A couple of years ago I attended the 2014 WESTAF Cultural Policy Symposium, co-hosted by the California Arts Council and Gehry Partners. It had a rock star line-up of big brains talking about creativity, many of them referred to STEAM education, Makers education, and creativity. Today I was reminded of one speaker in particular of an idea that was so striking to me that it continues to resonate, Edward Clapp from Project Zero. It filled the room for me. Today I saw a visual image from one of my colleagues that brought it to the front of my brain. It’s a worthy read from Edward P. Clapp at Project Zero. Here is the to his paper, and the video (which isn’t great):

http://tinyurl.com/jomxs3n

And here is a link to a similar set of ideas from Jennifer Oxman Ryan, a Researcher and Project Manager at Project Zero.

http://tinyurl.com/zb2y8ye

Enjoy!

Kepler Tech Lab and its middle-high school students who take after-school engineering classes and workshops have had epic November and December of 2016! Wow, I cannot imagine it’s been two months teaching young students! It was an extraordinary experience to get young students with zero knowledge about engineering and tinkering with things get started with experimenting and testing what technologies have to offer. Last two months of 2016, we enrolled and taught middle-high school students for the first time and it was amazing to see how they were excited to build their own things, play around with Arduino kits, and try out the concepts of electricity using Squishy Circuits. From this experience of exposing innate innovators, I’d say, who cannot otherwise get a chance and an access to technologies without Kepler Tech Lab at the moment, I gained a better understanding of interactive learning and what it means for educators.

As defined by an instructor, Lindy Hatten, of the study.com, “interactive learning is a hands-on approach to help students become more engaged and retain more material.” Lindy added that “with or without a form of technology, interactive learning helps students strengthen [problem-solving] and critical thinking skills.” (Lindy Hatten)

Let’s get back to the topic; how do you get students acquaint themselves with new concepts? To share my experience, the rest of the article is about how no technological students have been experiencing Scratch, the MIT Media Lab programming language that allows individuals, mostly young students, create and tinker with stories, games, and animations, not forgetting physical computing. The week of 9 Jan 2017, we introduced Scratch to our students and we have had wonders if learners with little to no knowledge about using computers for programming or anything else can do something.

Sample game of guessing numbers to show to students

I’d say, we were late to start because Scratch requires only critical thinking and then drag as you drop graphics without typing anything, except if the story contains written messages. As always, our students are interested in doing many things at once trying to catch up with what they have missed during their early ages. The lab staff, we only need to regulate what they have to learn, how much they can support, and what are our goals for them to get the most out of our concepts.

How have we got started? Firstly, we realized that we cannot wait until our students are fluent in using computers. We helped them to navigate through Graphic User Interface of Scratch to get them understand how to pick a sprite, customize the sprite, change its style, make it move, add a message and add sound, just to list a few. Isn’t it enough for beginners? We use to have three sessions in a week with these young students and that was for day one. On day two, after understanding what they can do with Scratch, I gave them a homework about writing stories of their choice so that they can start day 3 with funny activities of making stories in a scratch. See what they have written and worked on day three. Do not try to read the first one from the right, except if you can understand Kinyarwanda. To provide you with a hint, it’s a love story of which a girl passed a long time with no see her lover and decided to let him go. A guy, in turn, visited a girl and started to sing for her. It’s a long story. I would love to share a full story once students are done with animating.

Students’ written stories in brief.

The day three was about turning their written stories into animations using Scratch, still ongoing! The activity was not only about teaching them how to make animations but also to present to the whole class what they have made so that they can be able to develop technical communications.

We still have a lot to do with Scratch and students’ smiling faces are promising that they are enjoying and learning a lot from Kepler Tech Lab.

References
Hatten, L. (n.d.). What is Interactive Learning? – Overview & Tools. Retrieved February 19, 2018, from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-interactive-learning-overview-tools.html

I try not to look at my old elementary classroom / lab / makerspace (sic) when I walk by these days.

It doesn’t look like this, anymore:

The K4STEMLAB at Northfield Community Elementary School, a student-centered, engineering-focused technology learning space, circa September 2012.

I have only been gone a year (I now teach in our middle school – in the same district and building). The space has since been repurposed (made back into two very needed classrooms). The teacher who took over for me has new digs in another part of the school. She’s doing amazing things, with a solid making / design thinking / science bent, and I’m happy for her and the elementary kiddos she teaches. Truly.

But, what I built – painstakingly, passionately, over an entire summer in 2012 – is gone. Three years, the program ran, integrating Engineering is Elementary into a screen-based K-4 technology ed class. (Here are some photos.) We did things no one did before, incorporating an engineering (making!) focus to elementary technology class, and it was glorious. Or, so we (I) thought.

Growth is a natural thing, and when I was offered the chance to literally design a middle school maker / STEAM program from scratch last year, I leapt, without hesitation.

And, then, we built this. (Actually, we built this, the photo below is this year’s version, our v1.1)

Students enjoy “Lunch Bunch” in Digital Shop, the Northfield Community Middle School Makerspace, circa November 2016.

And so, as I walk past my old elementary classroom, reminding myself not to glance over and see what’s become of it, I wonder … will what we’ve created in our middle school endure? I’m thinking beyond the physical space – the program, its emphasis on inquiry, on making, on design as pedagogy, on student voice and choice.

Many of my Fablearn colleagues have maintained wonderful makerspaces like these for years. Certainly, while we’re still with our districts, in the same role / capacity, the life expectancy of the space and program is essentially limitless. Maybe?

But … what happens when or if you move on or change roles?

What will become of your space, your program?

Who will take over for you?

What will your legacy be?

-kj-