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Month: March 2017

Makerspace Challenge: Thinking Through a Solution

Pete Reynolds Blog, Up-Cycling ,

Last night at The Commons, the Betty Brinn/Learn Deep team pinned down a persona for their beachhead customer– now known as “Steve” who manages the makerspace for an area school. The key problems faced by Steve:

  • “I don’t always know where to go to get the materials I need.”
  • “It takes a lot of time to track down where to find supplies (if I don’t already know where to get them).”
  • “I have to pick up everything myself.”
  • “I have to do this for all of the teachers that want to use my makerspace.”
  • “At times, I want to be inspired by the material (so I don’t know what I want until I can see and touch it)”.

The team was able to use that set of problems to filter the ideas generated last week to just those that addressed these key issues.  It also led to the creation of a second persona — “Orlando”, who has excess material, but also,his own problems to solve:

  • “I have usable stuff that now costs me money to dispose of”
  • “I don’t know who would want what I hope to get rid of”
  • “I don’t like the fact that my scrap ends up in a landfill”
  • “I worry about liability issues if others come on-site to sift through my scrap to take what is of use to them.”

This week’s work:  Confirm the assumptions about the problems faced by Orlando, and clarify the vision for a potential solution– what’s the minimum viable product, and what might it look like when fully realized?

 

Innovation in Action Tours

Pete Reynolds Blog ,

We’re introducing something new:

Following on the success of our monthly Collab Lab community discussion events, we’re introducing a hands-on opportunity to explore the ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ of maker spaces as they relate to the introduction of forms of authentic learning for K12 students.  Our first tour will visit the  Milwaukee Jewish Day School’s Innovation Hub on Thursday, April 20th from 4-6pm. We will explore how that vision guided various design decisions they’ve made along the way– in terms of how the space is configured as well as how it is used.

MJDS Innovation Hub

Details and registration information for our first visit are here.  Stay tuned for what we have coming up next.

Collab Lab 8 Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs, Workshops ,

Collab Lab 8
Collab Lab 8 focused on integrating the arts across disciplines.  We used three questions to guide the discussion:

  • What capabilities do arts educators bring to schools?
  • How might those capabilities be leveraged across disciplines?
  • How can can we get started?

Thanks to Nancy Blair for a wrap up process that helped us get down to the one big idea coming out of the discussions of each question.  Here’s what our discussion groups came up with:

What insights/capabilities do arts educators bring? (Raw materials)

  • Metaphor
  • Teaching life skills through the arts
  • Boost in self concept especially with low performing students
  • Accountability through feedback
  • Develops relationships
  • Gives students power to create and execute
  • Gives light and energy to students day
  • Symbiotic relationships teachers teaching kids teaching teachers.
  • Can reinforce/correlate with other subject areas (reading, math, art, social studies, science)
  • Inspiration, different way of seeing, Skills (how to)
  • Opportunity for collaboration through different points of view. (requires a structure)
  • Supports a project based approach to learning
  • Meaningful creation-problem solving
  • Art is about everything and nothing without context
  • Performance amazes the audienc
  • Knowledge of material
  • Manipulation of phenomena
  • Art is about “everything”
  • Art is nothing without context
  • Creativity within PBL
  • Balance between skill building and creativity
  • Leverage “taste” vs natural exploration
  • Creativity and learning or built-in
  • Creativity leads to understanding and “lateral moves”
  • Understand struggle and making “mistakes”
  • Content →skills  → engagement (motivation)!
  • Evaluate the accomplishment/competency
  • Creates engagement and motivation
  • Creates trust for problem based learning
  • Teacher is coach-role model-how do you learn from mistakes
  • Create time and space for students to guide their own learning.
  • Bust out of rigid traditional structure
  • Models personalized learning
  • Can teach the design cycle that can then be applied to individual interest area.
  • Rich feedback and critique
  • Arts are a way for communicating the inevitable-brings out tacit knowledge from students
  • Values what each student brings to the table.
  • Creativity
  • Questions
  • Ability to work in chaos
  • Embrace uncertainty
  • Different way of seeing
  • Healing
  • Willing to accept randomness
  • Provide permission to play
  • Make us human
  • To dream new view-what is work
  • Being vulnerable
  • Connection
  • Empathy/compassion
BIG IDEA: Art and Art Educators provide structure to build skill and catalyze creativity that connects to everything.

How can those be leveraged across the curriculum? (New ideas transferable to other parts of the school/curriculum)

  • Shared resources, space,
  • be scrappy
  • artist resource network
  • collaboration can pic up slack-partnership, creating innovative environment, inspiration, different levels of funding, New relationship, partnership,
  • change and inspire
  • adopting new technology
  • promote unplanned , unstructured learning opportunities
  • Arts educators are often isolated in schools-others don’t understand what you do
  • The more relationships can be built across departments the more advocacy can occur for project-based learning
  • Once relationships are established gaps can be bridged
  • Build a small group of teachers that can build consensus then it can spread.
  • Pick a sample project that can be shared with other teachers to peek their interest
  • Showcase the work so teachers can appreciate the students work
  • Take the opportunity to showcase the process as well as the product. (informance)
  • Some arts educators see arts integration as a threat or “arts light”: Have to be careful with approach.
  • Administration can offer time for art educators to collaborate with classroom teachers.
  • PD for leadership to make initiatives sustainable
  • Takes one or two energetic people in the building that want to take it on
  • Has to grow organically
  • The FabLab is a space where other disciplines could be reaching out
  • Break down silos
  • Usually doesn’t come from leadership
  • Just do it and see what happens-grab it through the children
  • Make products visible-provide exposure to peek someone’s interests
  • Make cool stuff and give it away
  • “Explore Like a Pirate”, a game application for the classroom
  • Show link between art/design to 21st century skills
  • Build the technical skills to apply to different content
  • Build the bridge between what the students are learning and the type of world the students will live in.
  • Build literacy skills across all subject areas: process and conception different.
  • Effective use of maker spaces-making things that are quality, sustainable, repairable
  • How can the arts to build a better future- a world that is want to live in
  • Create positive feedback between business and the arts-make a business case of the value and practical application of the arts.
  • Most problems are not rocket science –they are solvable
  • Opportunities for kids-Exposure to everything-allow them to engage with real world problem.
  • More opportunities to reach beyond the walls of the school –connection to the real world beyond the school world
BIG IDEA: Collaborate within and without to break down silos and open up connections and possibilities.

Where do we start? (Action)

  • Provide evidence to parents-_Youtube
  • Talk, share, network
  • Showcase event →work backwards to weekly (?) level
  • Make your own tutorial
  • Bring in an expert to critique
  • Use global audience network
  • Mobility – Teach in a different setting
  • Flash mob demos
  • Leverage MPS Year of the Arts
  • Field trips
  • Find ways to teach being comfortable with being uncomfortable
  • Cultivating patronage for the arts in schools
  • Funding is essential
  • Redefine patronage to extend support beyond current forms
  • Develop relationships with contributors at all levels-its up to us to determine where.
  • Use Informances to develop interest and curiosity
BIG IDEA: Inform, motivate and entice through shared products and processes to organically build support and resources.

Makerspace Challenge: Peer and Mentor Reviews

Pete Reynolds Blog, Up-Cycling , , ,
Our makerspace challenge team gets input from mentors

Our makerspace challenge team got a chance to share what they’ve learned to date with their mentors and peers from NML’s team. The team is working to understand the types of materials used within school based makerspaces, how that varies by grade level and where schools run into issues. By Next Tuesday they need to have a firm grasp on their initial target customer and the problem(s) they hope to solve.

2023-24 Collab Labs

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