MakerSpace Reflection
I have learned a lot over the past eight weeks and grown in my understanding of being a maker, both as a student and a maker.
The build that I am most proud of was the Servo and Light Sensor build. This was the one that I saw the most practical application for since it had a story behind it. Amazingly, adding a little context can add meaning to a project and another layer of motivation.
The first week, I went into the build with many unknowns and anxiety about the build and the coding. I was successful that first week, and that helped my confidence. However, as the projects grew in intensity and I struggled, my confidence in my skills decreased. I learned that I could follow directions accurately, but I struggled when it came to applying the skills. If I had more time to learn the skills, I would have been better able to use them. This is an excellent lesson for a teacher to remember to give much practice time when introducing new skills. We often don’t remember how hard it can be to learn a new skill and that everyone will learn it at a different pace.
I enjoyed completing the projects and seeing how the computer communicated with the board. The coding piece gave me more insight into how codes are written. I have been using Scratch projects with my upper elementary students, giving me a basis for the next step in programming. There was a lot of trial and error each week, but I appreciated the layout of the Arduino and how it could pinpoint where the error in the code was. I also did a lot of searching on Google to help troubleshoot and then found the treasure chest of information that Chat GPT had.
Once again, I realized I am a visual learner and need printed step-by-step directions when completing new tasks. This was also a great reminder as an educator to make sure you present lessons in various ways to reach all of your students.
My next steps are to re-evaluate my current makerspace and ensure I provide opportunities to engage all learners. My younger learners come into the space regularly, but our upper grades rarely enter the maker space. Most of our 3-5 teachers don’t put much value in the space or the activities that I have created. I understand their hesitation to spend time there, so I need to do a better job adding more value to the space and meeting more content standards. I know there is a big push to incorporate 3-D printing in maker spaces today. Still, after reading articles about how much plastic waste it creates, I am re-evaluating how much 3-D printing we will do. I think I will hold off on this skill until they have the skills to develop a solution to a need. We have been working with coding with robots, which the students love, so I will continue to focus on that area.
