Maker Education

I have taught about making in both a formal and informal way. The formal way is my maker lesson, while my informal way has been through the experience I had with MathHappens. Both gave me a different perspective about making in education, and they both differentiate on the amount of tools students got to use.

MathHappens

MathHappens does events at the museum, library, and non-conventional areas of learning. Throughout my time working for them, I have crafted and taught kids of all ages about math through making in some form. In these experiences, the children are usually building a tool that they can use for the activity or is a crafting something that represents a mathematical concept. From my experience of hosting a field trip to the Bob Bullock museum, the students got to craft parallel rulers and used them to learn about how sailors used it to navigate the waters. When we are at the Austin Nature Center, we let them create a plumb line, an element to the quadrant, and then teach them how to use the quadrant to measure trees. At the Austin Zoo, we let students craft their own frame that followed the Voronoi Pattern, and talked about the math that went into it. These are all low tech making activity that involved tools like a wrench or crafting.

They aren’t big making experience, but ones that are interesting because it caters to the public so both young children and teenagers could enjoy the experience of crafting. These informal public interactions mean that the type of making that take place sometimes can’t be heavy on technology making, depending on the audience we are addressing. The audience could be five-year-old, or adolescents. So the content that we taught and created at the event could be scaled up or down in terms of educational value. All those experience though did involve making in a way that everyone could enjoy, or used tools that learned from use in an activity.

Maker Lesson

My Maker Lesson honestly has a lot of redesigns and could be debated on if it is truly a maker project. I think it has the potential to be a maker lesson, but I did not execute it in a way that optimizes the opportunity to make. I will attach my Maker Summary here and all the files that went into the project along the way. At the end of the page, I have attached my new lesson proposal with rubrics.

The planning and decision for the project.

I originally didn’t know how to approach doing something that involved exponential and logarithmic, so I talked to my maker mentor, Lauren, Shelly, and a maker fellow, Krystal, about how to approach this problem. One idea was to come up with an activity that they had to continually make one thing, and see you who could do it the fastest. The lesson was supposed to simulate a situation that students are owns a business/making something for charity, and they are debating between hiring a person with no experience to help them make something, in our case something food related, or someone who has the experience, but you’ll probably have to pay them more. The idea follows the learning curve. The issue that I felt came from this maker lesson was that I didn’t think that students have autonomy or differentiate what they would be doing.

A screenshot of the conversation I had to plan this lesson.

Another idea that we talked about was making a project about a certain aspect of Austin growth, such as population, or price of living. But when talking to Pam, a master teacher, she pointed out the fact the project wouldn’t be engaging. A spitball idea was to do a folding activity that created an exponential art piece. I liked this idea, but I didn’t know if all the students would be engaged with it.

I decided to do a project where students are researching something that is logarithmic or exponential and create a math model from it. This decision was made because it was one that allowed the PRE-AP Algebra 2 team to do it themselves. That was a requirement I had to accomplish because it would be the most equitable thing to do, so no one class is doing something different. The other reason that I decided to do this project is that allow students to differentiate the information they can share and present. It was a project that allowed students to explore their interest and see how it could connect to the math concepts. It creates more diversity in the information. I’ll explain more about equity and diversity, along with key aspects of the project in more detail in different sections.

Project Objectives

My main goal from this project is to get my students to research and model a math in a real world context in groups of 2-3 people. I choose to focus on exponential and logarithmic, because that was the one of the subjects in math that connects to several different areas that students could find their interest. I wanted students to look up or create data. Once the students got their information they were suppose to create an artifact that represent their research. They would give each other feedback, before presenting. I graded my student's project with a rubric.

Student's Prior Knowledge

When the students were introduce to the projects, they were finishing up learning about what is an exponential and logarithmic functions. They knew how to write an exponential function based on a word problem, and understand that those two functions were inverse. The project took place will students were learning how to solve those two function given a numbers, and about Euler's number.

Project Proposal

I shared a proposal with the team I was working with at Round Rock High School. It highlighted the main objective, and it is a lesson plan of what the project was in tells. This proposal didn't include the rubric, because I wasn't sure how I wanted to grade the students when I was introducing this project to the team. Unit 9 I mention was the introduction of exponential, and it's inverse.

I will go over what I would have changed about each section of the proposal later on, but for now, I will go over the changes that I would have for this proposal itself.

The goal section and student's objective are fine. They highlight the key objectives in a clear way, without much more explanation. The only thing I would include in those sections is the requirement of creating an artifact, and include examples of what artifacts could be.

I would add a "resources section" in this proposal. It would include possible resources to give to students, and resources that a teacher could use for reference to about a maker lesson, and maker project would look like. When introducing this project, I realize that I didn't have a reference to share to the team, and sources that they could use to help them guide the project. The resources for students is to encourage teachers to have materials that students could be creative with. The material doesn't have to be expensive. It could be simple crafting stuff or even cardboard. If it were cardboard, I would link the cardboard challenge and what teachers and students have created from that challenge.

If I were going to give this proposal to another teacher, I wouldn't have made the timeline specific to the team. It should have been numbers of days, and then explain what days something would have been due. That is easier to follow. It also should include that this is planning in terms of a 90 minute class period.

The last major change would explain how Gallery Walk would work, and that it is a separate thing from the Presentation. I would then add instruction to how Presentation could have gone.

Timeline

I made a decision to make this project a 3 weeks long, because I wanted to give students 20-30 minutes of class time to work on the project as we learned content that related to the project. The decision to introduce the project before students started the next unit was to give them the weekend to think about the project before submitting the proposal. I gave them the rubric at the beginning, because I wanted students to have reference to what they were being graded on. I thought that would take students longer to research a topic, but majority of students found a topic to research.

The timeline of this project was too spread out. Students felt that it was too long, and didn't connect. The placement of it was poor, because of how students were learning didn't always directly connect to the project, and the fact it wasn't an extend learning opportunity the project timeline didn't get great feedback from fellow teachers or students. The Reflection at the end I will talk about the two options that I came up with to address these timeline issue, but they need more context and deserve their own section.

Letter of Introduction

The Letter of Introduction was something I wanted to give students to explain what was going on. I took this idea from what I learned from PBI. The primary response I got from my CT was to get rid of the introduction because it was too wordy. I agree to a point, but I feel like part of the problem also came from the execution of introducing the project. For one, I made a mistake of not reading the letter as a class and going over it with students. That caused several students to be confused about what their goal was for the project, and when assignments were due. If I were going to do the Intro Letter again, I would make students read over it as a class, or shorten it to the timeline with a little more written into the description. I want to keep the introduction letter because I want students to have something that engages them in the project. What would help is not include dates in the written part, and bullet-point the objects. That would make the letter more concise for the students.

That said, I understand the point of view of only having a table with the due dates and the description of what is due. That approach is more direct, and straight to the point. It won't cause any confusion, but I feel like it lacks personality. Though, direct could be helpful for a classroom that needs more structure in the project.

Gallery Walk

The Gallery Walk was design so students could walk around the classroom and give each other feedback on each other project without any student explaining what is going on. I wanted students to give feedback on the project, before they presented, so they can do the last minutes edits, or find a way to address those feedback. There were 3 main type of feedback I excepted my students to give to each other:

1. I like this because ...
2. I am confused by this ..., because ...
3. This ..., could be improved upon with ...., because of "insert reason"

By having those three things that students are looking for during the activity allowed students to give better critiques. It is always good to know what is going well with the project, while it is also important to remember that something isn't making sense. The idea of having students give each other feedback was something I thought was an essential element I need for the project because it allows students to use their community to improve their project. The peers' community help develops ideas, and grow as a unit. That is why this was a section of the rubric that students were getting graded on. However, I would suggest doing the Gallery Walk differently. Looking at the students' reflections, my CT feedback, and my thoughts, I would want to do the feedback part by asking groups to trade and reflect. It could be traded in a triangle or between two groups, but either way, not everyone will be able to see all of the other groups project before the presentation. I want to change that aspect of the Gallery Walk because it felt redundant to do both Gallery Walk and Presentation since both require students to see each other project. Then I would change the number of quality feedback down to at least 4 comments per a student that they reviewed. So if a pair of students are working together and get to review a project, then they both write 4 comments in hopes that it will help the group. I would do the Gallery Walk as a whole class activity. If it was a long project that we had time to do the activity at the midway point, then the presentation could be about the finished product that students could do see how much progress happen. However, if that would happen both the creative and time aspect of the lesson needs to adjust. I'll talk more about that issue in the Reflection.

Presentation/Student's Reflection

I originally imagine that students would listen to the presentation of each other informal way. They could walk up start listening to the presenter and then move on. My CT suggested that we make it a rotation every 5 minutes, so there would be more structure. Even with that, the presentation day didn't go that well. Students didn't understand that they were supposed to rotate every 5 minutes, and they eventually got off task as the class went on. That aspect of the lesson was the weakest part of the project. The biggest reason was the fact students didn't have a grade attach to paying attention during other groups presentation. One simple solution would be to give students feedback form that they comment on one thing they learned from the presenter, and one thing the presenter could improve on. I decided not to do that initially because of how I did the Gallery Walk. Another option is to make the students' word problems quiz questions that they have to understand how to solve. Both options help with making students pay attention to presentation. If I had either opportunity, I would allow students to walk around informally, because now they have reason to stay for the whole presentation.

Asking students to reflect on the project was great. It provided me feedback on what could be improved, but also insight on who was working. The reflection got students to think about the process and one thing I would ask students next time is if they were going to do this again, what would they do differently. Other than that, I enjoyed reading all of the reflections.

Below are some of my students' reflections.

Tools and artifact

This project lacked introducing tools for to the students. When creating the artifacts, many students opted out and got photos, or brought in a premade artifact. The issue comes from the fact that I didn’t personally didn’t push for students to design or create. I didn’t push to bring in materials for my students to express their thought. There is two reason why I this happen. One is that it wouldn’t have been fair for my CT other class, or the other teams, not learning the same thing that they were. The second is that time wise, I wasn’t sure how this would work, and it end up being a mess for the time management. So I couldn’t introduce tools for students to use. They did practice using presentations tools, and some students did creative artifacts, but the majority did not. It also didn’t help that there wasn’t any examples of what a good artifact would look like. Though I do want to be careful, because showing them example sometime leads students to only do those examples. This has been the weakest element of my maker lesson, and the reason why people could argue that my lesson does not involve making. I will defend why I think it is a maker lesson in the next section.

Rubric

The rubric was something I liked, but needs to be modify. I already talked about how I would change the Gallery Walk Feedback, and I would add that students need to give feedback to a least 3/4 of the presentation to get full credit all the points. I would make that another part of the rubric. The Google Form aspect needs to be clarify in the rubric. I would make them to the description of what needs be submitted to get those points. The other change would be making the artifact part of the rubric, and combine the content and organization of the project into one. I think making the artifact one thing matters, because I got some awesome projects, but at the same time I could reward those students with a deserving grade. It also encourages them to try to create something to get the full credit on that aspect.

Another idea would be to design a rubric were everything is weighted differently. The idea would be similar to how grades are calculated for the school year. An example of how the grades could be distributed would be like:

Artifact 30 points
Presentation 30 points
Equation/Inverse 5 points
Word Problem 5 points
Data/regression 10 points
Explanation of equation/inverse 10 points
Graphs 5 points
Participation 5 points
Bonus

Having those value associated to a topic is fairer, because now certain aspects are weighted in a way that reflect the importance of the information. Of course there should be a description of what full credit would look like. If I followed the point rubric above for the project, I would make the gallery walk a quiz grade, and the reflection a daily grade. The participation would be students writing feedback after they view students presentation. I don't want to define what full credit of each of those, because that could differentiate depending on the teacher and what their expectation. I included a bonus for those students who does something amazing that blows your mind, and I wished I added that to mind for someone of my students, because she was the only one that created an art piece that they represented an exponential function.

Reflection

The maker lesson was rough. The allotted time I tried to give to work on the project was not enough, or student did not use that time. This problem forced the flow of the project to be slow and clunky. Not going over the introduction letter also cause a lot of confusion. The experience felt like I was in a play area, but didn’t know how to play and build a lesson. I did manage to cover content and make it relevant. Looking at my students’ feedback, many of them loved it and enjoyed the project. The student who did the art painting came back to me and told me two weeks later about how she figured out another way to do art exponentially. That statement got me so excited and helps support that my maker philosophy and teaching philosophy is in this lesson. The student went back to the start of the race to explore a different way to reach the end goal. And for me, teaching is about setting goals and trying to figure out how to get there. Once you reach that goal, then reflect and add that knowledge to help you move forward.

Having the fact that I need to make sure that 300 students can do this project with a different instructor, made me feel that the lesson had to be basic, and a bland outline. I felt pressure to do this well so that everyone can take do it, so I didn't take a risk and made it more making focus. However, my team told me that they like the idea it just needs some revision. I agree of course and have thought about ways to improve the lesson. I believe this is a making lesson because even though there wasn’t a big on using tools, there was that option to incorporate it. All the elements that define a maker lesson are there. The problem was there wasn’t anything to build up the foundation. Example of what would build this lesson up is more time, bring in resources that students could use, and teaching them how to use tools. And it could also be said that students created. They created a math model out of data, something where they had to learn how to do regression on the computer and based on their research. They created, got feedback, and presented. Students practice making without using many physical tools, but they did make through the words that they used to convey their interest. So yes, this is a maker lesson, but one that didn’t reach its full potential.

I have different revisions that I want to that I think would help elevate the lesson. The two ideas on how to revise the lesson, and they are similar, but they do have some major difference. Both of these ideas are something that could be fleshed out, but they are general guidelines on how to implement this lesson plans. Let’s start with what they have in common. They both can use either adjusted rubric and would help if there was an example of what to expect for an artifact. Another element that I would add to this project is making students listen and write reflection over a TED Radio Hour "How Things Spread". This podcast is relevant to the students because it talks about exponential growth without mentioning it. The questions that I would add to that assignment would be an open-end one that asked students how does this podcast connect to the lesson, and what was the thing that stood out from this podcast. The last comment I want to add before talking about the revision is that my students didn’t use Google form well, and that caused them to lose some points. So the decision to do part or all of this, electronic is dependent on the school and the situation.

The 3 Day Plan

Take three 90 minutes days for the project. The first day is for research and equation building. The second day could be dedicated to building the artifact. That day the instructor would have to bring an assortment of materials that students could work in groups to build an artifact that represents their research and maybe get feedback. The third day is for presentation, reflection, and maybe a quiz.

So this design doesn't have a long period for students to edit their project. That is the only major downside to this option. I would want to implement this lesson at the end the unit that introduces exponential because then it is an activity that challenges the student to think about the how they can apply the knowledge they learn, and maybe try to figure out how to solve before we get to it.

The other time I would want to implement this lesson is at the end of a unit where students learned everything they need to cover for exponential and make the project the summative evaluation. If I did it like this, I would also require students to come up with some practice problems to go along with it, because it would ensure they understood the solving process. I don't necessarily like the second way to implement this set up because adding the practice problems feel like it takes away from the lesson. Students will have to focus on both practice problem more than the project itself.

The Full Unit

The second option follows the same structure of what I did this semester but with a little more rigid. This lesson has in mind doing the project as the students go through the unit of exponential and logarithms. When introducing exponential and logarithms, I would spend the last 30 minutes of class the first day introducing the project, showing off examples, and then giving them time to do the project. As the lessons go on, I would dedicate 30-45 minutes to about half of the lessons in the unit to teach students either new skills so they can create an artifact, time to work on the project, or time to have a conference about what they are creating and giving them advice.

Some of those days students should be given that time to work on the part of the project that is due that day, before working on the artifact, and some of those days might be dedicated to learning the content so students can be more prepared to present. Middle of the unit students should do a pair activity that groups can give each other feedback about each other artifact and presentation. Then spend the rest of the class working on their project based on the input. After the feedback stage, students only get 15-20 minutes to work on the project if it is needed.

Majority of the hard part is done the first half of the lesson, and the second half should be adding the finishing touches to the artifact and presentation. The second half focus is making sure students understand the properties and solving, before moving onto the next unit. I would dedicate a day to the presentation, and reflection, followed by a review, for a test the next class day.

This plan is something that depends on the school, and how long they want to spend on exponential. That said, teachers could make a judgment call and say that students don't need as much time to work on the project or vise versa. Either way, I like this idea the most because it would be the one that follows along with maker education the most. It allows students to think and be creative while teaching them new skills.

Conclusion

This project brought up a part of the equity that I haven’t thought to consider. As teachers, we have to make sure that all students get equal opportunity to learn the same content no matter the instructor. So if I wanted to do something that is fun an unique, it is not equitable if all the other students don’t get the same chance. It is something I don’t know how to approach or problem solve. But I will say that this project does bring in diversity by asking students to bring in their background. I learn a lot about my students’ personal interest, and it was something that my student enjoyed. Overall, maker education is still about teaching, but we need to make fine ways to make it so all students can access it, and that means teaching how to do these lessons to others.

New Maker Lesson Proposal with Edit Rubric.

Resource Reccomendation

Scrape- Drag and drop programming
Ink Space- Design program
Cardboard- Resources that could be used for a lot of things.
Makey Makey- Can be used with Scrape.
http://www.agencybydesign.org/- information on designing by making
https://makerspaces.make.co/- website to find local makerspaces to ask questions and learn more about making.