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A Year in the Making
Expanding my learning one Maker Space at a time
Maker-centered learning, or Maker Ed, is focused on creating environments where students imagine, design and create projects that connect academic content with hands-on applications.
International School of Stuttgart, and many places in between, educational institutions everywhere are embracing a more maker-centered learning focus just as we are at FIS.
For many, Maker Education is a relatively new concept. Maker-centered learning, or Maker Ed, is focused on creating environments where students imagine, design and create projects that connect academic content with hands-on applications. It’s about finding a way to blend the knowledge that students are acquiring in the classroom with hands-on, creative, collaborative demonstrations
Among the many incredible projects seen during Makerspace tours, an interactive display of the human brain (above), and a coil cup embellished with designs from
a 3D-printed stamp (opposite page)
Gap years are not just for graduating seniors. After more than a decade in the classroom, one that incrementally became more like a Maker
Space and less like a traditional classroom, I decided that I wanted more than my weekends to explore a growing interest in Maker Education.
In keeping with the motto of a World of Opportunities, FIS offers teachers up to two years of unpaid sabbatical to continue their learning journey. Mine has been thoroughly immersed in tinkering, making, and experimenting with all things mechanical! Along with spending quality time with my extended family and celebrating the marriage of my daughter, my gap year has been spent touring schools and makerspaces in the United States and Europe to learn more about how schools are incorporating maker-centered learning, makerspaces, and general tinkering into their academic curricula.
I have visited 12 school, university, or community makerspaces and have had innumerable Zoom conversations with Makerspace Coordinators, educational policymakers, and Maker enthusiasts from several different countries. From the FabLab in Sante Fe, New Mexico, to the under-construction remodel of design labs and makerspaces at the
4 FIS World June 2022