before I started making specific plans for a MakerSpace in my library, I started reading everything that I could get my hands on that would inform me about such a space. I read online, searched out other libraries, schools, classrooms, and communities that had MakerSpaces, hit the library and Amazon looking for books about MakerSpaces, visited several MakerSpaces in the area, read blogs about MakerSpaces, and followed makers on Twitter. Once you are informed, chat with your building leaders to share why your students need MakerSpace opportunities and the plan you have established to make it happen.
Heart pillow (no-sew)
Have a look at this easy way to make such a pillow from felt fabric or polar fleece (the cloth must threadless). You need felt fabric (polar fleece) in two different colors, scissors, and wadding (cotton) to stuff the pillow with, when it is ready. Put the fabrics one over the other. Cut a big heart. After that draw a smaller heart inside the bigger one. Be sure to leave at least 2 – 3 cm between the two borders. Start to tie every two stripes, which one over another. Tie all the stripes in this way. Do not forget to stuff the heart with wadding or cotton before you close the heart. At the end, you can reduce the length of the stripes to make your heart bushy. see also:
Mindsets and Resistance to Learning | Tomorrow's Professor Postings
Folks: The posting below, a bit longer than most, looks at a very important concept of “growth mindset” and its impact on student learning. It is from Chapter 9 – How Promoting Student Metacognition can Reduce Resistance, by Rob Blair, Anton O. Tobman, Janine Kremling, and Trevor Morris, in the book, Why Students Resist Learning – A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students, edited by Anton O. Tolman and Janine Kremling. Regards, Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: Active Learning Strategies Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning ---------- 3,339 words ---------- Mindsets and Resistance to Learning One psychological theory useful for understanding student resistance describes the self-theories of students. Dweck (2006) explored two primary self-theories or mindsets; the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. On the contrary, people with a growth mindset believe that “your basic qualities are things that you can cultivate through your efforts. Mindsets and Teacher Behaviors Rob Blair
Dewey Designs to Share — Katie Day
But it was fairly monochrome and I envisaged associating different colors with different sections, much like the famous colored layout of rooms at Powells Books in Portland, Oregon (see colored section sign to the right). So Maggie got permission from Susanna to modify her icons and to change the colors. Over the years people have asked Maggie for permission to use her designs -- and, so finally, in a creative commons way (in line with how Susanna allowed to build upon her original design) -- click here to access a DROPBOX folder of all her files. My good friend and colleague Barb Philip Reid also has a talented graphic designer (step) daughter -- Natasha Potzsch.
The ideas behind a school makerspace and its benefits for students – Rock Island Techie
When I first heard about makerspaces, I wondered what was so unique about such spaces and what differentiated them from a classroom with materials for projects, the room I use as an office and keep all my art, tech, and office supplies, or even the garage or shed that my husband keeps all his tools and gear for various things. As I’ve learned more about makerspaces, I’ve realized that all these places (and many more) CAN be makerspaces and probably are often used that way from time to time. In a school makerspace, the actual space and tools (or supplies and resources) are just part of the equation; so what is the pedagogy behind a maker space in schools and how does that benefit students? “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” (Cooper, 2013, para 2). What does this mean for the teacher utilizing a makerspace with their students? References:
5 Makerspace Books You Need to Read | Knowledge Quest
There’s so many amazing books coming out now related to starting a school makerspace, and many of them are fantastic. But for this post, I want to take a look back and focus on the five books that had the biggest impact on me as I was planning and creating my makerspace at Stewart Middle Magnet School. This was back in late 2013/early 2014, when there wasn’t a ton of stuff out there that specifically focused on school makerspaces. Even without a direct focus on library makerspaces, these books still had a profound impact in shaping my thinking about creating an innovative, playful learning environment. Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom Maybe this one is obvious, but it still has to be here. The Art of Tinkering This book comes from The Exploratorium, an amazing hands-on science museum in San Francisco. The Art of Tinkering looks at over 150 different artists and makers and how they weave science and technology into their work. The Third Teacher Like this:
Positive Contributions of Constructivism to Educational Design| Europe’s Journal of Psychology
Published at 27. February 2006 Theoretical Contributions Pagán, B. (2006). Positive Contributions of Constructivism to Educational Design. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 2(1). Altmetric PlumX Dimensions CitationsCitation Indexes: 1UsageAbstract Views: 15Full Text Views: 13CapturesExports-Saves: 1Readers: 21MentionsReferences: 1Social MediaTweets: 1see details
