Once I started diving into this topic it wasn’t as scary as I thought. It is honestly a lot of what I already know and have tried a bit in my own way with in the restrictions of our curriculum, time, money and space. My prior knowledge among coding was minimal; I always thought coding was extremely complex process which gave instructions for a program, apps, or computer to process. I also thought it was only for people who had training or schooling due to its complexity.
It turns out like many aspects of learning new things there are simpler easier ways to start coding. It does not need to start or look like the image above. The program we were shown in class was Scratch Jr and I can see the benefits of teaching coding. Students could create stories or timelines on many topics. It lets students create, problem solve, and infer. This would help them with attention to detail, and particularity by having to break things down into steps. It is all very high levels of thinking according to Bloom’s taxonomy which is very beneficial for our students. It definitely falls under the high level of the cognitive learning theory and fits the constructivist learning theory as well.
I just did a project in science where they had to analyze history of atomic theory by creating a timeline of models and changes throughout history. Coding could be a great way to order and differentiate between scientists findings through creating a story of some sort. This hits the outcome at an even higher level for enhancing student learning.
When I saw the word Makerspaces, I was even more in the dark, I had never heard of this. What I have learned is it is a place where people come together to solve a problem. In an educational setting it would be giving a group of students materials, time and space necessary to create something, or come up with ideas to solve a problem.
Makerspaces also fall under the constructivist theory and has many benefits. It gives students freedoms and choice with in the outcome. It supports in collaboration, problem solving and perseverance. The really important one is that attitude of making mistakes is valuable, and when things don’t go right to try again in a new way. This is a wonderful life skill as nothing will go great the first time. It fosters life long learning and resilience.
These skills I have been talking about is extremely important when it come to complex topics in the world of math and science. According to Let’s talk science students are losing interest in the science and math. Over half don’t graduate with a senior level math or science. Also only 12% of graduating students take physics.
Hence, students need to be inspired in these courses. We need to be given the time and money to get tools and tech to allow students to problem solve in interesting ways. Especially in math, it has been pencil and paper and drill and practice for so long. Our math courses are so jam packed not only do we have barely enough time to just traditionally teach the outcome, let alone get them explore it and play. The other problem is when trying to do the outcome at a higher level, kids need basic skills and they are not coming to high school with those solid skills. There is a lot of reteaching to get the basics hence we don’t have enough time for creation and innovation a lot of the time. There needs to be some change in our curricula for this to happen.
Sometimes the issue with doing something that is a higher order of thinking than the outcome is asking for, is students are working so hard to create that sometimes they completely miss the mark in the analyzation of the content that was asked for. I have seen this many times when I try something cool that my weaker students get left behind. Is it great for those students to try these things, yes, but sometimes it can be very overwhelming and they aren’t successful. This is when differentiating the assessment would be and encouraging your excelling students to try these innovative projects. On the contrary, when students realize one way will be more “work” than others assessments it is hard to inspire them to dive in. Maybe maker spaces should be more for non-curricular clubs to avoid this problem. But then the government needs to give more funding to education. Hard enough to get funding for curricular items, I can’t imagine trying to get more money for makerspaces!
Even though there are issues around materials, money, motivation and time in some areas, I think education is moving towards finding ways to help our students be innovative and solve problems. Central Collegiate in Moose Jaw where I work is doing some great things! We have innovation club at our school which work with drones, the 3D printer and create computer games and much more that I don’t even know about. We have coding and drafting classes which all involve collaboration and creation. In science we are giving students materials and building anything from houses to protect objects, terrariums to roller coasters. It is happening but we just need to push for more time, and more money to give our students the best education possible.
