Maker Ed has rapidly evolved into a big and important component of 21st century learning. Born out of the culturally impactful Maker Movement, maker education involves providing students with opportunities for hands-on construction, investigation, problem solving, collaboration, and more—all with this community-centric approach. In Maker Ed, students often excel with new types of opportunities to showcase their skills or to develop new ones. With so many potential projects to work on in the classroom or in school makerspaces, adding purposeful, hands-on work to the school day is very effective and inspiring. And, more importantly for educators, there's no wrong way for them to go about introducing maker education. It can be as complex as using various advanced 3D printers or as simple as building with popsicle sticks.
Aside from the likelihood of positively impacting students, Maker Ed is also popular because of its real-world connections. Not only can children further develop key technical skills, maker opportunities also help them to bolster some top soft skills. Making typically involves a lot of collaboration and this is especially true as students move into middle or high school. With unique, fluid opportunities, kids can simultaneously work on bolstering communication, teamwork, and other soft skills in the process. Plus, whether they are using classroom 3D printers, CNC machines, or even low-tech tools, they'll grasp a better understanding on using technology for good as well. Some solid product lines across Maker Ed are 3Doodler, MakerBot, LulzBot, Glowforge, and more. With these innovative solutions, students in all grade levels can truly propel their creative acumen.
With the 3Doodler Start 3D printing pen, children can experience hands-on design and creation starting in the early grades. Instead of kids choosing a 3D design and watching a 3D printer complete it, however, they get to print their very own 3D objects by hand. Plus, it is completely safe and its tactile frame makes it easy for young students
When using the SAM Labs kits in your classroom, the wireless setup helps make everything easier to integrate. With the SAM Labs projects, students can apply logic, reasoning, design thinking, and computational thinking as they build inventions and, not only are they great for coding in elementary school, each kit is also great for makerspaces and afterschool activities.
You might hear this a lot, but almost every school makerspace may feature unique learning and building materials. Because makerspaces are found all throughout the K–12 grades (and even college), an elementary makerspace will often look a whole lot different than one you’ll see in a high school. So, using the right supplies at the right times makes a significant
As the Maker Movement continues to influence early education, K–12, and even higher education, many times, it is school librarians who’ve helped to create these hands-on STEAM experiences. So, we’ve compiled this white paper with tips on leveraging library environments in designing unique and active lessons, measuring success in school makerspaces, and more.
The MakerBot SKETCH Classroom solution comes with lots of 3D printing materials and curriculum resources that help teachers effectively integrate 3D printing lessons in their schools. Most notably, it includes two compact MakerBot SKETCH 3D printers, access to MakerBot’s CloudPrint platform, MakerBot certification licenses, and over 600 makerspace lesson plans.
Integrating the arts with elements of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics often means that students can access more opportunities to think creatively and discover their passions. As STEAM solutions become increasingly prevalent in schools, including in arts and humanities classes, we’ve pinpointed eight of the most helpful tools for your theater students.
Whether they prefer the Glowforge Pro or the Glowforge Plus laser printer, students can quickly translate digital designs into tangible inventions while bringing their ideas to life. They could print on paper, fabric, hardwood, tile, metal, glass, leather, plywood, cardboard, or even food using these unique machines and the large library of classroom-friendly Glowforge projects.
Social-emotional learning is a process—and it’s arguably one that students never truly complete. Educators can, however, always help kids strengthen key emotional competencies and hands-on experiences in their classroom can play a large role, especially when they take part in STEAM or MakerEd initiatives that help them connect to their projects on an emotional level.
Makerspaces really help educators create dynamic and real-world learning scenarios for students but they do not always have to include all the latest bells and whistles. So much planning sometimes goes into designing new school makerspaces from your budget considerations to your technology research and, if you’re looking to get started, our team is ready to help.
More than ever before, we’re understanding how makerspace experiences help provide students with emotional benefits in addition to vital academic ones. If today’s students are having any variety of academic, emotional, or any other personal problems, for example, putting them aside and making something is a great way to help them shift their focus and reduce stress.
