Still No Makerspace
- Paige Dersham
- Jul 16, 2015
- 3 min read
Documenting the Creation of the Exploration and Learning Hub - Part 2
I left that UnPD with no partner to collaborate with and no money for a maker station. But I did leave with new learning, a larger vision, and a name of someone to contact, Meegan. I e-mailed her the next morning as soon as I got to school. After a series of emails Meegan came out to watch my class on January 23. She wanted to see how we used the room during a normal day. She watched the flow of the classroom, what the kids were doing, how and what I taught, and what was already in the classroom. She took pictures, drew pictures and took notes for the whole morning. When we talked at lunch she had some great ideas for my room, the first of which was to start purging the stuff I really didn’t need to make more room. This day felt like the first steps toward what started to be called the 21st century classroom project (more on my thoughts on that later).
Meegan a
nd I had a flurry of emails back and forth, we were drawing and thinking about space usage. I can’t believe how having this project that had yielded nothing in my classroom yet had energized my teaching! The idea became one of a complete change of my classroom from furniture to walls to that maker space. We were going to create a learning environment that would prepare kids for their futures. Jobs that would demand collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and flexibility. Meegan mentioned giving kids “voice and choice”, and that really resonated with me. That became the lense I used as this project moved forward.
I realized I needed someone else, ideally another teacher, to collaborate on this this idea. We had talked about getting my class up and running and having it be a model classroom that teachers could come see to get ideas about changing their learning environments. That was when I thought of another teacher in the building who might like to join forces. She teaches 1st grade. If we could make this work in both classes we could have models for both primary and intermediate rooms. I went down and gave my first pitch of this larger innovation to Liz. She liked it and jumped in with both feet. Meegan came out and did the same work with her room.
At this point we were reading research on learning environments, looking at innovative work spaces like Google’s offices, and looking at various furniture options. We also started preparing to give our pitch at an Imaginarium event that could get us $20,000. This ultimately was canceled but it got us ready to present our ideas to someone. Meegan had also gotten 5 Hokki stools for us to try out as part of changing the furniture. The kids loved these stools and we got some great video of our kids working on these chairs rather than regular chairs, especially in 1st grade. This started a buzz in the whole building as parents, teachers, and kids from other classes wanted to know what was going on.
It was early March and we had a plan but no way to fund it. I decided I needed something to feel like our planning was going forward so I signed up for Donors Choose and asked for a Lulzbot Mini 3D printer. I was lucky enough to get an anonymous donor who donated up to $100 for each person who donated. My $1600 project went live for donations on a Friday and was funded by Sunday afternoon! Four days after that a 3D printer was delivered to the school that I had no idea how to use. Luckily it was delivered the day before spring break, which meant I had a week to learn to use it before helping the kids learn how.
During this same week we were finishing up a round of PARCC testing. The kids desks had been in rows for this, which I do not like so when we finished I decided to give kids that “voice and choice”. I showed them a video of about changing the classroom layout for better learning and then told them to brainstorm how they wanted the room to look. They drew ideas on the Promethean board, talked about the video and what would work for them. I did very little but watch, they just took over. They settled on a set up they all agreed would work and then we set to working moving furniture. The idea hit a road bump and they had to stop and rethink their idea, and then they were off and running again. The setup was nothing I would have thought of but they loved it. It was interesting to see how excited they were about “their design”. I saw them work very hard over the next couple of weeks to make sure I knew it was working well for them. Their attention when I instructed and their focus when working together was fantastic!
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