Make to Learn?

A makerspace is commonly defined as a space in a school where collaboration, iteration, tinkering, creativity, higher order thinking, and exploration take place. Physical environments such as makerspaces foster hands on learning and development of 21st-century skills, in turn making these highly desired spaces for a school. Today, educators across the world are finding ways to integrate “making” into their curriculum to provide students with meaningful learning experiences. Making can also focus on STEM activities that engage learners in science and engineering practices with tools that foster out-of-the-box thinking and problem solving.

However, not all makerspaces are created equal. It is important to be purposeful and implement high quality instruction in the makerspaces to target content related learning objectives. In her article, Novotny refers to “Maker Pedagogy” as “teaching activities that are interdisciplinary, immersive, integrative, multi-age, project-based, and collaborative” (Novotny, 2020).

Makerspaces can be costly to create and not all school budgets can provide one in every classroom. A cost effective approach to this is including one inside the school library opening a great pathway to promote teacher-librarian collaboration. Research has shown that teacher librarian collaboration and makerspaces have a positive impact on student learning, therefore movement towards including one in all schools would be beneficial to all students. The article Making the Most of a Makerspace, states that to create a meaningful makerspace, a school must begin by “(a) aligning makerspace goals with the school mission, (b) designing and implementing structured maker-based activities, and (c) making all teachers aware of the importance of the makerspace” (Rouse et al., 2020). Makerspaces are important to educational technology in that through makerspaces, librarians and teachers can work together to help students reinforce reading development in nontraditional ways, gain 21st-century learning skills, and help students learn through doing with technology integration and maker activities.

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References

Gruer, T. S., & Perry, K. M. (2020). Yes, School Librarians Teach Reading: Reading Skill Reinforcement and the School Librarian. Knowledge Quest, 48(5), 40–47.

Novotny, K. (2019). Maker’s Mind: Interdisciplinarity, Epistemology, and Collaborative Pedagogy. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, 8(1), 45–61.

Rouse, R., Krummeck, K., & Uribe, O. (2020). Making the Most of a Makerspace. Science and Children, 57(6), 31–35.