Education Week - May 13, 2015 - 10

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS > Tracking news and ideas in educational technology
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School Librarians Push
To Create 'Maker Spaces'
Movement fuels project-based learning
By Jacob Bell
Angela Rosheim, a library media
specialist, faced a problem: Her elementary
school students were requesting
materials during genius
hour-a time in which teachers provide
resources for students to study
topics of personal interest-that the
school didn't have.
"They wanted to learn robotics,
they wanted to learn to create
apps," said Ms. Rosheim, who has
worked at Lewis and Clark Elementary
School in Liberty, Mo., for more
than 20 years.
In response to her students' needs,
she applied for and received an
$8,000 grant from the Liberty school
district to create a "maker space" in
the school's library. The grant, along
with donations and her budget, allowed
Ms. Rosheim to stock the
space with craft supplies, sewing
machines, snap circuits, Lego sets,
and a 3-D printer.
Ms. Rosheim's move in that direction
over the past year and a half
reflects an increasing push by school
librarians to incorporate maker
spaces in their libraries. It is part
of a larger trend, called the "maker
movement," which promotes education
through tinkering and creating.
"When I go to speak to a group of
librarians at a conference, it's standing-room-only
to talk about maker
spaces," said Kristin Fontichiaro, a
clinical assistant professor in the
school of information at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor and
a faculty coordinator for the Michigan
Makers maker-space project,
an after-school program that helps
students develop technology skills by
tinkering with and creating things.
"There is a real hunger; there is a
sense that there's something about
this that's powerful for them."
An Evolution
The term "maker space," Ms.
Fontichiaro said, has no single
definition. The spaces can be hightech,
low-tech, part of the school
curriculum, or part of an afterschool
program. Some aren't even
called maker spaces. The only central
theme is that of creation and
innovation.
Facilitating student creation
has been a largely overlooked but
increasingly important role for
school librarians, according to Leslie
Preddy, the president-elect of
the Chicago-based American Association
of School Librarians. Along
with new steam-science, technology,
engineering, arts, and mathematics-and
inquiry-based movements
in education, this role has
prompted more school librarians to
push for maker spaces.
While the number of maker
spaces popping up in schools is
difficult to estimate, a three-part
study from the Maker Education
Initiative, an Oakland, Calif.based
advocacy and research organization,
has identified at least 50
maker spaces in the United States,
with 20 of them located in schools.
The organization also found one in
South Korea. The maker spaces reported
a combined 1.8 million participants
in the past year.
"It's the next evolutionary step in
school libraries," said Ms. Preddy,
who also serves as a library media
specialist at Perry Meridian Middle
School in Indianapolis. "We
couldn't be the school library you
grew up in and meet the needs of
the kids today."
Evaluating Impact
Those modern needs revolve, at
least partly, around newly adopted
state tests and standards such as
the Common Core State Standards
or the Next Generation Science
Standards.
Some researchers are conducting
large-scale studies that examine the
academic benefits of maker spaces.
Overall, however, the scientific community
hasn't come to a consensus
about how maker spaces serve as
effective learning environments, according
to Lee Martin, an assistant
professor at the University of California,
Davis, whose research deals
with how youths learn from making
experiences.
"In terms of outcomes, I haven't
seen a study that's really looking
at those kinds of specific, quantitative,
measurable outcomes ... that
you really generalize and say, 'Look,
making is effective for x, y, and z,' "
Mr. Martin said.
The lack of data around maker
spaces can present problems for administrators
and librarians when
justifying the need for the spaces
in their schools or when determining
the scope of their maker-space
projects.
"Formal schools-public schools
specifically-have a little bit less
flexibility, because they still need to
make sure students are prepared to
take standardized tests and meet
the goals and the standards related
to a specific subject area," said
Stephanie Chang, the director of
programs at the Maker Education
Initiative.
More commonly, researchers are
gathering data on individual or
anecdotal levels. At those levels,
researchers, librarians, and other
maker-space coordinators have
found students developing the skills
that newly adopted standards require,
such as problem-solving and
critical thinking.
In the Maker Education Initia10
| EDUCATION WEEK | May 13, 2015 | www.edweek.org
For Ms. Rosheim, the bulk of her
$8,000 grant was spent on storage
needs, high-tech materials ranging
from $50 to $400, and organization
of those materials. The space's
most expensive item-the 3-D
printer-came as a donation from
the school's pta.
Rather than money, time limits
are the biggest challenge affecting
Ms. Rosheim's maker space, she
said, as students have just one or
two times a week to work on projects
that can take more than four
weeks to complete.
Student-Centered Shift
FROM TOP:
Sarah Cramer, a librarian in
training, consults with Jay
Wambere, a 5th grade student,
about his LittleBits electronic
music composition at Mitchell
Elementary School in Ann
Arbor, Mich. The school is
participating in the Michigan
Makers program, a University
of Michigan initiative that
supports the use of maker
spaces in schools.
Librarian-in-training Alex Quay
helps 4th grade student
Kandyce Barnes work on
a hand-sewing project
at Mitchell Elementary.
tive survey, for example, about half
the surveyed representatives of
maker spaces reported alignment
with Next Generation Science
Standards, and about 40 percent
reported alignment with the common
standards. What's more, about
50 percent reported fostering skills
such as problem identification, effective
communication of ideas, and
evaluation and refinement of creative
ideas.
"For a lot of them to report back
that they felt they were developing
these sorts of skills in kids,
despite their specific equipment or
the specific activities that they do,
was really, really nice to see," said
Ms. Chang, who also worked on the
survey.
In addition to concerns about
alignment to state standards and
tests, Ms. Chang and others have
said that the perception that maker
spaces must be expensive is another
obstacle facing their implementation
in schools.
"People think, 'Oh, I need a 3-D
printer that's $2,300. I can't afford
that,' " said Ms. Fontichiaro of the
University of Michigan. "You can
afford a junk box. You can afford
a ream of paper. You can afford a
white board that you can make
out of [materials] from the homeimprovement
store."
The changes Ms. Rosheim made
to her curriculum and school, while
a part of the Maker Movement,
are also part of another trend: a
nearly 30-year shift from libraries
being more facility- and collectioncentered
to being primarily studentcentered.
That
shift, according to Deb Levitov,
the managing editor of School
Libraries Monthly, culminated in
2009 with the release of guidelines
from the aasl stating that being
a teacher is the primary role of a
school librarian.
The focus, then, of school librarians
is to meet the instructional,
emotional, and cultural needs of
faculty and students, according to
Ms. Preddy.
"The maker space is important in
a sense that it helps kids try things
out, try things on ... maybe not even
for a career, but just for a personal
interest or a hobby or a talent or a
strength they had that, without the
tools and resources in the maker
space, they would have never been
able to sample," Ms. Preddy said.
Coverage of "deeper learning" that
will prepare students with the skills
and knowledge needed to succeed in
a rapidly changing world is ported in
part by a grant from the William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation, at
www.hewlett.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the
content of this coverage.
Daryl Marshke/University of Michigan School of Information
http://www.digitaldirections.org http://www.hewlett.org http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - May 13, 2015

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