With just a couple of weeks left in the school year, the hustle and bustle in the Creation Station looks like it will continue right up until the last student walks out the door next week. As the first full school year of making in ESH’s Creation Station winds down, in no way does it mean that the on-going process of making and evolving our makerspace itself will be winding down.
In the Creation Station, we lead students through a variety of flexible design process steps, depending on how we structure the problem or challenge, which boil down to an iterative process of THINK - MAKE - IMPROVE, or TMI. This is actually an acronym coined by Sylvia Martinez, in her book, Invent to Learn - Making Tinkering and Engineering in the Classroom. We had the pleasure of bringing her here earlier this month for a faculty keynote on making, STEM, and gender issues as they relate to those topics. We also had the opportunity to meet with her and glean some ideas, suggestions, and affirmation that we’re heading in the right direction with our efforts.
TMI is how we’ve approached the process of evolving what has become known as the Creation Station years ago before we had an official “space” or anything in it. This past February, I had the opportunity to attend the EdTeacher Innovation Summit with some colleagues. I also had the opportunity to present a Summit session on the evolution of the Creation Station with our principal, Susan Devetski. In our session we talk about how we approached and continue to approach the “process of making” the Creation Station from a design process, TMI. We’re applying design thinking and an iterative design process to the Creation Station and how we’re using it. It’s in a continuous state of evolution as we reflect and make changes.
As part of our presentation, we emphasized the importance of collaboration and teamwork to the growth and continued evolution and success of our makerspace. The Creation Station would not be what it is at this point if not for students, teachers, parents, facilities, administration, and IS all working together in some way to make it work. Teachers have already started talking with me about ideas they have for next year.
As part of our presentation, we emphasized the importance of collaboration and teamwork to the growth and continued evolution and success of our makerspace. The Creation Station would not be what it is at this point if not for students, teachers, parents, facilities, administration, and IS all working together in some way to make it work. Teachers have already started talking with me about ideas they have for next year.
As part of my own ongoing process of reflection and professional growth regarding the makerspace, I’ll be attending a couple of professional development workshops/conferences over the summer. I’ll also be exploring ideas and working on ways to grow my abilities in my other responsibilities here at ESH – working with and providing teachers with opportunities to integrate technology for learning and teaching, managing iPads, and providing technical support.
There’s always something new to learn.
