Expert Mentors: A Professional Development Model for STEM and Maker Education Implementation

Implementing Maker, STEM, STEAM Education

In order to prevent STEM and maker education from becoming a flavor of the month, there needs to be specific strategies provided to educators on how to embed STEM and maker activities into their curriculum. A good number of educators have not received training on how to integrate activities into their classroom practices which entail resource heavy, hands-on learning.

One of the elementary schools where I work is going to implement maker education this coming school year. In a discussion with the principal and a small number of teachers, we realized that some of the teachers will be resistant due to their lack of experience with the activities, resources, and tools related to maker education, and frankly, their fear of doing something as foreign as maker education.

A key to increase their comfort with and chances for implementing these activities is to provide them with professional development opportunities, but the PD needs to be designed based on research.

Professional Development

Teacher professional learning is of increasing interest as a critical way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to learn in order to succeed in the 21st century. Sophisticated forms of teaching are needed to develop student competencies such as deep mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex problem solving, effective communication and collaboration, and self-direction. In turn, effective professional development (PD) is needed to help teachers learn and refine the instructional strategies required to teach these skills. (Effective Teacher Professional Development).

The Learning Policy institute examined rigorous studies that have demonstrated a positive link between teacher professional development, teaching practices, and student outcomes. They discovered that not all professional development experiences are equal and that effective PD has specific characteristics. Their findings included:

Active learning provides teachers with opportunities to get hands-on experience designing and practicing new teaching strategies. In PD models featuring active learning, teachers often participate in the same style of learning they are designing for their students, using real examples of curriculum, student work, and instruction. 

Curricular models and modeling of instruction provide teachers with a clear vision of what best practices look like. Teachers may view models that include lesson plans, unit plans, sample student work, observations of peer teachers, and video or written cases of accomplished teaching.

Effective professional development provides teachers with adequate time to learn, practice, implement, and reflect upon new strategies that facilitate changes in their practice. As a result, strong PD initiatives typically engage teachers in learning over weeks, months, or even academic years, rather than in short, one-off workshops (Effective Teacher Professional Development).

After attending the New Mexico Computer Science week whereby engineering college students acted as mentors for the participating teachers, I realized that having experts in the classroom working directly with educator can be a great form of professional development. In this case, it was the engineering college undergraduates but it could also be trainers from STEM-related organizations or other educators who have developed their STEM instructional practices. This model has the potential to discuss the properties of effective professional development discussed above. Mainly, educators would be able to see STEM and maker instructional practices being modeled.

Benefits

• Directly observing how the expert interacts with their content and with the learners.
• Experiencing the benefits of team teaching – pairing a content expert with an education.
• Learning how to troubleshoot when the activities don’t work as planned.
• Assisting both the educator and their learners to see failure as iteration and growth opportunities.
• Getting to see how learners respond to the hands-on experiences . . . often with excitement and engagement.

Implementation Suggestions

Some suggestions for implementing this form of professional development follow. It obviously is just a beginning.

• Train expert mentors in interacting with learners using hands-on activities.
• Train and plan meetings between educators and mentor experts making sure that they include collaborative and active learning strategies.
• Needs to occur over time through multiple sessions – not a single time experience.
• Include educator reflection and follow-up as an integral component of the professional development.

An Example

An example of a mentoring program is my local area is the New Mexico STEM Mentor Collective.

The Northern New Mexico STEM Mentor Collective, funded by NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) seeks to raise aspirations and expectations in Middle & High School STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) topics by training and planting (in local schools and libraries) a paid STEM Mentor Corps comprised of caring, exemplary NNMC (Northern New Mexico College) undergraduates

Even though it is designed to bring Engineering undergraduates into the classroom to provide young people with mentors, I contend it could also be used to help educators learn how to implement STEM and maker education activities. I am planning to work with my principal this coming school year to help develop this as a model of professional development.

Pi Day: An Example of an Interdisciplinary, Engaging Lesson

I have the privilege of teaching my gifted elementary students for multiple years. At my one school, I have them in class for a full day each week, and each year I have special thematic days for which the students get very excited, e.g., Halloween and Day of the Dead “Wars,” Valentines Day, Book Celebrations, and Pi Day. I love planning a variety of interdisciplinary activities for these days and I love watching how 100% are fully engaged for the entire time.

I’ve blogged about the value of interdisciplinary units before – All Lessons Should Be Interdisciplinary https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/all-lessons-should-be-interdisciplinary/

Pi Day Activities

The day consisted of the following activities:

• Digital Breakout
• Making and Decorating Pies
• Book: Sir Cumference
• Measuring for Pi
• Kahoot Pi Games

Standards Addressed

Common Core Math Standards:

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.G.B.4
  Know the formulas for the area and circumference of a circle and use them to solve problems; give an informal derivation of the relationship between the circumference and area of a circle.
• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.A.1
  Convert among different-sized standard measurement units within a given measurement system, and use these conversions in solving multi-step, real world problems.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7
  Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.10
  By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4-5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

ISTE Standards for Students:

• Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
• Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making.

21st Partnership for 21st Century Skills:

• Collaborate with others
• Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams
• Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal
• Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member

Digital Breakout EDU – Pi Day

So what is this about Digital Breakout EDU games?  Simply put, it’s taking the same concept, but turning it all digital.  Participants are given a one-page site that includes text, images and links to clues, some of which may be misleading.  There is a Google Form embedded on the page where you submit your answers to a series of “lock” questions and each lock will immediately tell you if you’re successful (http://wordpress.barrow.k12.ga.us/21stcenturytips/?p=6989).

To start off our Pi day activities, students did a Pi Day Digital Breakout EDU game.

Can be accessed at https://platform.breakoutedu.com/game/play/pi-day-digital-breakout-4th-6th-grades-90608 .

Making and Decorating Pies

One of the activities students enjoy the most during Pi day is making pies. They were given ingredients and recipes for:

• Apple Pie – https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-apple-pie-recipe-for-kids-2097625
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie – https://happyhourprojects.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-pies/
• Royal Icing (for decorating the pies) – https://www.chsugar.com/recipe/royal-icing-with-meringue-powder

They needed to follow the recipe which included figuring out the directions and using measurements. After the pies were made, they decorated them with Pi symbols.

Sir Cumference

The students then were shown a reading of Sir Cumference and the First Round Table (A Math Adventure) by Cindy Neuschwander:

Join Sir Cumference, Lady Di of Ameter, and their son Radius for wordplay, puns, and problem solving in this geometry-packed math adventure. King Arthur was a good ruler, but now he needs a good ruler. What would you do if the neighboring kingdom were threatening war? Naturally, you’d call your strongest and bravest knights together to come up with a solution. But when your conference table causes more problems than the threat of your enemy, you need expert help. Enter Sir Cumference, his wife Lady Di of Ameter, and their son Radius. With the help of the carpenter, Geo of Metry, this sharp-minded team designs the perfect table conducive to discussing the perfect plan for peace (https://www.amazon.com/Cumference-First-Round-Table-Adventure/dp/1570911525).

Measuring for Pi

With tape measures in hand, groups of students carefully measure the circumferences and diameters of various round objects.  The class makes a table of measured values and calculates the quotients.  When they see time and time again the same answer result from division, whether it be from big circular objects or small ones—eureka!—they will have unwittingly discovered π for themselves (http://ccssimath.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-life-of-pi.html).

Pi Kahoots

Using Kahoot wasn’t planned for the day but the students asked for it. I love that they ask for learning tasks. The Kahoot quizzes made and submitted by other teachers make it so easy to use them spontaneously. Here are the two Pi Kahoots I did with the students:

Accessed at: https://create.kahoot.it/details/pi-day/877d64ee-3003-4a30-9d82-f1cd81721749

Accessed at: https://create.kahoot.it/details/pi-day-trivia/a7605cd3-4c93-4c13-bc23-eec96da2a627

Authentic Learning Experiences

Providing authentic learning experiences to all learners should be the highest prior for all administrators, curriculum developers, and teachers.

Authentic learning is learning designed to connect what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications; learning experiences should mirror the complexities and ambiguities of real life. Students work towards production of discourse, products, and performances that have value or meaning beyond success in school; this is learning by doing approach (Authentic learning: what, why and how?).

In education, the term authentic learning refers to a wide variety of educational and instructional techniques focused on connecting what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications. The basic idea is that students are more likely to be interested in what they are learning, more motivated to learn new concepts and skills, and better prepared to succeed in college, careers, and adulthood if what they are learning mirrors real-life contexts, equips them with practical and useful skills, and addresses topics that are relevant and applicable to their lives outside of school. For related discussions, see 21st century skills, relevance, and rigor (Authentic Learning).

The bottom line, in my perspective, is that learners view their experiences as having relevancy to their own lives, that they address their interests and needs.

Qualities of Authentic Learning

I believe authentic learning experiences have the following qualities (which, by the way, are way too, often are not the qualities of many classroom activities):

• A state of flow – learners often say, “Is it time to go already?” For more about this, see Flow – A Measure of Student Engagement https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/flow-a-measure-of-student-engagement/.
• Interdisciplinary standards and skills are addressed. For more about this, see All Lessons Should Be Interdisciplinary https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/all-lessons-should-be-interdisciplinary/
• The focus is on learners learning rather than teachers teaching. For more about this, see ‘The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching’ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-objective-of-education-is-learning-not-teaching/.
• Often are minds-on, hands-on activities. For more about this, see The Imperative of Experiential and Hands-On Learning https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/the-imperative-of-experiential-and-hands-on-learning/.
• Learners do not ask, “Why do I need to know this?” Because authentic learning involves student voice and choice. they develop their own constructivist reasons for their need to know. For more about this, see Why Do I Need to Know This? https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/why-do-i-need-to-know-this/ .
• The learning activities are open-ended so learners put their “selves” into their projects.  For more about this, see Open Ended Learning: What, Why, and How https://thehomeschoolscientist.com/open-ended-learning-resource/.
• Projects are long term not finished in one class period. They take many hours, many class periods.
• Troubleshooting and iteration often occur. Learning as an iterative process is discussed in Educators as Lead Learners https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/educators-as-lead-learners/.
• The learners become a community of learners sharing ideas, asking for help, brainstorming.  For more about this, see The Importance of Building Community in the Classroom https://www.teachervision.com/blog/morning-announcements/importance-building-community-classroom

Some Recent Examples of Authentic Learning

Here are some recent examples I have done with my learners – one class did a social entrepreneurship unit while  another class made Makey Makey Marble Mazes. I posted videos so their engagement can be seen.

Social Entrepreneurship

My students are finishing a unit on social entrepreneurship where they started a business to raise monies for a local nonprofit. They created a market survey using a Google Form, which asked about products, price points, potential nonprofit organization recipients of the profits; analyzed survey results, decided on and tested products; developed an expense sheet, using Google Sheets, for expenses and income; created a business plan that included the name of company, cost analysis, promotional plan; made a promotional flyer; created a sales and record sheet; delivered products; and managed monies.

For more information about this unit, see Elementary Social Entrepreneurship: A Perfect STEAM Lesson https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2018/05/13/elementary-social-entrepreneurship-a-perfect-steam-lesson/.

Makey-Makey Marble Mazes

Another group of earners made a Makey-Makey Marble Mazes as described by @Colleen Graves, see https://colleengraves.org/2018/05/04/makey-makey-marble-maze-and-5th-grade/

Reflection

I absolutely love planning authentic learning experiences. I get to use my creativity to plan and implement them. It does take lots of pre-planning – finding resources, usually videos, and purchasing, gathering, and organizing the resources used.

I also love watching how excited learners get doing them. There is 100% engagement. I’ve said before that being an experiential educator, there is lots of pre-planning but the learners work harder than me during class time – as it should be.

A STEM Camp for Young Learners

I just finished a week long – half day STEM camp for learners, ages 7 through 12, half girls and half boys. The energy in the room throughout the week was pretty incredible. There was close to 100% engagement the entire time which is always my goal in teaching. I love turning kids onto STEM, and there is evidence that exposure at a younger age increases the chances of later interest.

Some Evidence of the Importance of STEM in the Early Years

Research tells us that children’s early experience builds brain architecture and lays the foundation for one’s lifelong thinking skills and approach to learning, both critical roots of STEM success. After all, the STEM disciplines require not only content knowledge but also robust thinking dispositions—such as curiosity and inquiry, questioning and skepticism, assessment and analysis—as well as a strong learning mindset and confidence when encountering new information or challenges. These need to be developed in a child’s early education, beginning in infancy and continuing through third grade to lay the roots for STEM success. (McClure et al., 2017) (The Roots of STEM Success: Changing Early Learning Experiences to Build Lifelong Thinking Skills)

According to a new research project, children who engage in scientific activities at an early age (between birth and age 8) develop positive attitudes toward science, build up their STEM “vocabularies” and do better at problem solving, meeting challenges and acquiring new skills. “STEM starts early: Grounding science, technology, engineering and math education in early childhood,” published by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and New America and supported by a National Science Foundation grant, has asserted that “the seeds of STEM must be planted early,” right alongside the “seeds of literacy.” Together, the report said, “these mutually enhancing, interwoven strands of learning will grow well informed, critical citizens prepared for a digital tomorrow.”  (Research: Let’s Move STEM Learning Earlier)

The Camp

Due to the experiential nature of most of my instruction, I use an experiential cycle of learning:

What follows is how I applied it during the STEM camp.

Framing the Activities

The STEM activities were introduced through (1) the use of Brainpop videos and their accompanying quizzes, and (2) tutorial videos and/or webpages with directions. Brainpop videos, due to their animation and humor, have a high interest value for kids, and their follow-up quizzes help to create more active learning. After the Brainpop video introduction, the campers were given an overview of the specific activities through the tutorials. I then would show them the tutorial step-by-step. For some campers, seeing the tutorial in its entirety was enough for them to do the project. Others needed me to go over the project step-by-step using the tutorials as guides. I prefer using online tutorials rather than doing them myself as demonstrations because the tutorials can be projected for a larger image and better viewing by all of the learners.

These specific resources can be found in the slide deck below:

The Doing

The camp consisted mostly of campers DOING the STEM activities. See below for a photographic journey of their engagement in the activities.

Reflection

Activity reflections occurred after the completion of the day’s activities using science journals:

https://www.lakeshorelearning.com/products/el/s/HH258

Journals such as these not only benefit the learners but the educator, too. They provide such good activity evaluation information. For example, the last day of camp, students selected two photos from the week from all of the week’s photos that represented their favorite activities. These were printed for them and they then glued the images into their journals and wrote about them. They then did a verbal check-in to tell the rest of us which ones they selected and why.

When they were sharing these with the rest of the group, one of the girls mentioned that the DIY crystals was her favorite. I was totally surprised. I thought this activity was a dude as the kids didn’t seem that excited about them. I was thinking about dropping it as a STEM activity in the future but now I will, due to her comment, consider using it again.

Our Week in Images

Chemistry – Elephant Toothpaste

Chemistry – Slime

Chemistry – Orbeez Stress Balls

Solar – Solar Cars

Solar – Solar Ovens

Art and Science – Geometric Structures

Art and Science – DIY Crystals

Kinetic Projects – Cranky Contraptions

Kinetic Projects – Helium Balloon Blimp

Kinetic Projects – Motor Boats

 

Elementary Social Entrepreneurship: A Perfect STEAM Lesson

I have done a social entrepreneurship unit with two groups of gifted students, grades 2nd through 5th. It was one of my favorite units . . . ever, and from their reactions, I believe it was one of theirs, too. I call it a perfect STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) unit. The first part of this post explains some of the rationale for this project, and the second part describes the unit, itself.

Why a Unit on Social Entrepreneurship

First, I wanted my learners, who are from lower income families, to develop both an entrepreneur mindset and entrepreneur skills along with the creativity and innovation that comes with these skills.

Entrepreneurship education benefits students from all socioeconomic backgrounds because it teaches kids to think outside the box and nurtures unconventional talents and skills. Furthermore, it creates opportunity, ensures social justice, instills confidence and stimulates the economy. Because entrepreneurship can, and should, promote economic opportunity, it can serve as an agent of social justice. Furthermore, entrepreneurship has historically spurred minorities, women and immigrants to create better lives for themselves and their families.  (Why Schools Should Teach Entrepreneurship)

Second, not only did I want my learners to gain entrepreneur skills, I wanted them to experience the benefits of starting a company in order to raise money to give to a “cause” also known as a form of social entrepreneurship.

Not every child is temperamentally suited to be a social entrepreneur. Not every child is suited to be a scientist, mathematician, or artist. But elementary school-age kids do have the natural curiosity, imagination, drive, and ability to come up with innovative ways to change the world for the better. By exposing our kids to a variety of disciplines, including social entrepreneurship, we are teaching them they have what it takes to “be the change.” One well-known expert on social entrepreneurship, David Bornstein, puts it this way: Once an individual has experienced the power of social entrepreneurship, he or she will “never go back to being a passive actor in society.” (Young Kids Need to Learn About Social Entrepreneurship)

Third, this unit met my own criteria for an effective and powerful unit:

• Instructional challenges are hands-on, experiential, and naturally engaging for learners.
• Learning tasks are authentic, relevant, and promote life skills outside of the formal classroom.
• The challenges are designed to be novel, and create excitement and joy for learners.
• Learner choice and voice are valued.
• Lessons address cross curricular standards. They are interdisciplinary (like life) where multiple, cross-curricular content areas are integrated into the instructional activities.
• Learning activities get learners interested in and excited about a broad array of topics especially in the areas of science, engineering, math, language arts, and the arts.
• Communication, collaboration, and problem solving are built into the learning process.
• Reading and writing are integrated into the learning activities in the form of fun, interesting books and stories, and writing stories, narratives, journalistic reports.
• Educational technology is incorporated with a focus on assisting with the learning activities not to learn technology just for the sake of learning it.
• There is a natural building of social emotional skills – tolerance for frustration, expression of needs, working as a team.

Schedule of Learning Activities

Here was the schedule of learning activities I used for this unit:

•  Introduction
  • Video
  • Online Games
  • Kidpreneurs
• Market Survey – Google Form
• Analyzing Results, Deciding of Products, Testing Products
• Expense Sheet – Expenses and Assets
• Business Plan
• Promotional Flyer
• Sales and Record Sheet

Introduction

Video. Learners were introduced to entrepreneurship with the following video:

Kidpreneur Readings and Workbook. We began reading the Kidpreneurs’ book (free book can be ordered at https://kidpreneursbook.com/free-book) and doing exercises from the accompanying  workbook – these readings and exercises continued throughout the unit. Here is an infographic from the authors of these books:

Online Games. They were then given the opportunity to play some online games that focus on entrepreneurship:

• Lemonade Stand – http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-lemonade-stand
• Coffee Shop – http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-coffee-shop
• Building Rush – https://www.coolmath-games.com/0-building-rush
• Cookie Tycoon – http://www.addictinggames.com/strategy-games/cookietycoon.jsp
• The Uber Game – https://ig.ft.com/uber-game/

Market Survey 

Based on their own interests and hobbies (and with the help of the Kidpreneur workbook), my learners decided on possible products they could sell, and with my help, added possible organizations where profits would go. They developed a market survey from this information:

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Analyzing Results, Deciding of Products, Testing Products

Learners requested that their respective classes and family members take their survey. It was quite a treat watching them continually examine the graphs found on the Google form response page. Here is an example from one student:

From the results, they decided to sell Orbeez Stress Balls and glitter slime donating the profits to our school. They tested out making these products – different sizes and slime recipes – to discover which would be best for production.

Expense Form

I acted as the bank and purchased the materials for the learners to make Orbeez Stress Balls and Slime. I saved the receipts, made copies of them, and had each learner create her or his Google sheet to record expenses.

(Still making sales – students will update income this coming week.)

Business Plan

From all of this information, the learners developed a business plan using the following Kids-Business-Plan simplified for kids. It included:

• Their business name – Gifted Community Craft Story
• Startup costs
• Cost per item
• Marketing strategies

Promotional Flyer

The learners created the following promotional flyer using Google Docs. Luckily, our school has a color printer so I was able to print them out in color for the learners to post throughout the school.

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Sales and Record Sheet

Another document created by the learners was the order form:

Highlights – Selling, Making, Packaging, and Delivering the Products

Students Delivering Raised Monies to the Selected Nonprofit – The Interfaith Community Shelter

 

Additional Resources

• Ten Helpful Tips To Becoming An Kidpreneur [a kid that is an entrepreneur] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ten-helpful-tips-to-becoming-an-kidpreneur-a-kid-that_us_58d42f17e4b0f633072b35c6?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004 
• Lesson Plans – Teaching Entrepreneurship http://www.teachingentrepreneurship.org/category/lesson-plans/
• Little Entrepreneurs: Business For Kids http://www.bschool.com/little-entrepreneurs-business-for-kids/

Reflecting on Maker Experiences with Reflection Cards

I’ve discussed the importance of reflection in my Framework for Maker Education; and specifically discussed reflecting on the maker experiences in several of my blog posts:

• Reflecting on the Making Process https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/reflecting-on-the-making-process/
• The Maker as a Reflective Practitioner https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/the-maker-as-a-reflective-practitioner/

One of my friends and colleagues, Lucie DdeLaBruere, interviewed me and recently blogged about my thoughts and strategies for reflecting on the maker experience in Create Make Learn: March 5 – Reflection as part of Maker Centered Learning http://createmakelearn.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-5-reflection-as-part-of-maker.html?spref=tw

One of the tools I use to facilitate the reflective process is a board game – see below.

Some of the things that I believe makes this game successful are:

• The questions provide the prompts but they are open enough to be personalized by the learners.
• The game promotes discourse and active listening.
• The interactive and semi-structure of the game make it fun for the learners.

Because of the success of the game, I was motivated to create a similar tool for maker reflections. I created a set of reflection cards that I believe can facilitate some deeper reflection.

The Magic of Making: The Human Need to Create

Recently I had the privilege of facilitating two half day workshops entitled, A Framework for Maker Education. The workshop including several mini-sessions of participants creating their own maker projects (Paper Circuits, Squishy Circuits, Gami-Bots, Brush bots, and micro:bit projects). What struck me most during these creating sessions was the high degree of energy, excitement, and joy in the room – it was palatable – with 100% participant engagement. As evidence, see the photos below:

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The conclusion I came up with for this energy and engagement was that the human need to create is innate; and that too many people, starting during their childhood public education, stop creating. When they were given the opportunity, permission/invitation, materials, and methods, they fully embraced making and creating.

I believe that educators can be intentional in setting up environments where learners’ propensity to create flourishes. Some elements that can assist with this kind of unbridled making and creating include:

• Open ended projects that promote self-directed differentiation and personalization.
• Choice of projects, methods, materials.
• Some structure but lots of room for a personal touch; lots of room for creativity.
• Educators letting go of expectations what the final project should look like.
• Focus on the processes of learning.
• Focus on the social emotional aspects of learning – collaboration, persistence, acceptance of failure.
• Acceptance of a learner’s projects based on their own criteria of excellence rather than of the educator’s.
• Reflection is built into the process so learners can revisit their projects with a critical eye.

Open ended projects that promote self-directed differentiation and personalization

Open ended projects equal lots of options for what the learners can make. So given similar materials and methods, each learner is able to create a project based on his or her own interests and skills. For example, during the workshop, learners were instructed how to make a simple paper circuit but then transformed that paper circuit into a personalized art piece as can be seem in the images above.

Open ended projects permit each student to naturally and instinctively to work at or slightly above his or her ability level.  One of results or consequences of providing such activities is an increase in learner engagement, excitement, and motivation. Open ended learning activities permit and encourage learners to bring their “selves” into the work. They become agents of their own learning. Because of this freedom, they often shine as true selves come through. Learners often surprise both the educator and themselves with what they produce and create. It becomes passion-based learning.  Not only do the activities become self-differentiated, they become personalized. (Natural Differentiation and Personalization Through Open Ended Learning Activities)

Choice matters

Choice in the maker education environment can include a choice of projects; a choice of materials; and a choice of methods. During the maker education workshop, learning stations were set up from which the learners could choose: more advanced paper circuits, Gami-bots, bristlebots, Squishy Circuits, and micro:bit projects. Not only were the learners able to choose which projects they wanted to create, but these projects offered them the option to add their own personal touches.

Learning that incorporates student choice provides a pathway for students to fully, genuinely invest themselves in quality work that matters. Participating in learning design allows students to make meaning of content on their own terms. Education works when people have opportunities to find and develop unaccessed or unknown voices and skills. Audre Lorde poignantly describes this “transformation of silence into language and action [as] an act of self-revelation.” Opportunities for flexibility and choice assist learners in finding passion, voice, and revelation through their work. (Student Choice Leads to Student Voice)

Some structure but lots of room for a personal touch; lots of room for creativity.

Learners, during these workshops, were provided with foundational skills for making the projects through direct instruction, videos, handouts that could then be used as springboards for their own creativity. Maker activities such as these were new to these learners; scaffolding was needed in order for them to develop the foundational skills which in turn increased their creativity.

Direct instruction is provided through structured and prescribed activities with the goal of learners then being able to eventually go into self-determined directions. There has been some criticism leveraged against out-of-the-box maker education kits, programmable robots, and step-by-step maker activities. My contention is that learners often don’t know what they don’t know; and that giving them the basic skills frees them to then use their creativity and innovation to take these tools into self-determined directions. (Scaffolding Maker Education Learning Experiences)

Educators letting go of expectations what the final project should look like.

In Focusing on the Process: Letting Go of Product Expectations , I discussed the following:

To truly focus on the process rather than products of learning, the educator needs to let go of expectations about the specific products that should be produced by the students. There are expectations regarding some of the processes in which learners should engage (e.g., divergent thinking, questioning, researching, creating, innovating) but the educator lets go of the pictures in her or his mind about what the products should look like.

The benefits for learners when the educator lets go of final product expections include:

• They are not limited by my expectations nor the expectations of a lesson or assessment developed by an outside entity (e.g., textbook or testing company).
• Their engagement, motivation, curiosity, and excitement increase.
• They learn to tolerate and then embrace ambiguity.
• They learn skills such as self-directed learning, taking initiative, locating resources, asking for help that can be transferred to all learning endeavors.
• It reflects and models how learning occurs outside of school.
• There is an increased investment and pride in their work.
• They develop both a sense of confidence and a sense of competence.

Focus on the processes of learning.

When educators let go of expectations of what the products should be, which I believe is especially important in a maker education environment, the focus becomes on the processes of learning.

Focusing on the learning process emphasizes the students’ responsibility in the learning-teaching interaction. It both enables and encourages students to engage in their own learning. This engagement helps both students and teachers to build learning up from standards and to achieve competencies needed in our modern world. (Is Learning a Product or Process – part 2 )

Accept a learners’ projects based on their own criteria of excellence rather than of the educator’s criteria.

When the educator lets go of expectations of the final product, the learner develops his or his criteria of success. During one of my maker education workshops, one of the participants finished the basics of the introductory LED paper circuit activity. While the other participants were adding their artistic slants, J. sat there with her simple paper project seemingly satisfied with her project. I went over to talk to her. She said that she was finished, and I said back to her, “That’s fine. You don’t have to do any embellishments if you choose not to.” She later told me of a second grade teacher who criticized her art (yikes – that teacher should have been fired). J. told me later that this acceptance of where she was at actually became encouragement for her to take some risks for later projects in the workshop. Her reflective piece included the following:

I learned a lot about myself about how I actually had been discouraged till now to try any kind of artsy or crafty projects, however, with encouragements from partners and Jackie, I was encouraged to go further and do/attempt additional Maker projects/products.

Focus on the social emotional aspects of learning – collaboration, persistence, acceptance of failure.

When the maker activities are open ended and process-oriented, social-emotional skills such as collaboration, acceptance of failure, and persistence naturally emerge.

Self-Awareness: Making in all its forms requires a full range of skills including cognitive, physical, and affective skills. Given this need for multiple and diverse skill set, effective and successful making comes from an accurate assessment of one’s strengths and limitations as well as having optimism and confidence that challenges can be overcome within the making process.

Self-Management: Making, especially making something new, often includes developing goals on the fly, revising those goals, and managing frustrations as the maker works through and learns new skills, processes, and knowledge related to that make.

Relationship skills: The power of being a maker is amplified when one works collaboratively on projects, gets help from others, and shares findings with others. (Maker Education and Social-Emotional Development)

The educator in this context plants the seeds of social emotional learning (SEL) through the use of language of SEL and strategic questioning such as:

• What processes are you using to develop, assess, and revise your goals while making?
• What strategies are you using to manage any frustrations or failures that are occurring during making your project?
• How your using others to help you with your project?
• How are you collaborating with your peers?
• Are you asking for help if and when you get stuck making your project?
• How are you sharing my ideas with others?

Here are some of the reflective comments by my workshop participants related to their social emotional learning:

This was the first time I had experimented with making electrical circuits and we tried some fun activities that I hope to apply in my classroom. In the first activity I learned that having a creative context or backstory to the work was motivating and helped me to extend myself beyond the basic task. In the final activity I found I was able to respond to a problem, persevere and create an original solution while maintaining the integrity of my design.

We were able to learn that in order to succeed we must try and try again. At times it was frustrating but we were able to collaborate between the team and find solutions and were able to solve the problems we faced.

Today I was reminded of the power of learning environments which invite creative, collaborative thinking  – curated with a variety of flexible materials which offer endless possibilities and room for all people to enter into play.

Reflection is built into the process so learners can revisit their projects with a critical eye.

Insuring that a reflective piece is included in the maker education process assists learners in developing their own criteria of excellence and evaluating their performance based on this criteria. The reflection process is as or even more important as the making itself. John Dewey famously stated, “We don’t learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience.” Reflection can be a form of making in itself. Participants, during my workshops, were given the option to reflect on their learning using online tools such as word clouds, video creators, audio pieces, photo essays, online storybooks. What follows is a sampling of reflections from my maker education workshops. I used Google Slides so all reflections are aggregated in one location for access by all participants to later review and examine them: