Category: Lessons Learned

Reflections on teaching.

Maker Portfolio

Learning from Maker Spaces – Click on the pictures to see the gallery and read captions describing what you are seeing.

Ideas picked up at Lighthouse Charter’s Creativity Lab:

Tangible/visual way to explain/celebrate/include different types of making
Fast/portable hanging display that does not permanently alter the space
Great way to make putting bins back in the right place easy

 

Gallery of Maker projects produced at Lighthouse Charter and Park Day

Projects that explore the facets of maker education:

Last year, I built a scratch program that demonstrates translations using pac man
My partner requested a wallet that would hold her phone and keys. This project emphasized understanding the needs of your partner as a first step.
Ohlone maker project – round skull in a square peg. This project exemplifies how creating an object internalizes memorable lessons. This project captures the tradition of physically shaping of the infant’s skull by the mother, which can be seen as a metaphor for the cultural value of belonging through conformity.
Group make project – we did a PPC and a Take-Apart on a polaroid and then put it back together to make a tool that would help people appreciate their biases
As part of a maker course, we made boxes. I opted for cardboard over wood because that is a material I will have readier access to materials and tools for in the classroom. Working with cardboard is a way of promoting the maker ethic of equity.
This project involved understanding what makes physical structures stable. The versatility of the materials allowed for quick iteration and experimentation which allowed for hands-on learning.

Learning to use a laser cutter at Chimera Arts makerspace in Sebastopol.

The laser cutter is a high tech tool that easily produces amazing finished products while developing design/computer skills and practice skills including iteration, perseverance, and craftsmanship.

Example of a laser etching done with Chimera Makerspace laser cutter.
My first laser cutting experiment. Laser etching on corrugated cardboard.
Laser cut number 2: a sign for my new classroom.
Close up of the laser cut; I was trying to cut away enough of the hanging file folder to make the cardboard translucent, with mixed results.

Maker Philosophy

I have come to believe through my exposure to Agency by Design that the purpose of making in education is to provide opportunities for students to empower themselves through developing productive “thinking routines.”  As a math teacher, this is a really important evolution in my understanding because the thinking routines that making encourages are closely aligned with the common core math practice standards.  This provides the lens I needed for framing making instructional ideas as ways to develop these practices.  An example I plan to use this week with all of my math classes is a PPC: Parts, Purposes, and Complexities on a number of broken household objects from my garage.  A PPC is a perfect way to construct models, use appropriate tools strategically, and look for and make use of structure, not to mention persevere.  The students will then apply the thinking routines they develop to equations later in the week.  While specific technologies or tools like 3d printers may be the icons of the Maker movement and can certainly inspire us (and are incredibly fun and neat and provide an access point for a lot of students) it has been revelatory to discover that Maker education is already so well intertwined with the math curriculum and can be implemented essentially on no budget.