Classroom Makers

Welcome! 
The Classroom Makers project encourages and supports educators working to integrate the maker philosophy into classroom learning. Students create, invent, and learn using a variety of supplies, allowing them to build prototype solutions to real-world challenges, answer questions, fail, and retry – all while collaborating with their classmates.

2021 Making in a Virtual World Webinars
Join the REMC Classroom Makers Ambassadors webinars in December, January, February and March to explore:

• Computer Science Opportunities for Remote Instructions (December)
• Making Ed Kits for Remote Learning (January)
• Using Maker Skills to Help Others (February), and
• Readers and Writers are Makers (March)

Recordings of these sessions are linked on the right of the screen.

More About Classroom Makers
The Classroom Makers project believes that all humans are makers with the inclination and capacity to shape one’s world through building, tinkering, redesigning, or hacking.

From the national stage to local Michigan classrooms, students can experience the integration of the maker ethos that reinforces engagement, student empowerment, curiosity, encourages a willingness to learn, and to create in a low-pressure environment. Teachers who have embraced the maker mindset are seeing improved student outcomes.

Classroom Makers offers workshops and its Maker Summit (held annually in June) to help educators understand the pedagogical uses for “maker” resources in the classroom, how maker activities support Michigan content standards, and how to begin implementing the core ideas with students.  Classroom Makers helps with program expenses by offering maker focused tools, resources, and opportunities available through local REMC centers. REMC SAVE offers maker technology, supplies, and furniture at substantial savings, too!
 

Adding Value by Adding Maker
What is the value of adding Making to your classroom? Do you want to implement Making in your classroom but need to get your building principal or other administrators on board? We are here to help! Check out these articles discussing the benefits of classroom Making.

Supporting the Teacher Maker Movement
Edutopia’s Heather Wolpert-Gawron writes an open letter to principals outlining the benefits of providing maker spaces and integrating maker curriculum. She also advocates for the value of making for teachers. The author outlines eight ways principals can support teachers employing the maker pedagogy in their classroom.

How to Incubate Creativity in School Through Making and Discovery
Follow teacher Laura Kretschmar's deep dive into a maker environment to encourage collaboration, communication, and coding. A math teacher at Lighthouse Community Charter in Oakland, California, Kretschmar gives her students a rubric with goals and some program instructions. The rest is for the students to figure out through trial and error. "Our goal is not to create more scientists and engineers; it's to leave doors open for kids," said Kretschmar. 

Maker Education and Experiential Education
In her blog “User Generated Education,” Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. examines Experiential Education, Maker Education, and the philosophy and writings of John Dewey. She illustrates students' ability to draw connections to their learning and community solutions that are relevant to them.

Resources
If you are looking for more research, visit, MakerEd. We also recommend the following books…

• Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom by Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary S. Stager Ph.D.
• Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student by John Spencer & A. J. Juliani
• Makeology by Kylie Peppler, Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, & Yasmin B. Kafai
• Maker-Centered Learning: Empowering Young People to Shape their Worlds by Edward P. Clapp, Jennifer O. Ryan, Jessica Ross, and Shari Tishman
• Worlds of Making: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School (Corwin Connected Educators Series), by Laura Fleming
   

Try Before You Buy
The 28 local REMCs located across Michigan have many maker resources available for educators to try prior to purchasing.  Local REMC s have extensive collections of maker kits including Bloxels, Dot and Dash, Eris 3D Printer, Hue Camera and Green Screen, Keva Planks, Little Bits, Makey Makey, Ozobots, Strawbees, and Sphero. Your REMC director can assist you with professional learning related to the maker kits. Contact your local REMC center to learn how to check out these maker items to try in your classroom and/or building. 

Buy your Maker Kits using REMC SAVE discounts
Educators ready to build their own maker classroom or collection should check out www.remcsave.org to find deep discounts on popular maker kit items such as Bloxels, Dot and Dash, Eris 3D Printer, Hue Camera and Green Screen, Keva Planks, Little Bits, Makey Makey, Ozobots, Strawbees, Sphero, plus maker supplies and furniture.