The School District of New Berlin has partnered with UWM’s Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship and our friends at The Commons to give high school students a taste of the world of start-ups. Through a series of pop-up classes and guidance from outside mentors Students teams will take on challenges in one of four areas: Technology, Healthcare, Engineering, and Global.
You can view the full press release here: iAIDLaunch
A great approach drives engagement and high quality work.
Tuesday night Joost and I attended the presentation of capstone projects by Shorewood High School’s Visual Journalism class. We were blown away by the quality of work.
The class developed by Mike Halloran and Jeff Zimpel “combines the principles and practices of graphic design with those of modern broadcast and print journalism. Students in this class explored the notion of Face Value in their community and expressed their findings telling these stories through video, audio, and online media.”
What we saw and heard on display Tuesday exemplifies an approach to learning and engagement we’d like to see Milwaukee embrace.
A school administration that asked the teachers what they needed to make the class a success.
The freedom to send kids out into the community to understand and collect stories from people from very different walks of life.
Near-peer mentorship provided by MIAD students.
Student defined, collaborative projects which engendered such a sense of ownership and passion that students were surprised by how much energy and focus they brought to the work.
Presentation of high quality work to the wider community which was a delight to hear and see.
Hats off to Mike Halloran and Jeff Zimpel and their students!
The Projects
You can see the results of their here:
Find your Cloud
How do culturally isolated individuals construct a sense of self identity and purpose?
“One Mountain One Story was created because of our passion for climbing and love of the outdoors. The film documents the influence and impact climbing rock, ice, and mountains has had on a teacher from the flat lands of urban Wisconsin.”
Monday’s Lake Effect show on WUWM features a piece on South Milwaukee High School’s Fab Lab. We connected Rachel Morello, WUWM’s education reporter with Erik Wolbach, who’s been the driving force behind the effort as part of our work to raise the visibility of the innovative work Milwaukee area schools are doing.
Thanks all for a great discussion last night at Collab Lab 6 (actually, a bunch of great discussions). To recap, we framed the conversation around three questions:
What can your makerspace/FabLab offer teachers?
What problems does this solve for them?
What keeps them from taking advantage of it/how might those issues be addressed?
Here’s what we noted:
What can your makerspace/FabLab offer teachers?
Group 1
“Blood in the mouth” how do you get teachers really excited about the possibilities?
Take content & make it physical
Get students to go beyond their textbook
Learning to play → playing to learn
Relevance, rigor, application
Practicing Failure
Space designed to fit needs
Can become epicenter – pivotal point
Authentic, relevant problems to solve
Bring content back to experiment
Group 2
Additional capacities to help kids express ideas
Expands the pallet of tools & opportunities for teachers
Limited understanding of what it is
Ideas → ideas II → ideas III
Safe place
Capture & share stories of success
Show different ways of learning
Develop and share culture of makerspace
Set up to enable students pursuing passion → no mandatory activities
Group 3
Tools for:
artists to make art;
business classes to make a product
community service projects to make something useful
Hands on professional development for PBL
Support for elementary school
South Milwaukee: elementary school students working on symmetry design snowflakes. Students are then paired with high schooler who helps them 3D print their designs.
Ad hoc opportunities to put something together
Attractive for students
It acts as a “send kids here to do that” space/ a place that allows groups of students to take on work that isn’t done easily inside a classroom
Provides crafting opportunities for teachers (who are then better able to generate ideas for how they could leverage the space for student projects)
Real world relevance
Provides a platform to do different (from traditional lessons) things
Provides a chance for students and teachers to bump into something new/exposure
Helps produce a change in mindset/change of pace
Provides a way to engage kids in a different way
Provides opportunities for kids to interact with students that would interact with elsewhere in the school
Provides application/support to teachers
Is able to draw funding and resources to the school
Provides flexible space
Becomes the place to address 21st century skills development
Makerspace lead handles prep for projects (so teachers do not)
The equipment is maintained and ready to go
It a fun space
It produces engaged kids
What problems does that solve for them?
Group 1
Amature meets expert
Promotes mentorship
Redefines learning process
Who are the learning for?
Learning how to learn
Group 2
A way to develop empathy
Instill a mentality/culture
Ideation
inquiry
Invest in professional development
Teachers are professionals
Lifelong learning
Incrementalism
Group 3
A way to meet requirements for PBL/development of 21st century skills
A new point of entry/cheap way to start with PBL
Allows teachers to break out of silos
Can attract outside funding which reduces pressure from budget constraints
Costs of space can be shared across multiple departments
Remove overhead from teachers (makerspace lead puts together projects and materials)
Teachers aren’t sure what they could do, makerspace lead can help frame projects
Shows teachers a path into PBL
The teacher does not need to know everything– they can rely on tech staff/students to help with equipment
It’s a way into learning (as opposed to educating)
Test scores improve among kids engaged in problem solving
Produces engaged students
Provides a change of pace
Provides an opportunity to model creative thinking/problem solving
Provides both teachers and students a safe place to fail
Teaches teachers 21st skills
Having a tech lead that can set up projects reduces stress/risk for teachers that want to take on PBL
What keeps them from taking advantage of it?
Group 1
Must provide learning outcomes/goals/assessment
Needs continued reward
Broken 3D printers
Who started it???
Incorrect definition of “maker”
Creative Space
Genius Bar
Not knowing what can be done
Fear
Needs a facilitator
Permission from administration
Parents
What would help address these issues?
After school volunteer club for teachers
Customer discovery
Sleeper agents → referrals
Having an Idea person that helps connect teachers (Librarian)
Group 2
Competing priorities
Lack of culture to stimulate risk taking
What is “risk” taking
Lack of technical skills
Early vs late adopters
Lack of development of “grit”
System promotes end-point learning
Focus on experiences, not on “things”
If you can see it you will want to use it
Absence of design drivers (shared)
Visitation later in the design experience.
Group 3
Teachers need hands on professional development
Feels risky
Lack of control
Funding
ROI on time
Teachers aren’t sure what they can give up to fit something new into schedule
Change is seen as a threat
Change is seen as “We’ve seen new ideas before, this too will go just like the rest of them”
Focus on equipment
Mentors don’t know how to work with kids — kids have kid issues
Focus on learning to use the equipment (technical skills) rather than an opportunity to learn in a different way
Self selection to participate is missing from school makerspaces, which makes it more difficult for the space to become self regulating
I already have my lesson plans set and they work for me. Why would I want to give that up to try something new.
What would help address these issues?
Visibility of student work
Visible credit given to donors of equipment (so it is not viewed as cutting into the school budget)
Shift resources from equipment acquisition to developing the mindset of teachers
Staffing — endowed mentor/tech position
Mentors — Lead off with small doses so they have time to figure how to work with kids
Figure out how to allow users of the space to come and go on an ad hoc basis (after school?)
Shift the mindset of funders from equipment to professional development
We’re planning a working session for the end of January to talk through where collaborative efforts could be deployed to make it easier for schools to achieve the goals they have set out in developing their Makerspace/FabLab. Have some thoughts on where working with others would help most, or hurdles that could be more easily overcome with a group effort? We’d love to have you join us.
A great approach drives engagement and high quality work.