Maker Showcase
Maker Philosophy
My Personal Experience
Joining Maker
At first I was hesitant to join UTeach Maker. I felt making was something other people did, not me. Even as I sat through the Step 1 maker lesson and was told "everyone's a maker!", I thought "that's cool, but I'm not". I was afraid to try and fail. I felt I would not be good at making, so I wasn't even going to try. Shelly constantly encouraged me to apply, but I was not convinced. Finally, we had a talk about stepping outside of your comfort zone. As a teacher, I want my students to take risks and try new things. After all, that's how you learn. How would I be able to ask my students to step outside of their comfort zones if I myself could not? So I did it, I applied to UTeach Maker and began my maker journey.
In the beginning...
After joining maker, I dove all in. I was inspired to begin learning new skills that I had only thought about doing. I started with embroidery. With the help of a friend and the internet, I bought the supplies and began learning. Using YouTube videos I learned some basic stitches and began to create. I used my friends and family as inspiration and made different projects. The feeling of teaching myself a new skill was exhilarating. I wanted more. From there I kept learning and making. With the help of the amazing UTeach maker community, I
Making & my Teaching Philosophy
Making had a huge impact on me as a person. I went from thinking I was not able to create, to constantly wanting to create and solve problems. I learned that I am capable of teaching myself new skills and gained confidence in my abilities. Because of this impact, I began to change how I viewed my role as a teacher. I want my students to feel like they are capable. I want them to solve problems. I want them to step outside of their comfort zones and learn new skills. I want my students to hold maker mindsets, make, and identify as makers. I went from thinking my role was to teach kids math, to viewing my role as one to prepare these students for their future, whatever that looks like. Yes, I will teach math, but I will also teach students to be creative problem-solvers through making.
Girls are Makers!
I found the report Making Culture by Youngmoo E. Kim, Kareem Edouard, Katelyn Alderfer, and Brian K. Smith to be a very interesting read. It touched on how makerspaces have a positive impact in K-12 education, but also talked about the gaps in inclusion of makerspaces.
I was able to relate this reading to my own experience. Part of the reason I felt I was not a maker, is because I had a preconceived idea of what a maker looked like. My thought was a maker is the "nerdy engineering dude". After joining Maker, these ideas were broken down I learned more about myself as a maker. However, this reading opened my eyes as to how this problem is still apparent. Not only do recruitment efforts create barriers for girls, they also create barriers for boys who do not identify with the "geek hacker" culture.
From Making Culture,
"The most common framings encountered within internal school recruitment for makerspaces were (paraphrasing):
'Students who are a bit geeky and can innovate'
'Smart kids who like to tinker'"
Making is for everyone. By using phrases and wording as shown above, it gives the idea that making is something only smart, geeky kids can do. The report also found that although in K-8 the gender makeup was pretty equal, by high school "female representation dropped to 25%". Possible reasons for this drop were also found by the report from recruitment materials to the way boys and girls were referred to in interviews.
There is a preconceived idea of what a maker looks like. In order to move to more inclusive making, these barriers need to be taken down. More female representation in leadership shows girls that makers are not just the nerdy boy. It also shows the non-geeky boy that makers look different. We are all makers! We just might not all see it yet. The report also gives recommendations for creating an inclusive makerspace. A summary is below.
The report also discusses the positive impacts making has on ELL students, students with behavior problems, and the general mindset of students.
A summary of the recommendations from the report by: Youngmoo E. Kim, Kareem Edouard, Katelyn Alderfer, Brian K. Smith. Taken from link