Page 20 - THE Journal, March/April 2018

FEATURE | STEAM EDUCATION
INTEGRATING
THROUGHOUT THE
The makerspace isn’t just a fixed space where kids come and go to complete busywork. It’s an extension of a well established approach to educating students that has applications and deep implications across disciplines.
AS MAKERSPACES start to pop up in schools across the country, some educators, particularly those teaching non-STEM subjects, may be wondering what exactly they’re supposed to do with them. Policymakers and administrators, meanwhile, want to make sure the spaces and resources are well utilized and are providing as much educa- tional bang for the buck as possible. Luckily, integrating makerspaces throughout the curriculum is fairly easy with the right frame of mind.
Old Methods Made New Again
Though the term makerspace is fairly new to education, the learning theory underpinning the makerspace use — constructivism — is among the foundational theories most teachers are trained with, explained Trisha Roffey, emerging technology consultant and teacher for learning services innovation at Edmonton Catholic Schools.
“Constructivism equally applies to any subject area because it’s the whole idea of learning through doing,” Roffey, who also runs the site makerspaceforeducation.com, said. “The foundational pedagogy actually transcends a specific subject area because in its essence — when it was Jean Piaget and Seymour Papert and John Dewey talking about this it was about the whole system, the whole structure of education that could be transformed by this methodology.”
And makerspace projects don’t always have to be about producing a tangible project. Roffey said she loves Rube Goldberg machines made from, essentially, a table and trash for $5 and talks about how excited students get making a flight simulator with a power glove made from a kitchen glove, tinfoil and a Makey Makey, but the simulator itself existed in Google Earth,
20 | MARCH/APRIL 2018