The Tour + Plus Morning Making

Tour + Program Planning + Making

By 9 a.m. a mix of art, science, elementary, high, middle school teachers, educational planners- from schools, both public and charter, had gathered in The Creativity Lab for our first ever Tour + professional development session.

It was the ultimate melting pot. A place where new methods of teaching, making, and learning collide, moving outward into the veins of districts and schools and teachers. A potential domino effect, a collaborative bulldozer, paving the way for Making in Schools. A glimpse into the grassroots of education reform by making in schools, fueled by the potential we dream of for (and see in) our kids.

We jumped right into the making- as that is the nature of what we do best here in The Creativity Lab.

To give you a better idea of what that looks like, I give you the Journals from Books morning making group- tasked with turning old books into journals. Simple, yet limitless parameters.

Journals from Books — Finding poems or making your own sentences by removing words with a dark pen.

Journals from Books — Hand-stitched pages.

Journals from Books — Creating windows by calculated cutting, highlighting the layers with origami paper. Cut deep and create a box, glue pages together and build depth, add accordion siding to get a tunnel book, turn it into a photo album by filling the frames with pictures.

Journals from Books — Remove the old pages and rebind with new. Fold small stacks of paper (cut to size for your book) in half, stitch the siding lightly, repeat nine times or so and adhere the small stacks together, glue back into the original cover seaming.

Journals from Books — Create a heritage journal by personalizing your book to share your story, all the while learning more about what it means to be you by looking closely at the history that lead you here.

Journals from Books — Plan of Action: use what you have and make stuff.

Journals from Books — An art teacher’s work of art: to teach making, be a maker.

The Tour + is full-day intensive planning session. From 9 to 3 p.m. participants get to make, plan their making programs, and get to see making in school in action at Lighthouse. Most of the training takes place in the Creativity Lab itself, really allowing the attendees to be immersed in the making culture. Some come in groups from a school, or as an individuals who represent making at their school and want to do it better, others come to see our model, hoping to expand their current programs, gearing them towards making. A phenomenon that is quickly catching on.

The Flow

Networking & Coffee

Making & Reflecting – what’s the point?

Models of Making

Designing Your Program*

Making Class Tour**

*Breaking mid-planning for lunch outside in our atrium oasis. **This session got to see 2nd Graders Programming Lego WeDo kits, 2nd Graders hand-binding their Making Journals, High Schoolers in the Making Elective in the throws of making their Maker Faire projects.

The 13 participants that joined us reflected not only a diverse group of educators, but more importantly the growing trend towards cultivating creative thinking by making in schools. After seeing what we accomplished in the first Tour +, together, with a dash of design thinking, I really believe that we can problem-solve this into reality for all of our schools.

You might wonder, what’s the point of making in schools? Look at the faces of these teachers as they make. The concentration, the intensity, the flow of thinking- exuding from the making at hand.

3 thoughts on “The Tour + Plus Morning Making”

Paraphrasing the best I can, this is what I heard:

We don’t have a designated space, we aren’t sure how to support the organizational needs of making. Would we have carts that can be checked out? How to store materials? Get organized, create a system to fit your space, work with what you have, you don’t need much to get started.

How can we get the really expensive (awesome) technologies available- 3D Printers and Scanners, Laser Cutters (my favorite!), Vinyl Cutters, Poster Printers, Arduinos, Lego WeDo Kits? Donors Choose had a good showing of success among participants.

We want to know what the structure of this kind of program is. How can we incorporate it in our current model? How can we help our students leave our doors able to find career opportunities with the skills we’ve given them? Paint a clear picture. Start Small. For example, let the kids choose their projects from projects already made, perhaps by last years students… Mr. V has finally drilled it in my head to remember that they have never made anything before and until they sit down and follow directions on how to make something, they wont be capable of imagining personalized projects into reality. It doesn’t have to be brilliant, or fancy, it just has to have a process that starts from a choice and a commitment to follow through with that choice until completion.

I want my making curriculum to be integrated with the curriculum. Should I be focused on the making or the integration? To which I say making first, curriculum will integrate naturally, over time the connections become clear. Start from what you know.

Something I didn’t hear, that I think we will start to hear as more schools add making programs:

1. How do we internally support our making program, in other words, do we need additional staff to manage inventories, check materials out, plan the making projects, teach the making, or support the teachers teaching making?

2. The importance of using journaling (documenting) in making. How critical analytical, creative, problem-solving skills are generated by connecting our hands with our thoughts and our words. Planning and measuring our progress in a visual-linguistic chronological (or not) way is permeating force.

3. Being a maker yourself is key to creating inspiring, thoughtful making projects. Knowing how it feels to be the maker (insecure, unsure, excited, impatient, bored) shows through to other makers. We are all Makers. What kind are you?