Maker Educator Leadership: Routines and Tools to Support Professional Learning

Outline

Welcome (5 minutes)
Briefly set the stage for what we will do in the workshop. We will engage the participants in 3 abbreviated, interactive activities that can build their maker educator leadership toolkit.

Big Rock Tool and Activity (20 minutes)
 This tool and activity is intended to help educators identify what they value for learning and engagement. Maker-based learning can support a wide range of learning values. The Big Rock Tool and Activity engages the participants in listing their values and iteratively reducing their list to ultimately identify a value that can center their design, facilitation and reflection. We will debrief the tool and activity.

Maker TAG Tool and Activity (15 minutes)
 The maker activities that we provide learners offer different opportunities for engagement. To point out the obvious, step by step vs. open-ended projects create different opportunities for engagement. In addition, the project prompt, the tools, the materials all can create different opportunities to engage. Often the factors are more nuanced and this underscores how educators create the conditions for engagement in their maker activities. The Maker TAG tool, similar to a rubric, allows educators to reflect on and discuss opportunities for engagement provided by maker activities, and how those activities can be modified to align with what we value. Participants will apply the Maker TAG tool to three different activities in small groups. Then we will debrief the tool.

Lightning Shareout Discussion Protocol (15 minutes)
 Discussion protocols provide semi-structured guidance for small group discussions to offer equitable opportunities for participation. For maker educator leaders, discussion protocols can create opportunities to deprivatize their practice by sharing ideas, learners’ work, and develop a common language about learning. One example, Lightning Shareout, was developed for busy educators to talk about their practice within short period of time. Workshop participants will do the protocol in an abbreviated form and then we will debrief the protocol.

Wrap Up: (5 minutes)
We will share links to handouts associated with each of the activities. We will also share additional resources related to maker educator leadership that participants can access.

Outcomes

After this session, participants should be able to:
---analyze a maker activity using the makerTAG reflection tool.
---adapt a discussion protocol to their own context and goals for sharing practice with colleagues.
---identify what they value for learning and engagement in maker-based learning experiences.

Supporting research

Clapp, E. P., Ross, J., Ryan, J. O., & Tishman, S. (2016). Maker-centered learning: Empowering young people to shape their worlds. John Wiley & Sons.

Wardrip, P., Evancho, J., & McNamara, A. (2018). Identifying what matters. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(6), 60-63.

Wardrip, P. S., Saplan, K., & Evancho, J. (2021). “Finding the Right Window Into What They’re Doing”: Assessment of Maker-based Learning Experiences Remotely. TechTrends, 65(6), 952-962.