Search

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.

Inquiry-based teaching aims to increase student engagement through the development of the hands-on, minds-on skills, such as critical thinking, collaboration, and communication, needed for the 21st century (The Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2015). This approach respects the complexities of the learning process, values the knowledge and experience students bring to the classroom, and prioritizes active problem solving, communication of findings, and the shared construction of new ideas. This notion of inquiry is at the heart of several pedagogical initiatives including project-based instruction, maker-centered learning, and the 5E learning cycle. The 5E Instructional Model, developed by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), evolved from previous learning cycles (Lawson 2002) and incorporates findings from research on teaching and cognition. The 5E model includes five stages: engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation (Bybee et al. 2006). This article describes the 5E Learning Cycle and provides an overview of how a teacher candidate engaged her students in a 5E learning cycle to explore the process of saponification and learn the concept of pH.

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.

While there is no official definition, making is generally thought of as turning ideas into products through design, invention, and building. Support is growing for integrating making into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Making can help high school students explore science concepts and phenomena, yet, lacking training and experience, many science teachers are reluctant to add making to their curriculum. This article describes six elements of making, provides a matrix to assist teachers, and offers a sample chemistry lesson for context.

"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.

This qualitative research study investigated how educational makerspace leaders, whom we refer to as spacemakers, framed the purpose of the makerspace in K-12 education and how makerspaces support school curriculum. Using interviews with twelve K-12 spacemakers, the study found spacemakers were experienced, self-motivated educators. These leaders described purposes for makerspaces including increasing student-centeredness, relevancy, career-readiness, and inclusion, showcasing the campus, and helping students become creators instead of consumers. Makerspaces supported school curriculum through dedicated making classes, as curricular projects, or as extracurricular activities. The discussion examines future challenges facing K-12 makerspaces in terms of curriculum, tools, sustainability, and equitable practices.

The term forensic science may evoke thoughts of blood-spatter analysis, DNA testing, and identifying molds, spores, and larvae. A growing part of this field, however, is that of digital forensics, involving techniques with clear connections to math and physics. This article describes a five-part project involving smartphones and the investigation of a hypothetical crime and subsequent mock trial. It was conducted in a forensic science course. Smartphones have become ubiquitous in high schools. For the lesson presented in this article, 31 of 32 students had access to their own smartphones, and, for any who did not, classroom tablet computers were made available to all. Smartphones can be powerful tools to engage students in a variety of scientific explorations.

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.

In this study, the researchers examined if and to what extent social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter can augment participants' learning experience in an xMOOC and offer an additional social space. Two research questions guided this inquiry: (1) What did MOOC participants consider the usefulness of the Facebook group and Twitter feed associated with their MOOC course? and (2) How did the participants use the Facebook group and Twitter feed associated with their MOOC course? The findings from participants' perceptions and usage using both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the additional social space provided by the two social media tools can augment the learning experience by providing an environment to share resources, connect with others, enhance communications, and provide a space to post personal feelings or reflections of learning in an informal and quick manner. However, the findings did not provide strong evidence to indicate any deeper interactions beyond these uses. The results highlighted the importance of mediation and scaffolding from instructors in using social media tools in order to help connect learners in large online courses such as MOOCs.

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.

Computer science (CS) has become a critical part of K–12 education worldwide. Computational thinking (CT) skills are a key set of competencies in CS education that can solve problems and use computational design to create useful solutions. However, preservice and in-service teachers are not fully prepared to integrate CS and CT into their curricula. Furthermore, there are limited special topic courses and educational research on how to facilitate in-service teachers’ professional learning of CS and CT, as well as their content-specific integration. Therefore, this study investigated in-service teachers’ perceptions and development of CT skills in an online graduate emerging technologies course. Theoretically framed by the four cornerstones of CT (i.e., abstraction, algorithms, decomposition, and pattern recognition), participants perceived that they increased their CT problem-solving and creativity skills but decreased their collaborative learning and critical thinking skills. Additionally, teachers increased their CT test scores after taking the course. Most teachers used CT terminology correctly (i.e., algorithms and decomposition). However, only 59% correctly described abstraction and pattern recognition, while most teachers did not mention debugging. The authors call on teacher educators to address in-service teachers’ CS knowledge gaps, increase their CT skills, and select appropriate strategies for CT professional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents six elements of making that provides a matrix to assist teachers and offers a sample chemistry lesson for context. Makers select materials and know how to use high- and low-tech tools safely including hand and power tools and open-source programming languages. Support students with in-class sharing activities like peer feedback and gallery walks.