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an article from
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Makerspace

What Is MakerSpace?

MakerSpace is a term for a place where people come together to work on projects while sharing materials, ideas, and knowledge. 

Why have a makerspace?

  • fosters a sense of community
  • enables hands on learning 
  • allows for flexibility and for lessons to be easily differentiated
  • is multi-sensory which meets the needs of student’s different learning styles
  • fosters social emotional skills including building independence, confidence, perseverance, and growth by having students experiment, take risks, and play with their ideas
  • can serve as an evaluation tool for how much a student has learned about a topic
  • enables teachers to better understand the “whole child” 
  • can invite cross-generational learning & lifelong learning as students see different generations working in makerspaces -from tinkering with cars, gardening, sewing, etc
This image shows art materials including scissors, watercolors, construction paper, glue, crayons, pens, erasers, and construction paper.

The Maker Movement

The concept of this type of space has existed as long as people can remember: craft rooms, art tables, garage work benches. 

The concept of making things & having a space to do so in the school setting has existed for years: shop classes, home economics, and art tables in elementary school classrooms.

President Obama’s 2009 “Educate to Innovate” campaign was a large catalyst in the increase in the Maker Movement in schools. This campaign called for society to create ways to engage students in science & math. STEM highlights creating, building, and inventing – to be makers of things, not just consume. MakerSpaces answer this call by enabling students to have access to items and tools they can use to make things. This allows students to take ownership of their learning by doing & creating.

MakerSpaces have roots in MIT’s Fab Labs which are labs designed in 2001 that focus on enabling students to make stuff not just learn stuff. Fab Labs emphasize making via technology.

How Can A Makerspace look?

A MakeSpace can greatly vary in appearance. 

It can be…

  • an organized box in a corner filled with materials that students can sit around and engage in.
  • shelves filled with neatly organized materials.
  • a designated room filled with various materials from sewing machines, 3-D printers, dremel saws, robotics, stacks of egg cartons, a wall to build legos on, green screen, etc. 

 

It can vary in name as well. MakerSpaces, Idea Labs, & Workshops are all makerspaces.

The focus should not be on what the MakerSpace looks like. It should be on having ITEMS in a PLACE where PEOPLE can gather to COLLABORATE as they MAKE THINGS. 

how to use a makerspace

The Importance of Design Thinking

While it is important to have students explore and engage in the materials within a Makerspace highlighting/teaching our students the PROCESS that makers go through while making allows them to grow as makers and expand their abilities. 

This shows the steps to use to foster design thinking during MakerSpace activities. When doing a MakerSpace activity, you should ask, imagine, plan, create, & improve. Then the cycle repeats.

makerspace lesson ideas

This MakerSpace lesson has students read the book The Most Magnificent thing and then make their own Magnificent Thing creation.
This photo shows how to organize a MakerSpace. It includes a letter that can be sent out to family and friends asking for materials for a MakerSpace.
This picture shows details for a MakerSpace lesson. In this lesson, students read Mean Jean Recess Queen and then make their own paper playgrounds using a MakerSpace.
This is a download button where you can download Makerspace lesson activities.

how to gather materials

MakerSpaces need materials. If there is nothing to create with then the making doesn’t happen. 

Send a letter to your community – whether it be a class community, grade level, or campus community. Then, place bins outside your classroom, in the hallway of your grade level, or the front of the school so that people who bring items can place the items in those bins. 

Have a campus MakerSpace? Request 2-3 volunteers or student leaders to help collect the MakerSpace items, keep them organized, and inventory certain items that may need to be requested occasionally.

Click the “Download Lesson Ideas” button for a copy of the letter below.

This is a letter that can be sent to out to ask community members for MakerSpace materials.

Bottom Line: MakerSpace is a place where individuals come together to experiment, explore, & make.

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Want to Earn
professional development credits
for reading this articlE?

You've already done the first step!

Next up, tell us how you plan on trying out MakerSpace in your classroom and then let us know how it goes! 

Just be sure to officially sign up for our MakerSpace course so that we can keep track of the communication and send you a certificate for your hard work! 

We know for a teacher like you, someone who seeks out the best instructional strategies to use in their classroom – 

you’re already planning on doing these steps anyways, so you might as well earn some professional development credits for it! 

This is a link to The Contemporary Classroom's MakerSpace professional development online course.

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