I love EVERYthing about this Makerspace experience from start to finish! As the Innovation Coordinator for our TK-8 school, I have the great privilege to be able to work with all grades and all content areas, both students and teachers.
My goal is to bring in the innovation to their content areas (design thinking, STEAM, technology, coding robotics, engineering, etc) to prove how learning can be hands-on, innovative, & incorporate the 4Cs. It's TRULY my jam! SO....2 weeks ago, knowing 7th History was slotted to be in our Makerspace, I met with the 7th History teachers and we started brainstorming what Makerspace experience students could have to go with their learning of Medieval Japan. The History teachers started thinking of STEM activities (build the tallest pagoda, make their own paper, etc) They started to get overwhelmed and so I guided them to shift the focus on what the TEACHER would create for students to make, to what the STUDENT would make to show their learning of the content. I asked for a list of topics (12 total ranging from origami, paper lanterns, puppet theater, sumo wrestling, Samurai, sushi and more) ð These topics got me ALL excited! What if we could have design teams pick the topics they are interested in, research more deeply, then create an exhibit to teach others in an engaging, interactive way?? Fastforward, the entire week in our Makerspace blew us away and made my innovation teacher heart SO big! Most importantly, I guarantee they'll retain a lot of this history content because they had so much fun, were engaged and 100% ALL in!
This is one of the last Makerspace Design Challenges we did before leaving due to COVID19 and I am cherishing the memories of the collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, perseverance and major content knowledge involved in this one robust lesson! I first taught this lesson to 3rd grade due to their area and perimeter content standards but after "skimming the surface" I KNEW I had to bring it to our upper grades math students to truly prove how much content+innovation is critical! Read below. LISTEN to the creative chaos of the Makerspace and learning, and click on the link below to access the lesson to use for your own students. Let me know how it goes!
Stepping up from the Makey Makey Interactive Posters and moving from the Innovation Lab to the Makerspace are the Interactive Museums and Prototypes lessons. These focus on making prototypes interactive, engaging and teachable. Most importantly, this can be used with ANY subject and content area. Read more below and check out the resource links to try for yourself. SUCH a fun Makerspace lesson!
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