Phase II: The Big Idea
My vision at Goudy Technology Academy is to create a school Makerspace. The Makerspace will span from a full class offered twice a week for fifth grade through eighth grade to an after school Makerspace club. In my initial planning, I am predicting 35-40 students during the full class and 20-30 students in the after school club. Each class will be about 50 minutes and will be interdisciplinary between Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts/Design, and Mathematics.
This past year, I piloted computer programming to fifth grade and an after school coding class to sixth through eighth grade. This coming school year, I would like to expand coding to all grades levels with a rigorous coding curriculum in third through fifth grade and after school coding clubs in sixth through eighth grade. For the past four years, our Media Arts program has been working with Adobe Youth Voices. This program ignites our students’ ability to harness creative skills to solve problems with advanced digital media tools and powerful storytelling techniques. In this program, students have designed and created products that serve a purpose for the community and their peers. In the past, our Media Arts program has only been offered to our middle school grades. I would like to expand an after school Media Arts program where students, regardless of grade, can come and design.
Currently our computer lab, library, and art room are physically connected to one another, yet used in isolation of each other. My first goal would be to redesign our space, so there is more of a connection to integrate and a space to design as a community of learners. I want my students to feel empowered, to think for themselves, to think creatively, and independently seek solutions when they walk in this area. By utilizing our rigorous technology curriculum already given to our students during the school day, the Makerspace will allow students to expand on their own interest driven exploration and project-driven workspace to tinker, prototype solutions, and hear from other students with similar interests.
I believe that the entire makers movement is a source of innovation. The key idea for students is to be playing and figuring things out in groups. The Makerspace goal is to engage students in science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and mathematics (STEAM) topics while fostering the development of important 21st century skills including: adaptive problem solving, creativity, self-directed learning, persistence, and grit. As a class, we will be exploring the Stanford Design Thinking process of empathy, defining a problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.
During the Makerspace, students will choose challenges based on interest-driven exploration. As they level up through the challenge sequence, they learn new STEAM-based practices and develop critical skills such as adaptive problem solving, creativity, and persistence. The A in STEAM is engaged through the Stanford design process, which brings each student’s ideas and aesthetics to the foreground. The Makerspace challenges will be in areas such as robotics, electronics, biotechnology, graphic design, Android app development, 3D printing, and more. Maker challenges can be tackled individually or in groups. All challenges result in digital media artifacts that are shared online for peer review, remixing, expert judging, and collaboration. Each challenge will use a leveling-up model from gaming and is carefully designed to engage students in different STEAM topics and skill sets.
As students participate in these activities, I will be gathering research on: effective ways to design challenge-based activities that engage students in interest-driven STEAM activities; how students’ beliefs and attitudes about and towards STEAM change as they participate in the Makerspace; and what STEAM skills do students acquire through participation. Technology will be at the forefront of this experience and formative and summative assessments will be based through the TPACK framework.
This past year, I piloted computer programming to fifth grade and an after school coding class to sixth through eighth grade. This coming school year, I would like to expand coding to all grades levels with a rigorous coding curriculum in third through fifth grade and after school coding clubs in sixth through eighth grade. For the past four years, our Media Arts program has been working with Adobe Youth Voices. This program ignites our students’ ability to harness creative skills to solve problems with advanced digital media tools and powerful storytelling techniques. In this program, students have designed and created products that serve a purpose for the community and their peers. In the past, our Media Arts program has only been offered to our middle school grades. I would like to expand an after school Media Arts program where students, regardless of grade, can come and design.
Currently our computer lab, library, and art room are physically connected to one another, yet used in isolation of each other. My first goal would be to redesign our space, so there is more of a connection to integrate and a space to design as a community of learners. I want my students to feel empowered, to think for themselves, to think creatively, and independently seek solutions when they walk in this area. By utilizing our rigorous technology curriculum already given to our students during the school day, the Makerspace will allow students to expand on their own interest driven exploration and project-driven workspace to tinker, prototype solutions, and hear from other students with similar interests.
I believe that the entire makers movement is a source of innovation. The key idea for students is to be playing and figuring things out in groups. The Makerspace goal is to engage students in science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and mathematics (STEAM) topics while fostering the development of important 21st century skills including: adaptive problem solving, creativity, self-directed learning, persistence, and grit. As a class, we will be exploring the Stanford Design Thinking process of empathy, defining a problem, ideating solutions, prototyping, and testing.
During the Makerspace, students will choose challenges based on interest-driven exploration. As they level up through the challenge sequence, they learn new STEAM-based practices and develop critical skills such as adaptive problem solving, creativity, and persistence. The A in STEAM is engaged through the Stanford design process, which brings each student’s ideas and aesthetics to the foreground. The Makerspace challenges will be in areas such as robotics, electronics, biotechnology, graphic design, Android app development, 3D printing, and more. Maker challenges can be tackled individually or in groups. All challenges result in digital media artifacts that are shared online for peer review, remixing, expert judging, and collaboration. Each challenge will use a leveling-up model from gaming and is carefully designed to engage students in different STEAM topics and skill sets.
As students participate in these activities, I will be gathering research on: effective ways to design challenge-based activities that engage students in interest-driven STEAM activities; how students’ beliefs and attitudes about and towards STEAM change as they participate in the Makerspace; and what STEAM skills do students acquire through participation. Technology will be at the forefront of this experience and formative and summative assessments will be based through the TPACK framework.