Makers & Mentors
A great way to get your Maker Movement started is to write a Maker Manifesto. This is a statement about your beliefs and vision for your school’s Maker Movement and the people involved. It is good to develop this statement together, with students, teachers, and mentors.
Here is a list of fundamental understandings that may help you get started - MakerManifestoPDF.
Students
“The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for the Maker Movement is to transform education. My hope is that the agents of change will be the students themselves.” (Dougherty, p. 1.)
Students should play a key part in the Maker Movement at your school. Certainly their main role is to make stuff, but they should also be included as much as possible in other aspects as well. Students can help with planning, managing tools and materials, and taking on leadership roles where necessary. Students can run meetings and teach skills they have mastered.
Students should be encouraged to develop and share their expertise. They may do this at school, but they can also be encouraged to help out in the community by volunteering at a summer camp or local charity.
Students should be involved in setting expectations and developing a vision for their time together. They should take ownership of their learning by engaging in exploration, defining and developing projects, collaborating with mentors and fellow students, documenting their learning story, and following safety protocols.
Projects
Students come to the Maker Movement with a variety of different experiences and skill levels. Some students will be ready to develop and tackle their own projects based on a vision they have. Others will have made projects partly based on their own ideas and partly based on projects they’ve seen in a book or on the internet. Still others will be completely new to the idea of making. Starting with a few teacher-led or small group projects allows students time to explore and find inspiration for their independent projects.
Teacher-led projects help students learn new skills, explore ideas, and create an identity as a creator. Teachers can also use these teacher-led project times to embed mini lessons on safety, tool use, and maker expectations.
“Each time students complete the design and build process, they gain confidence to complete future projects.”
(Makerspace team, 2013, p.27)
Independent projects engage students in developing, creating, editing, and sharing, their own projects based upon their unique vision.
8 Elements of a Good Project:
1. Purpose and Relevance – Is meaningful to the learner. Is it something they want to invest their time, effort, and creativity into developing?
2. Time – Gives sufficient time for students to develop, test, change, and edit their projects. In-school and outside school time may be needed.
3. Complexity – Combines multiple subject areas, and calls upon each students’ prior knowledge and expertise.
4. Intensity – Allows an outlet for students’ intensity. Provide longer times for making, as well as times for students to use maker-spaces outside school.
5. Connection – Connects students to each other, experts, multiple subject areas, powerful ideas, and the world through the internet. Avoid assigning students to groups, allow collaboration to happen naturally.
6. Access – Provides access to a variety of tools and materials, anytime, anyplace. Have a large supplies of these items available for students use.
7. Shareability – Makes something that is shareable with others. Students should have an authentic audience.
8. Novelty – Ensures there is variety of projects and that they aren’t repeated each year. Also avoids using maker-time to have everyone do the same project.
Adapted from: Martinez, S.L. & Stager, G.S. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. (Chapter 4, para. 1).
Process
These are some activity design tips adapted from the Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio:
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Build on the kids’ prior interests and knowledge.
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Choose materials and phenomena to explore that are evocative and invite inquiry.
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Think of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education as a means, not an end in itself.
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Provide multiple pathways (i.e., don’t ask your kids to adhere to rigid step-by-step instructions)
From Maker Club Playbook January 2012, p. 9
1. Exploring: (September - November) Students build their skills and explore the potential of making.
Teachers may decide to engage students in whole group projects or allow students to explore various projects on the internet. Providing students the opportunity to customize their project can add a personal touch. Make sure that the projects you choose are open-ended enough to capture the diverse interests and skill sets of your students.
Teachers may also choose to hold workshops on specific skills like, how to solder, how to take apart things, how to build a simple circuit, or how to knit or sew.
2. Making: (November - March) Students develop their own projects and engage in the process of making.
Brainstorming is a first step in coming up with the right project. Remind students that projects need to be achievable and challenging. Some students may find it very hard to come up with an idea.
This document gives strategies to help - Brainstorming PDF.
Collaborating is an important part of the making process. Students need time to meet with their mentors and have conversations with other makers. These conversations may happen spontaneously but it is also good to schedule regular meetings. These meetings can help to guide deadlines for getting things done, show what others are developing, provide a forum to discuss mistakes and failures in positive ways, and build community.
“Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” – Adam Savage, host Mythbusters
(Martinez & Stager, 2013, Documentation, para. 3)
Documenting the learning journey and creating learning artifacts helps to make students thinking visible or public. Documentation can take many forms. Students may want to record their learning journey by keeping a blog, taking videos or photos, annotating their photos, or writing in an inventor’s notebook. Digital cameras and other technologies should be made available for students to access while they work.
This document gives ideas for different ways students can record their learning stories - Documentation PDF.
3. Celebrating: (April-June) Students plan and prepare to celebrate the projects they have been working on during the year.
Some schools attend a Maker Faire in their area, others create a Maker Day at their school. This provides a place for sharing of projects and skills, and also allows makers to make connections to others in the community.
Pixar uses the term “plussing” to mean finding what’s good about an idea and making it better.
Here are a few of the kinds of questions members can ask one another during their plussing sessions:
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What is your project vision? What are you hoping to do?
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What inspired you to pick this project? Why are you doing it?
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Do you know of other people who have done projects that are similar, or is this one-of-a-kind?
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What other project ideas have you toyed with?
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What kinds of projects have you built in the past?
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What do you think the hard parts are going to be? What are the easier parts?
From Maker Club Playbook January 2012, p. 11
Questions to think about when documenting projects:
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What was the project vision? What were we hoping to do?
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What inspired us to pick this project? Why did we do it?
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Have other Makers done similar projects, or was this one-of-a-kind?
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What’s next? Are there other project ideas we have toyed with?
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What kinds of projects had we built before?
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What was hard to do? What was easier to do? Did that surprise you?
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Were there any interesting, surprising, or spectacular failures?
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Were there any interesting or surprising behind-the-scenes stories?
From Maker Club Playbook January 2012, p. 13
Maker Day
“A Maker Day is about creativity and collaboration. It celebrates individual ingenuity within the context of the creative culture of shared values.”
(Martinez & Stager, 2013, Chapter 11, para. 2.)
Maker Day is a chance to celebrate all the making students have done and to make connections with new supporters. It shouldn’t just be about “show and tell” and it shouldn’t encourage competition. You want the community to see that students are learning by making. They are solving problems and using modern tools, they are employing many different materials and techniques, and they are creating communities of collaboration and creativity.
Planning and Space:
Make sure to involve students as much as you can in the planning and preparations for the Maker Day event. Have them make posters and write letters to advertise. They can sell tickets, decorate the venue, and set up stations. This is another valuable learning opportunity.
The place you choose to hold your Maker Day is important. You want it to be somewhere accessible and visible. The idea is to bring interested people in to celebrate and learn with you, even those just walking down the street.
You will need one large room/space where students can show off their projects and where guests can interact and participate with them. You may also want to have a few smaller, adjacent rooms where short presentations, mini lessons, or demonstrations can take place. Make sure you have access to all the resources you may need, electricity, light, proper ventilation, and water. Make sure safety plans and equipment are also in place.
Activities:
You may wish to start your event with a welcome gathering. If you plan to make speeches or do introductions keep them short. This day is about students and making. Students could start the day by leading everyone in a Maker Chant or sharing their Maker Manifesto. They also could do a quick maker project with participants to get everyone excited about making.
There are many activities you can do, but as much as possible have students lead events where others are encouraged to make. You may also choose to include an “Ask the Expert” booth. Parents who have a specialty in areas such as computing, mechanics, woodworking, or parents that are artisans, are excellent choices to play this role. You can also include student experts. Classes in specific skills like soldering or coding may also be something you would like to consider.
Maker days can also provide opportunities for fundraising. Auctions, raffles, face painting, are just a few ideas you can do to raise money for future making efforts.
Videos: These are large Maker Faire examples, but the ideas can be downsized to meet the needs of your school or community.
Assessment
“Grading students work is likely to result in students being less willing to challenge themselves and to search for the easiest path to “done” rather than risk taking on another iteration of their project.” (Martinez & Stager, 2013, Grades and Rubrics, para. 2)
Assessing is a teacher's job, but it can be tricky when it comes to assessing students maker projects. Many believe that rubrics are a good tool but rubrics also have a downside, as Martinez and Stager point out. “The rubric is intended to provide firm guidelines about what the student is supposed to do, and the credit (grade) they will earn. It sets the expectation so there is no mistake or misunderstanding about how the teacher expects the project to turn out.” (Martinez & Stager, 2013, Grades and Rubrics, para. 4). This tool puts the outcome of learning in the teacher’s hands.
Maker projects require teachers to emphasize the learning processes and create room for learning to grow naturally from the students’ efforts. Instead Martinez and Stager suggest, “Teacher’s should embrace the aesthetic of an artist or critic and create opportunities for project development that strive to satisfy the following criteria. Ask if the project is: beautiful, thoughtful, personally meaningful, sophisticated, shareable with a respect for the audience, moving, enduring.” (Martinez & Stager, 2013, Raising Our Standards - Student Work That Endures, para. 6).
Helpful Resources
Teachers
“Anytime an adult feels it necessary to intervene in an educational transaction, they should take a deep breath and ask,
“Is there some way I can do less and grant more authority, responsibility, or agency to the learner?””
(Martinez & Stager, 2013, A Teaching Mantra: Less Us, More Them, para. 1)
The key role of the teacher is to create and facilitate powerful contexts for learning. They should try to find opportunities to further develop understandings of underlying concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
A teacher needs to be a project manager and coach. They should help students determine a project plan that is the student’s own design. They should help locate materials and tools, ask probing questions, connect students to mentors, and facilitate meeting times for collaborating and sharing. They should help to develop expertise and delegate as much leadership as possible to their students.
Teacher Librarians
“I don’t lead them, I aim them” (Makerspace team, 2013, p.17)
The teacher-librarian is a great support to both teachers and students involved in the Maker Movement at your school. They are able to connect students and staff to the resources and knowledge they are seeking. They can provide strategies for finding the right materials, books, search tools, technology, and mentors that can help makers succeed in their efforts.
Mentors
A mentor is an adult who is experienced in a certain area and can give expertise to a group of students about specific skills, knowledge, materials, or tools, they may need to complete their project. Their main role is to help students achieve their vision without taking over.
Your community and school staffs may be great places to find mentors. A note in the school newsletter requesting certain skills or materials may be fruitful. Often members of your staff may be experts in certain areas or have connections to expertise needed. Mentors can be recruited from many places, but always check with your school board about safety protocols before allowing an out of scope mentor to work with students.
This page describes elements you will want to consider as you begin to get a Maker Movement going at your school. It deals with topics such as roles, projects, process, and assessment. Whether you want your Maker Movement to be imbedded into classroom learning or you want it be an extra-curricular club, you will find tips here to get you going. There are links to additional resources at the bottom of this page.