Tag: Management

Makerspace Management

Make it Easier for Students and Educators to do the Right Thing

Julie Darling
Modeling doing the right thing – wearing safety goggles while building a table.

Back in 2015, when I started really digging into makerspace, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Makerspace Operations Bootcamp, through Makerworks. The training was 5-days, intensive, and really, really good. I walked away with a much more comprehensive knowledge of all things makerspace, and I got to play with some really cool machinery, too. One of the messages conveyed through the training was to make it easier for your makers to do the right thing (rather than the wrong thing).

Difficulty Doing the Right Thing

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that message. In particular, all the hurdles that make it difficult to do the right thing. I see these everywhere. From confusing directions, to blocked educational websites, to too many steps needed to complete tasks. We make both students and educators jump through hoop after hoop in order to get where we want them to go. This causes frustration. It makes everything more difficult than it needs to be. It needs to stop. I would even argue that this is one (of several) factors causing the highest rate on record of teachers quitting their jobs in public schools across America.

Making it Easier

If we are going to be effective educators, leaders, mentors, makerspace managers, we need to rethink the way that we do things. We need to make it easier to do the right thing. This should be a lens through which we view every rule we make, every lesson or project we plan, each new initiative we envision. Even the way we evaluate teachers. Just imagine how much better classroom management could be, and how much more effective our educators, if we made it easier to do the right thing. The entire profession would be transformed.

For example, if we actually provided the resources needed to do the things that educators are asked to do, educators could be much more effective. If we had enough staff working to get everything done (which would translate to smaller class sizes), there would be a better work-life balance, and less burnout.  If we had enough time to give to students who are struggling, students would be more successful across the board. 

How this Translates to Makerspace Management

This lens absolutely applies to makerspace management. We need to make it easier for students to make safe (right) choices. When you are setting up your makerspace think about hanging safety equipment in front of where your makers will need to use it, posting safety instructions at workstations, and having a good adult-to-maker ratio.

Set everyone up for success. Put time and funding into helping your makers do the right thing.


Makerspace Management, Utilizing Your Makerspace

Making Meaningful Makerspaces

Julie Darling
You can find projects like this infinity scarf, designed by fashion designer Netti Tiso, in my book You’ve Got a Makerspace – Now What? Teaching Kids to use Makerspace to Better Our World.
Publication date tentatively set for 2020.

As some of you know, I”ve been keeping a (poorly held) secret for the past year – I’ve been writing a book about makerspaces. It has been, hands down, one of the single most challenging experiences that I’ve ever had. It’s required a lot of sacrifice, most of all with my time. I’ve also gotten very comfortable with an unparalleled level of rejection of my thoughts…ideas…writing. 

However, I’ve also learned SO much. I’m a substantially better writer than I was when I started this process. I’ve also spent hours thinking about the purpose of makerspaces.

When I first started my book, it was titled Build and Manage a Makerspace for Kids. The aim of writing it was to keep those of you buildings makerspaces from having to make your way through in the dark. More specifically, to provide management techniques, thoughts about which tools work well with particular age groups, and best practices for teaching kids to use these tools. I wanted you to benefit from the thousands of hours I’ve spent figuring everything out.

By February, I was halfway through writing it, when my publisher contacted me and informed me that the marketplace was flooded with how to start makerspace books. I had to start over. I was devastated. They suggested that I write my book assuming that the reader has a makerspace already. It took me a little while to warm up to that idea. That wasn’t my original vision. I wasn’t sure that’s the book that I wanted to write. I wondered what I could contribute that would still be beneficial. 

This is when I started thinking about what we do well in our makerspace, and my immediate answer was passion projects. Which led to the next logical question – why do the passion projects get such great results? There is plenty of research out there that tells us that in order to get kids excited, engaged and passionate about school work there are two major motivating factors; choice, and some sort of real-world connection. The way that the passion projects are designed does both, which is why the kids stay engaged, and get incredible results. 

I only give them two rules; they can’t do anything that involves money, or weapons. I also ask them to figure out who is going to benefit from their projects – themselves (which is completely valid), their school, their community (neighborhood, sports team, place of worship or however they define that), or the whole world. This scaffolds them to think concretely about that real-world connection. From here, the kids take off. Some projects they’ve done include making and donating blankets to animal shelters, inventing a vending machine with food and supplies to help the homeless or people in areas that have been devastated by natural disasters, coding games, presenting plans to make everything in school more inclusive to a wheelchair bound friend, building working snowboards and designing and making clothing for their pets. You can check out photos and videos of some of these passion projects on my Twitter feed @julielibrarian or Instagram @growingmakerspace. 

Kids want to do good in the world. Giving them a way to do this, through the use of a makerspace, is the best way to utilize a makerspace for kids. I strongly urge you, if you have access to the incredible tools that makerspace provides, help kids learn to use those tools to better our world. If you want some suggestions on specific ways to do this, although I don’t yet have a firm publication date, my book You’ve Got a Makerspace – Now What? Teaching Kids to Use Makerspace to Better Our World will hopefully be out in the world at some point in 2020. I’ll keep you posted on that through this blog. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or ideas to share on the topic, feel free to comment on this post. You are also welcome to shoot me an email at growingmakerspace@gmail.com .

Until next time!

Makerspace Management

The Argument for Teaching Kids to Make Things Bad on Purpose

Julie Darling

Working with kids isn’t simply about walking into a space and teaching. It also requires navigating the invisible baggage brought in by each kid –  from friendships going sour, to bullying, and other issues that you may not be aware of such as homelessness, food insecurity and abuse. You can’t look at kids and tell what their lives are like. Which is why I believe that it’s critical to be kind, and to try and make things less stressful, whenever possible. Adults are in a position of power over kids, and that’s an important thing to remember. As an adult, you have to be cognizant about how your words and decisions might make kids feel.

Maya Angelou said it best: 

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. 

-Maya Angelou

Several years ago I started teaching kids how to put together loops in GarageBand to create a unique conglomeration. I was pretty excited about this. It seemed like a great way to teach some solid skills and have fun in the process. Once we had a couple of sessions, the students were required to share 30 seconds of their piece with the class. Naturally, some of them were a little nervous. It’s scary to share your work with a group of peers.

However, one of my students was several steps beyond nervous. He was petrified. He was so worried about how the other kids would receive his piece that it was spilling into the rest of his life. He was having trouble sleeping. He was practicing with GarageBand during all of his free time. He wanted to come in to spend extra time outside of his regular class. Normally, kids wanting to come in for some extra time, to learn something, is a good thing. This wasn’t that. This kid was practically in tears when we talked about sharing his piece.  When I checked in with the class, he wasn’t the only one who was worried. Clearly, I needed to do something to help.   

When I talked with him about the way that he was feeling, what I garnered was that he was trying to make a perfect piece of music, which he perceived to be an impossible task. I think that a lot of our kids feel pressure to be perfect at everything. I recently attended a professional development workshop given by the author of At What Cost , a book that addresses this overall perfectionism trend (and is very a worthwhile read). The objective of the GarageBand lesson was not to create perfect music. It was simply to learn how to use the software, and hopefully have some fun in the process.  I came up with a solution to try and alleviate some of the stress – what if I gave the kids permission to make their music bad on purpose? 

When I presented this as an option to the class, the relief was visible on their faces. Some of them were even delighted. Making things bad on purpose feels subversive, which is appealing to some kids. From that point forward I’ve always presented this as an option – the students can experiment, make their music bad on purpose or try and make something beautiful. When they play their piece for the class they can opt to share which way they went with this, or they can simply leave it up for speculation.

Once the students were given permission to make their music bad on purpose, not only did they seem to be having more fun with the project, they also started trying out everything. Giving them permission to make a bad piece of music made them explore GarageBand more thoroughly, and learn more about the software, than ever before.  Obviously, not every assignment should have a – bad on purpose – option. But it worked very well for us, with this.

In fact, I think this has wider applications in the realm of makerspace, and teaching in general. For some kids, especially those prone to perfectionism, giving them permission to make things bad on purpose gives them a reason to explore things more deeply than they otherwise would. It allows students to not worry so much about making mistakes, which in turn leads to taking more risks. Risks are really important in school and in life. Taking some calculated risks allows innovation to flourish. If you are teaching, or running a makerspace, it’s critical to get students to a point where they are comfortable taking some risks and making some mistakes (assuming it’s not compromising safety). I would encourage you to find ways to give kids the option of making things bad on purpose.  You never know what happy accidents will result.

A Student’s In-progress GarageBand Piece