by: Kelsey Lawson
“Maker” is an umbrella term for people who have been known as hobbyists, tinkerers, hackers, builders, crafters, artists, and innumerable other terms.
“Maker spaces” are those places where people come together to create all types of things – physical items and virtual products. Initially found in places such as community-based spaces with nominal paid memberships or in libraries or children’s museums, maker spaces have more recently begun to be implemented in schools across the world.
As Maker Spaces are a relatively recent phenomenon in education, I am exploring how such spaces are being implemented in a BC-specific context to support constructionist learning for students, particularly those at the upper-elementary and middle school grade levels before classes typically transition to subject-specific content such as woodwork, metalwork, or robotics.
I wanted to know things such as how maker space teachers chose the technologies they included in their spaces, how they funded and obtained supplies for the space and courses, what support they had from various levels of their school community, how such learning differs from or complements learning in an academic classroom, changes teachers had noticed in their own teaching methods and in their students’ learning or engagement, and any recommendations maker space teachers had for others who were in the beginning stages of implementation. I decided to perform a comparative review of dedicated school-based maker spaces to document the various ways that maker spaces have been implemented and used to support student learning. Following the completion of my comparative review, I intended to use this information to create a guiding resource for BC teachers wishing to incorporate maker space concepts within their classrooms and schools.
Initially, I thought I’d contact teachers in maker space classrooms across BC and visit sites that were within driving distance, so as to have as much information as possible from which to identify themes and draw conclusions. Following guidance from my instructors that any type of school across the whole of BC was too broad a study, I decided to narrow it to public school districts on Vancouver Island, then further to Central and North Vancouver Island. I planned to schedule on-site visits to maker space classrooms to interview teachers in person as well as to observe and document the physical spaces. Then COVID struck, throwing a wrench into everything I had so carefully planned and requiring that I redo a fair bit of the work I had already completed. Despite how it felt as though I should have SO MUCH TIME for thesis work, I found the opposite to be true.
So, ask me anything. I’m perfectly willing to talk about the roadblocks that pop up in the thesis process, working through your literature review, how inkshedding never actually takes 30 minutes. Hopefully my experience so far can be useful to you.
Hi! I love the idea of maker spaces – some exist in communities already, but should certainly be tied to the school system. Excellent mentoring and networking opportunities, as well as am amazing resource that expands the financial and physical space restrictions on the regular school systems. My questions: Can you provide an “inventory” of existing makers spaces and whether or not they allow school aged students to join/participate? Maybe a GIS database to visualize? My friend Jamie is an excellent local resource – his website is Little Earth – see https://avalanches.littleearth.ca/
Also, If I was a young student, is there maker space in my community? Can I get funding support or sponsored to join? Can I incorporate my projects into the current curriculum? How do I connect with the “wise old person the has time to be my ideal mentor” ?
Hi Chris,
Make.co is an excellent resource for makers. They’ve put together an ongoing directory of maker spaces around the world here – https://makerspaces.make.co/?_ga=2.179534756.1451583796.1614997240-916125064.1614997240
As far as the answer to your question about young students joining community-based maker spaces, that depends on the maker space. Concerns such as insurance requirements, effective supervision of young makers to ensure they work safely, etc impact the age range for membership, and individual maker space resources would vary for membership sponsorships and the like. That said, there are many public places such as museums/children’s museums, art galleries, and libraries that have incorporated maker spaces for children such as The Royal Alberta Museum (https://royalalbertamuseum.ca/learning/children/makerspace) and The Museum in Kitchener (https://themuseum.ca/the-underground-studio-makerspace/). Such maker spaces are generally open to the public but may require paying admission or purchasing a membership to the museum. Other maker spaces, especially those in libraries, are funded by taxpayer dollars as part of the operating costs of the public facility.
The other consideration is that many successful maker spaces are successful because they are equipped to serve the particular interests of their community. As an example, very young makers may be all-in on building with lego and turning their creations into robots, but may not be yet able to design an item to be 3D printed which would make a 3D printer extraneous and not a valuable use of precious budget dollars.
Hi Kelsey. What an interesting topic!! I love the questions that Chris asked and would also love to hear more about current projects people are doing. I hadn’t heard of Maker Spaces before so thank you for bringing this resource to my attention. I was looking online and came across a resource for Coding & Makerspaces that SET-BC created which may give a good example of how Makerspaces can be used in the classroom – see https://www.setbc.org/2017/04/intro-to-coding-and-makerspace/#1447961852046-df7cf0f2-b4ed. I would love to set up a maker space that has a 3D printer in it. I also found this article about the Vernon School District who set up a mobile maker space, which is an idea that might be very useful with the pandemic going on – see https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016EDUC0020-000232.
Have you used it before yourself? How did you come across this for being your project topic? Are you aware of any grants that could be used to help set-up a maker space in the classroom as I imagine it could get quite expensive? Best wishes in your project journey!
Hi Melissa,
I love the idea of a mobile maker space – I think something like that would be really valuable in school districts, especially those which are not well-funded or do not have strong PACS to fundraise for particular items, as it would expand the population of students who could be exposed to maker technologies and opportunities and would take the onus off each school to fund equipment which may be a repeat across multiple schools. Each maker space is quite particular to its population, which does make it difficult to be all things to all people when the interests of the population vary across schools.
I teach shop – wood, metal, etc. Maker spaces are complimentary but generally separate from the traditional shop spaces. In BC, the power cannot be turned on in a shop space unless the teacher is certified to do so via specialist training. In maker spaces that are developed outside of a traditional shop, there is no such requirement. From what I’ve seen so far, many school-based maker spaces are aided by their school PAC, community donations, and the passion of a particular teacher in the school. Supportive admin helps as well. Thank you for your well wishes!
Hi Kelsey,
I am currently putting together my work based on STEAM and ADST education within the BC curriculum. Everything I read focuses on the importance of play and providing as much hands-on experience as possible. Unfortunately, this is also hard to fully execute during COVID. I am wondering how many people, if you were able to meet up with teachers, connected maker space to STEM, STEAM, or ADST in your conversations?
Hi Cole,
I’m still working on the conversations and interviews portion of my work, so I can’t answer your question as well as I suspect you might have hoped. ADST is integral to a maker space however, and provides much of the basis for the curricular justification for the development of a maker space within a school. STEM/STEAM provide a nice umbrella for the ADST aspects.
I’d love to see your work so far!
Hi Kelsey, yours is an example of how the limit on face to face interactions for research can impact research plans and I hope you are still able to connect virtually with other teachers who are using maker spaces and how they use it in order to create a resource. My question is – in our teacher education program (at VIU) we do not have a methods course for ADST, and sometimes we wonder how and where to incorporate this curriculum into our existing methods courses. Do you have recommendations about where (in what course) or how we can introduce teacher candidates to maker space as a teaching pedagogy?
Hi Rachel – my reply posted as a new comment. See https://wordpress.viu.ca/conference2021/2021/02/27/an-exploration-of-maker-spaces-in-vancouver-island-public-schools/#comment-289
Hi Kelsey, I am thrilled to see you exploring Maker Spaces for your Med work! They are such a valuable resource in our communities and schools. I can hear the frustration in your words about the curve balls thrown at you due to COVID….but I do hope you are able to complete this important work through virtual interviews and walk-throughs. I am interested in hearing your responses to the questions already asked so won’t ask a new question.
I love the idea of maker spaces. I am a middle school shop teacher so building and figuring out how things go together is part of what I do with my students every day. But I feel there are some things you can do to avoid the frustration of managing a makerspace. At one point I tried out creating a ‘maker space’ within the shop. Here was some of my experiences at the middle school age group. I started out too broad, just collecting a bunch of random things to build with. Then we had classes come in with instructions like – design and build something that would help the people of ancient Egypt or something like that. It was a gong show, students just pilfered the supply bins, half the stuff ended up in the garbage because whenever an error was made they would just throw it out and grab new material. Tools got broken because they were used incorrectly. The the tidy up and organization of the materials was a challenge. I feel for a maker space to work with the younger age groups, it has to be fairly specific in it’s intention – for example robotics or Mindstorms or jewelry making or rockets etc… otherwise you are managing too much variety in materials and it can turn into a massive headache. And there has to be some direction from the teacher it can’t just be a free for all, but then this is a fine balance – is the project teacher directed or student-led?. Materials: A makerspace should be more than just a craft room, which means there are more complex materials and tools but kids need to be taught how to use these tools and materials in advance so that when is comes time to build, they are safe and not breaking things. Ultimately I think the idea of maker spaces is a great idea but there need to be a comprehensive plan about how and what the students will be doing within the space, not just, let’s go build and see what happens. Just my opinion.
657275525 who are you! I would very much like to add you to my interviewees, as the process proceeds!
I am also a shop teacher, so much of what you mentioned is very familiar. We spend so much time with safety and establishing routines and expectations for safe and effective work within the shop environment that I certainly understand how easily a maker space can fall apart, especially if there isn’t a dedicated maker space teacher to take responsibility for space and facilitate access for classes within the school. I think it also depends on the age range and capabilities/experience of the users of the space. In the end, I am hoping to create a useful document that is reflective of our curricular requirements and local resources for BC teachers or schools that may wish to implement a maker space, based on the successes and lessons learned from those who have been there.
Hello Kelsey,
Maker Spaces are described as being a recent phenomenon in education. In think about the reference to the Egyptians, I wonder how this situates spaces and places where materials, ideas, curiosity and intention intersect and have always existed. I appreciate your rich narrative, painting a picture of chaos for the reader and how you have made a the distinction that a Maker Space is not a ‘free for all’ and the question about the balance between teacher directed or student led resonates for me as a teacher/re-searcher/artist. I wonder how inquiry guides makerspaces in middle schools and how intentions for inquiry might be co-constructed within a learning community. Could this be somewhere between and beyond teacher directed and/or student lead. You are offering many intriguing questions about the abundance of makerspaces, shared ownership of learning and observations about how these spaces are cared for. Thank you for this thought provoking work.
Hi Cameron, I agree that 657275525 made some really interesting points! I think that exploring maker space as an aspect of incorporating ADST into a cross-curricular approach to student learning is quite possible if done thoughtfully and in a very intentional manner. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and comments! I’ll certainly be spending some time thinking about the points everyone has brought up so far.
Hi Rachel,
Wow do I want to get my hands on the methods courses! I had a long, thorough response all typed up and then there was a glitch with the ReCAPTCHA and it all disappeared, so I’ll try to recreate it.
All of the specialist Technology Education teachers in BC train at BCIT (other than those who are Red Seal certified and teach on letters of permission or other such situations), so the TTED program there may be an excellent resource. https://www.bcit.ca/programs/technology-teacher-education-diploma-full-time-605ddipma/
That said, ADST can be incorporated in such an effective cross-curricular manner that it would fit into many of the existing methods courses. So much of ADST is about doing that I would introduce teacher candidates to learning that way – have them complete practical work as a way of addressing theory. Many teachers are reluctant to teach material that they haven’t had the opportunity to develop a level of comfort with, especially when new to teaching, so any exposure to incorporating ADST in a cross-curricular manner they get before entering their own classrooms can only be beneficial.
I would LOVE to develop a brand new methods course specifically addressing incorporating ADST concepts as an instructional method.
While I’m not deeply familiar with the content of the specific courses at VIU, it looks as though the following courses could also incorporate ADST and/or access to a maker space in a manner that would truly serve K-12 students:
EDPD 582 Special Topics: Investigation of Practice
EDPD 593 Differentiating Curriculum in the Inclusive Classroom: Investigation of Practice
Differentiation is easily achievable when incorporating ADST concepts into the classroom – actual practice in a maker space would give teachers another tool to differentiate effectively based on student needs.
EDUC 250 and 450 Special Topics in Education both appear to offer an amazing opportunity to introduce teacher candidates to maker space and ADST concepts.
I don’t know how EDTE 531 Social Justice Issues in Education proceeds as a course, but how interesting would it be to explore Social Justice issues through a maker lens!
And if viewed as an opportunity to implement cross-curricular learning as a teaching strategy, maker spaces and ADST could be incorporated into EDTE 400/401, 417, 419, 427, 520 or 530 (oh the possibilities with these ones!).
EDPD 593 Differentiating Curriculum in the Inclusive Classroom: Investigation of Practice looks as though it may be a great fit for ADST and making – also perhaps EDPD 582.
EDPB 530/531 Instructional Design: Application of Educational Technology would be a great fit – especially if they explore Hacker Space or the like.