Maker Lessons
Creating a lesson plan that not only covers the required state standards but also allows for student ownership over their own education is incredibly time consuming but every bit worth it. During my time as a UTeach student, I worked on creating 3 different Maker lesson plans to implement in different classrooms with different groups of students. Each of these lesson plans took weeks of preparation to create, went through multiple rounds of revisions, and experienced same day alterations! They each strived to have students create an end product that represented their understanding of the topic at hand while giving students the ability to create a unique and personalized item.
Implementing these lessons was also tricky. Project based lesson plans can take a long time to facilitate in the classroom. Most of these lessons that I've created take 3 or 4 class days to deliver the bare minimum of the experience and up to 7 for the whole shebang. A lot of academic calendars simply can't fit these types of lessons in. Additionally, each of these lesson plans has a set of materials required along with it. If a teacher does not have the funding for these materials, projects like these might not be possible.
I was lucky enough to be in an environment where time and money were not the end-all-be-all of teaching. This might not be the case when I enter my own classroom, but it was an incredibly valuable experience to see my students flourish while working on these lessons.
Implementing these lessons was also tricky. Project based lesson plans can take a long time to facilitate in the classroom. Most of these lessons that I've created take 3 or 4 class days to deliver the bare minimum of the experience and up to 7 for the whole shebang. A lot of academic calendars simply can't fit these types of lessons in. Additionally, each of these lesson plans has a set of materials required along with it. If a teacher does not have the funding for these materials, projects like these might not be possible.
I was lucky enough to be in an environment where time and money were not the end-all-be-all of teaching. This might not be the case when I enter my own classroom, but it was an incredibly valuable experience to see my students flourish while working on these lessons.
Student TeachingDuring my Apprentice Teaching semester at Reagan Early College High School, I had the pleasure of working with Mr. Eric Shaffer teaching Introduction to Engineering Design. This course is a Project Lead The Way class and had been taught with an emphasis on digital making using computer aided design.
Most students did not value the experience of digital making. They did not see how it could be applied to their lives. So I took a step back and started from scratch. First, I showed them that they are Makers -- building their resilience against failure by having them complete small projects using tools and supplies they are used to. Then we traveled outside of their comfort zone by using power tools to make mousetrap cars. |
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Project Based InstructionProject Based Instruction and Making go hand in hand. In order for students to understand the significance of the laws of thermodynamics, they first made their way through 3 stations. Each station allowed the students to take data and analyze it in order to draw conclusions about different types of heat transfer.
Once students had a firm grasp of the methods of heat transfer, they were tasked with designing and building a thermos out of recycled or household items. The images on the left are of two such designs. The students then constructed their designs and tests their ability to retain heat! More about this lesson can be found here. |
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Classroom InteractionsMy Maker Education Lesson Plan was created in Classroom Interactions and delivered to Mr. Gurany's on-level physics class.
You can find the lesson plan for teach 1 here. This lesson focused on the understanding of magnetic field lines. This lesson also taught students how to create their own electromagnets. Lesson 2 can be found here. In this lesson, students learned about MagLev Trains and were challenged to build their own. |
Additional Roles as a Maker Educator
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Reagan Engineering and Design Internship This semester (fall 2018), I have had the pleasure of working with Reagan's engineering department. Here, I have worked with a freshman class in their Introduction to Engineering Design course. In this course the students have focused on learning how to navigate Inventor.
I have also been working with seniors on their capstone course. They have been challenged to design and build anything that can be programmed using a raspberry pi. The seniors have decided to build a retro-arcade! |
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Travis High School InternshipAt Travis High School, I had the opportunity to TA for Mrs. Reyes' engineering classes. In these classes, students worked on a variety of different projects raining from Arduino programming to wood working. It gave me tremendous insight into the incorporation of Making in the classroom.
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MentoringMy teaching experience began with mentoring LASA Science Olympiad which eventually turned to me mentoring Kealing and Anderson Science Olympiad... Which eventually lead to me mentoring Kealing BEST Robotics.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from barbourians