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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, some teacher education programs started maker education initiatives to integrate the tools, practices, and mindset of the maker movement into their curricula. These efforts came to a grinding halt at the beginning of the pandemic due to the sudden transition to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Post-ERT, educators have been exploring strategies for students to recover from the interruptions of their learning gains and maker education seems to be on the backburner compared to other priorities. However, maker education is still meaningful post-pandemic because it promotes creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and resilience using hands-on projects. Envisioning teacher education programs in 2025, all teacher educators will have developed the competencies necessary to apply and implement the practices of maker education within their subject areas. Furthermore, all preservice and in-service teachers should have the literacy, fluency, and toolsets to engage with maker education, as well as develop a maker mindset. In other words, maker education should be infused into every aspect of teacher education. Detailed vision and suggestions for implementation are discussed.

The maker movement has strong connections to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as well as art and crafts, but the goals of making are not in perfect alignment with any of these disciplines. Within the problem-based paradigm, however, there is room to incorporate making as situated STEM learning, even in formal, standards-based educational settings. We report on a framework for making in STEM education and describe a rubric for assessing the presence of the essential elements of making within STEM instruction. We present examples of the application of the rubric in a STEM teacher education course.

"Making" has been used to describe an internally motivated iterative design process that embodies notions of playful building and tinkering. Recently, interest in applying making to PK-12 education has increased. As schools add facilities dedicated to making, there is a need to support teachers in effectively utilizing these makerspaces. UTeach Maker is a microcredentialing program that supports preservice teachers interested in bringing making into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) classrooms and PK-12 makerspace environments. This article describes UTeach Maker and articulates success factors. These factors include a Maker Showcase framework, community support, and the public review and presentation of work in both digital and face-to-face formats. Challenges encountered in the program's first year and future steps are also discussed.

Making is an iterative process of designing, building, tinkering, and problem-solving, resulting in the creation of personally meaningful artifacts. Fueled by recent developments in affordable, safe, and easy to use digital fabrication technologies, making has been embraced by educators the world over. While educational scholarship is developing an increasingly complex understanding of the practices and pedagogies needed to support making in the classroom, there has been limited research associated with the preparation of teachers and their development of maker-centered instructional practices. In this embedded case study, the authors examined artifacts produced by 13 secondary preservice and in-service science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) classroom teachers engaged in long-term maker professional development as part of a microcredentialing program. Analysis of these artifacts uncovered an array of motivations for engaging with classroom making, illustrated how participants implemented their maker philosophies in secondary STEM classrooms, and suggested the need for additional research on and models of maker-centered programs in teacher preparation.

Positioned in the context of experiential learning, this paper reports findings of a virtual reality field trip (VRFT) in conjunction with an in-person field trip involving preservice teachers in an elementary science methods course to a local natural history museum. Findings included that virtual reality (VR) is best used after a field trip to encourage student recall of the experience, but only when done for a limited time to avoid VR fatigue. The types of experiences that preservice teachers thought VR would be good for in their science classrooms included the ability to visit either inaccessible or unsafe locations, to explore scales of size that are either too big or too small, and to witness different eras or events at varying temporal scales. Furthermore, this study uncovered potential equity issues related to VRFTs being seen as a viable alternative if students could not afford to go on field trips. Further research needs to be conducted to better understand the impact of VRFTs on student learning outcomes and take advantage of recent improvements in VR technology.