The Ecology of Maker Ed

One of my many loves is gardening because I enjoy colour, form, and beauty. It's a type of artistry where my tools and materials have an impact yet, unlike painting, the result is mostly outside of my control given the many variables. I'm an organic gardener so those that know what that implies understand the challenges (curse you, aphids, curse you!).

It struck me, many years ago, how teaching is a type of gardening. There are tools and materials, and many variables, some of which I don't have much control over. (Some of the aphids of education bug me big time: ability grouping, inequity, lack of diversity, the mindset behind using standardized assessment as progress, etc). This year, another beautiful material appeared in my landscape that's stretched my ideas about learning: Maker Ed.

Buried amongst the compost of past teaching praxis and enlivened by student voice, Design Thinking and Growth Mindset, the little bloom of Seymour Pappert's words began to grow in my teaching garden and has now become quite a colourful addition. 

You see, to really allow Maker Ed to flourish one needs to LET GO. Let go of the outcomes, let go of expectation, let go of stepping in, to show how or to model unless it's demonstratively needed by the learner. Let go and trust the learners to get to wherever they need to get to by creating the ecology to support them to get there. 

Just as any garden, though, the soil has to be well prepared, the temperature just right for planting and all the nourishment needs to come as needed. To my mind, this type of ecology requires mindful design. Here is an example.

                                                          

I got this idea from Nic Mason (Thank you, @fuse711), who used the making of simple milk bottle spinning tops as a way to conduct statistics investigations. What if, I asked myself, I just gave the kids the materials and let them find out how to do it?  Considering I was teaching 5-6 yr olds for 45 minutes, I was curious how they would grapple with the grit required to get the bottle tops spinning. 

I showed them the materials (blue tack, milk bottle top with a hole and a short kebab stick), and we discussed what we could make with them. Most thought of puppets and cars. I told them that, apparently, we could make spinning tops but I'd never done it before (completely true). Most had never seen a spinning top so I showed them how to use one that looked nothing like the materials we had and said, "Let's have a go." It took them about 5 minutes to work out how to make them (there are a couple of ways) but longer to get them to spin. I stood back. They grappled, they watched each other, they shared, they tried and failed and tried and tried. Some needed more encouragement than others but within 20 minutes almost all could spin them in some way. 

They began creating paths with blocks, others had spinning top challenges, etc. Then, a magic moment. One child asked me for another stick because he'd snapped his so now it was shorter. I said "Do you think it could still work like that? Should we try it and see?" It worked better. "What a great accident!" I said. He was absolutely over the moon and showed everyone his accidental improvement. Others began snapping their sticks shorter but not all found them an improvement and some went back to longer ones.

As we sat in a circle to reflect, I asked them: Did you learn something new today? Yes (they shared). Did a teacher teach you how to do any of it? No (Interesting pause here). So what did you learn about learning something new? For me, this was the real purpose of the lesson. I heard:

- Try different ways.
- Watch how other people do it if you're stuck.
- Don't give up but keep trying until you get it working.
- Mistakes can be great and make things better (the broken stick).

Like any great bloom, this could self-seed many further learning opportunities for maths, science, literacy and more making. That is the beauty of Maker Ed ecology: the activities create more learning, more metacognition, more ways to apply what has been discovered in new ways.

Maker Ed creates the environment for learning, and for the learner (and I include myself here), to bloom.

"He iti, he pounamu." 

Although small, it is precious (Māori proverb)

PS- I best point out that this was not my regular crew, but a younger class that I had for 1 session during a syndicate rotation on a Friday afternoon. When I use it with my crew, we will definitely explore the learning offshoots that this activity will give us food for!