No longer can schools operate with teaching the three R's (Reading, 'riting & 'rithmetic) without the four C's (Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication).  For students to be productive citizens in today's competitive global environment, they have to be able to create and innovate.  This exploration begins in the primary ages and continues through high school. Constant advances in technology give students more access not only to information but also to tools that allow them to be creators at all levels.  

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Avonworth has embraced the idea of nurturing the innovative spirit in each child through making, design thinking, and encouraging personal passions and interests. With making in particular, Avonworth has been on the forefront of the maker education movement nationally. Our middle/high school Collaboration Center was one of the first makerspaces found in a school library in the region (2013), and as of the 2015 school-year, we now have makerspaces in all of our school buildings. The concept for making is not new. People have been tinkering and inventing for years, but educators are beginning to see the benefits of making as means for students to think critically in engaging ways.  Dr. Gary Stager, national educational leader, defines making this way:

 

“The shift to "making" represents the perfect storm of

new technological materials, expanded opportunities,

learning through firsthand experience, and the basic

human impulse to create. It offers the potential to make

classrooms more child-centered: relevant and more

sensitive to each child's remarkable capacity for intensity

(http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3758336).”

 

For Avonworth, making has grown organically, initially

through exposure to making through the Children’s Museum

of Pittsburgh’s Makeshop, an open-ended workshop with

everything from empty toilet paper rolls to battery-powered

circuits.  More formal professional development followed for

administrators and teachers, some specifically designed for

Avonworth with the Makeshop staff, and then other teachers

attended the Children’s Museum”s annual Maker Boot Camp

for Teachers.  Around that same time, Avonworth Elementary

School participated in a pilot with the Children’s Museum that

provided a Makeshop artist in residence, who would push his materials from classroom to classroom on a cart. Since then, making has grown from supplies on a cart to full-blown makerspaces with everything from screwdrivers to 3-D printers and laser cutters.  

 

Teachers on all levels have begun to incorporate making activities within their classes to support project-based learning activities, and outside of school experiences have developed as well.  

Articles & Research on Innovation in Education:

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10 Principles for Schools of Modern Learning: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Today’s Schools

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Patterns of Innovation: Showcasing the Nation’s Best in 21st Century Learning

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A Policy Framework for Tomorrow’s Learning

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Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World

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Articles and Research on Making:

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Learning by Making

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Nation of Makers - Carnegie Mellon University | CMU

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Makerspace to Assist Student Entrepreneurs

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http://statescoop.com/penn-state-latest-college-open-makerspace/

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